Polar’s Vantage series multisport watches are designed for performance-focused athletes, especially those who include running in their training. It’s not surprising to see the Vantage V and Vantage M packed with metrics for running, swimming, and everything in between. And now, thanks to a recent update, these watches are now even better at helping you train at your optimal level.
Though the Vantage series is packed with performing-enhancing features, the watches looked a little dated following the debut of the Polar Ignite earlier this year. The Ignite is a low-cost fitness watch, but it packs a ton of new features. The most notable metrics are Polar’s Sleep Plus Stages sleep tracking, the Nightly Recharge recovery tool, and the Serene breathing exercises. With the release of the 4.0.11 update, Polar har brought all those features and more to the Vantage V and M.
While both Vantage watches already have basic sleep tracking, the Sleep Plus Stages breaks your sleep down into light, deep, and REM stages. It also tracks how long you spend in each phase. Each morning, this sleep data is translated into an easy-to-understand sleep score that makes it easy to compare sleep patterns across different days.
Sleep also plays a role in the new Nightly Recharge metric, which measures how well you recover from the stress of training and daily life while you sleep at night. If you do need help lowering your stress level during the day, the Vantage watches also have the Serene guided breathing feature to help you relax throughout the day.
The 4.0.11 update also adds the following features:
- Support for the Galileo/QZSS satellite system, which improves GPS lock and accuracy.
- Fitness Test: You can do it both with a wrist-based heart rate and chest strap heart rate sensor.
- Zone Lock: You can lock a training zone during your workout.
- Lap details: Track time, distance, average pace, and so on in the training file on your Vantage watch.
- Manual stride sensor calibration.
- Sleep Plus Stages: Deeper information on your sleep with sleep cycles and sleep score.
- Nightly Recharge: A recovery measurement that shows how well you recover from stress and training during the night.
- Serene breathing exercise: Relax your body and calm down your mind with the new Serene breathing exercise.
- Constant backlight setting for training: You can choose to have the backlight always on during training sessions.
- Inactivity Alert: When you’ve been sedentary for an hour, you get an alert so you know it’s time to get up and take a little walk.
- Enhancements for existing features.
These features are only the tip of the iceberg. In December 2019, Polar plans to roll out update 5.0. This update will add the company’s FitSpark training guide and Race Pace metric to both the Vantage V and the Vantage M. Vantage V owners will also see Strava Live Segments land on their watch with the 5.0 update.
