The price of their toys



A

Anders Lustig

Guest
http://www.polar.fi/polar/channels/eng/segments/products/S625X.html

A new model with all the goodies, apparently. The price will no doubt be in the high end, and
opinions on whether it´s a useful tool or an expensive toy will vary considerably - but any
comments, speculative as they must be, on the new features?

For example: is the speed/distance measurement system conceivably the same as or a variation of the
one in the Nike, or could it be an advanced or essentially different one?

Anders
 
This one never mentions a GPS system. It looks like you wear a "foot pod" to gauge speed and
distance. I wonder if it is just a glorified pedometer !

"Anders Lustig" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> http://www.polar.fi/polar/channels/eng/segments/products/S625X.html
>
> A new model with all the goodies, apparently. The price will no doubt be in the high end, and
> opinions on whether it´s a useful tool or an expensive toy will vary considerably - but any
> comments, speculative as they must be, on the new features?
>
> For example: is the speed/distance measurement system conceivably the same as or a variation of
> the one in the Nike, or could it be an advanced or essentially different one?
>
>
> Anders
 
It is not a glorified pedometer. It is pretty safe to assume that it uses the same Dynastream
Accellerometer technology as the Nike and Fitsense... which is very accurate and bears no
resemblance to a pedometer.

"Rivermist" <[email protected]> wrote:

> I wonder if it is just a glorified pedometer !

--
Nova Scotia, Canada
 
"Rivermist" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> This one never mentions a GPS system. It looks like you wear a "foot pod" to gauge speed and
> distance. I wonder if it is just a glorified
pedometer!

Why would you think it's any different than the VERY accurate accellerometer the Nike and the
Fitsense uses? I'm sure it has the same technology.

cheers,
--
David (in Hamilton, ON) www.allfalldown.org
 
David <[email protected]> wrote:

>...It is pretty safe to assume that it uses the same Dynastream Accellerometer technology as the
>Nike and Fitsense...

Precisely
 
David wrote:
> It is not a glorified pedometer. It is pretty safe to assume that it uses the same Dynastream
> Accellerometer technology as the Nike and Fitsense... which is very accurate and bears no
> resemblance to a pedometer.
>

Does Fitsense use the same technology? I got the impression from their web page that they have their
own patents. Dynastream's web page refers to Nike, but not FitSense.

Take a look at the SpeedMaxWhitePaper on http://www.dynastream.com/tech/

Somewhere I also got the impression that this doesn't require calibration, like the FitSense does.
Not sure if this is more advanced version of what's in the Nike or not.

Dot

--
"Success is different things to different people" -Bernd Heinrich in Racing the Antelope
 
Anders Lustig wrote:

> http://www.polar.fi/polar/channels/eng/segments/products/S625X.html
>

Anders, Not sure if you can add a local perspective on this or not. Does Polar think that only
cyclists go up hills and not runners? Suunto puts out an altimeter/hrm. I've been curious why Polar
only has altimeter in their "cycling" models. I would've thought they'd include that also in a
running model.

Dot

--
"Success is different things to different people" -Bernd Heinrich in Racing the Antelope
 
ooops - ignore preceding. Altimeter *is* listed on detailed list of features - but under "cycling"
features. Hmmm. I wonder if it works with snowshoes? ;)

Dot
 
Dot <dot.h@#att.net> wrote:

> Somewhere I also got the impression that this doesn't require calibration, like the FitSense does.
> Not sure if this is more advanced version of what's in the Nike or not.

I think any accellerometer would require calibration. Polar is probably just saying "it's pretty
darn accurate out of the box"... but to really be sure it's as accurate as it can be... I think
you'd want to calibrate it. It would be very interesting tho' to learn if in fact the Polar watch
DOES use a more advanced version of the technology... esp. since I just bought the Nike Triax Elite
a couple of weeks ago!!! Doh! :)

--
Nova Scotia, Canada
 
David wrote:
> Dot <dot.h@#att.net> wrote:
>
>
>>Somewhere I also got the impression that this doesn't require calibration, like the FitSense does.
>>Not sure if this is more advanced version of what's in the Nike or not.
>
>
> I think any accellerometer would require calibration. Polar is probably just saying "it's pretty
> darn accurate out of the box"... but to really be sure it's as accurate as it can be... I think
> you'd want to calibrate it.

Right, "very accurate speed and distance readings even without calibration". But I guess calibration
could help.

But also, according to the web pages, it uses multiple accelerometers and the technology can be used
to tell a bunch of things about your foot positioning - the type of thing that could be useful for
biomechanical analyses. The technology sounded capable of producing reasonable estimates without
calibration, although I suspect calibration might be helpful. But what's actually in this model and
how it's programmed might be limited compared to full strength technology.

The one article was describing how conference attendees walked around with it, one guy tried to fake
it out (he kept notes on what he did and when), and the analyzers got everything right - including
more detail than the guy had in his notes. This might've been a different application of the
technology though.

It would be very interesting tho' to learn if in fact the Polar
> watch DOES use a more advanced version of the technology... esp. since I just bought the Nike
> Triax Elite a couple of weeks ago!!! Doh! :)
>

yea, and Sat I just put in an order for a S720 with a group - except I don't think they have 6
people ordering (I was the 3rd on the day the orders were due), so I may see if I can reconsider.
Actually, I wonder if they'd be interested in delaying about 6 months until the 625x is available
here ;) My gut feeling has been that something with hrm, elevation, and distance (in that order of
priority) would be coming out this year. The pieces are there. Although I'm not sure if the mobile
connectivity features of the 625x add significantly to price.

Dot

--
"Success is different things to different people" -Bernd Heinrich in Racing the Antelope
 
Fascinating story, Andrew. Thanks.
J
"Andrew Taylor" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> In article <[email protected]>, Anders Lustig
> <[email protected]> wrote:
> >For example: is the speed/distance measurement system conceivably the same as or a variation of
> >the one in the Nike, or could it be an advanced or essentially different one?
>
> A bit of googling suggest they both use this technology:
>
http://www.uofaweb.ualberta.ca/uofaengineer/nav03.cfm?nav03=22795&nav02=22644&nav01=22643
>
> Andrew
 
Dot <dot.h@#att.net> wrote:

> The one article was describing how conference attendees walked around with it, one guy tried to
> fake it out

Was that one of the links that was posted in this thread? I'd be very interested in reading that.

--
Nova Scotia, Canada
 
David wrote:
> Dot <dot.h@#att.net> wrote:
>
>
>>The one article was describing how conference attendees walked around with it, one guy tried to
>>fake it out
>
>
> Was that one of the links that was posted in this thread? I'd be very interested in reading that.
>

http://www.dynastream.com/news/view/4/

Ok, it's actually the AMP331, not the speed/distance thing, as I alluded to (too lazy to double
check when I posted yesterday). But from reading the press releases, the U of Alberta web page, and
a couple other things, I got the impression that the accelerometer is a basic device. They can
combine them in different ways or adjust/program them for whatever. I think the potential *may* be
there to use it for a number of types of motion (maybe even xc skiing), but how it's actually setup
in the Polar speed / distance may be another matter - how much it's dumb-downed for consumer
market. Dunno. They're polite in the way they refer to other technologies and don't mention
anything by name.

Dot

--
"Success is different things to different people" -Bernd Heinrich in Racing the Antelope
 
Thanks Dot.

In article Dot <dot.h@#att.net> wrote:
> http://www.dynastream.com/news/view/4/
>
> Ok, it's actually the AMP331, not the speed/distance thing, as I alluded to (too lazy to double
> check when I posted yesterday). But from reading the press releases, the U of Alberta web page,
> and a couple other things, I got the impression that the accelerometer is a basic device. They can
> combine them in different ways or adjust/program them for whatever. I think the potential *may* be
> there to use it for a number of types of motion (maybe even xc skiing), but how it's actually
> setup in the Polar speed / distance may be another matter - how much it's dumb-downed for consumer
> market. Dunno. They're polite in the way they refer to other technologies and don't mention
> anything by name.
>
> Dot

--
Nova Scotia, Canada