Monday, May 31, 2010

Garmin 405 vs Polar Rs800 comparison - Round #1

Even being a long time Polar buyer, it is plainly evident that Polar is recently being "outpaced" by Garmin in terms of development for speed/distance monitor...

especially daunting for Polar is the fact that Garmin is both leader in GPS technology and have also acquired the company "Dynastream Innovations" which is the developer of the foot-pod technology used in both Polar and Garmin...
So now Polar relies on Garmin's technology for their stuff... which is not exactly the best strategic positioning..

I found that the real beauty is when you can integrate the data coming from GPS with the accuracy, speed of response and reliability of the foot-pod system.

To make the story short, I will start a series of posts about the comparison between Garmin 405 and Polar Rs800 in terms of "output" for the runner: what to do with all the data coming from the monitors and which of the 2 systems is more "useable" for a serious runner...

I had never ever considered switching to Garmin until I received a 405 as a gift and later discovered the SW Sporttracks, which has an amazing array of plug-ins which are extremely useful....(Garmin has his own SW "Training Center" which is a total crap, while the online log Garmin Connect is nice but mainly for online sharing and not data analysis)
Now the competition is on...

ROUND #1: THE FOOTPOD

I was by chance in a sport shop and I saw the NEW Garmin FoodPod 010-11092-00 on display and I could not sincerely resist because it was beautifully small and I immediately salivated to the idea to have footpod technology couple with GPS data (more of that later...)
Price was 650 HKD which was sensibly cheaper than the RRP in USA (99USD)... so if someone is interested, let me a comment and I will refer the shop.






Yes, the Gamin footpod is MUCH smaller !! The Polar pod is unchanged since 2006 while evidently the folks at Dynastream have worked a lot on a new generation...

WEIGHT:
- Gamin: 7 grams (including battery)
- Polar: 24 grams...

I can also appreciate that Garmin accessories (HR belt, footpod, bike speed reader) all use the same battery model CR2032 (which is very easy to buy), while Polar has 3 different batteries for HR belt, watch and footpod...(did the engineers talk each other during development ??... since the difference between a CR2025 and CR2032 is really negligible...)

Lower weight and smaller profile makes it very easy for the Garmin pod to be tied to the shoes and the plastic clip has a good shape which makes it easy to hold the pod firm to the shoes...

OUT OF THE BOX COMPARISON: Garmin is the sure winner...

CALIBRATION:

My Polar pod was already calibrated, so I went for a calibration of the Garmin's one, which is extremely simple: once the pod is recognized by the wrist unit, I selected the calibration function and you are given the choice to calibrate by a fixed distance (eg: 400m, 1k, etc) or using the GPS.
I went for the GPS system calibration and went for the run... after a while (I suppose it was 1 mile) I got the message that the pod was calibrated with calibration parameter 1008 (factory setting is 1000).
Since it is known that the GPS usually adds up 1% to the real distance.. I then simply manually changed the calibration parameter back to 1000 ...(haha)...

I have not checked yet if the new footpod is so affected by the same pattern of the old Polar, where the calibration was also "speed dependant" (the calibration factor is no more accurate for speeds different from the one used for calibration)

ON-THE-FIELD COMPARISON

I took chance of a run in the forest in Dongguan for a tricky head to head comparison...I looked extremely weird wearing 2 watches and 2 foot-pod at the same time, but so it makes for an effective comparison...

1) the GARMIN GPS did not pick up the signal correctly because of the tree coverage... so the speed reading using GPS was totally out and I did later switch to FootPod speed
(in the Garmin it is possible to choose if the speed/distance reading uses the FootPod or the GPS)
--> Conclusion: another evidence that the GPS alone for training can really suck...

2) it was awfully humid so after 5k I was drenched in sweat and the Garmin 405 crashed...(it is well reported that the bezel gets crazy when wet...). I had to reboot the watch while running...
--> Conclusion: if you buy a Garmin, stay away from the 405 and go for the 310XT which addressed all the problem with the bezel of 405
Result: No contest.... the Polar did his job in proper way... the Garmin crashed

On the next session, I will check more on the "speed drift" phenomenon for both footpod (which is quite troubling if you use the Garmin or Polar for interval training on unmarked road)




7 comments:

RICK'S RUNNING said...

I was talking to a guy at a race last week, he'd had the same problem with his 405 and he knew other people with the same 405 problems.
by contrast my old 205, now 3 years old has never missed a beat :]

by7 said...

Well, there are complaints about the 405 all around the world...
Obviously the "HW" is suited for playing on the couch at home but not for real use...
Anyway the purpose of my tests is more to compare the features and outputs of each model

RICK'S RUNNING said...

thought you might find these power graphs of last years Tour of interest, that is if you hav'nt seen them before;
http://home.trainingpeaks.com/races/2009-tour-de-france-files.aspx

Simone said...

Interesting stuff, I'll follow it and will do some use of those as well.
I used the polar 800 for a few years and I have a Garmin 310xt since 6 months, and I like it. I'm curious to try the footpod (I'll see if I find a cheap one on ebay). I just did a 100km sweating my own soul and the only problem was the cardio giving wrong values but the watch was 100% working and the battery lasted for all the race without problem.

For swimming and when I will do not need the GPS I just bough a cheap polar, rs300x, maybe cause I was missing the Polar Index :)

by7 said...

Simone,

1) I have been told that the new HR soft strap from Garmin goes crazy when it is really wet (here in HK is not difficult....).
I mean new kind of soft strap which is similar to the Polar's one.
The old style strap (plastic one) is not affected
And the solution: buy the strap of Polar (only the strap...15EUR, without the transmitter). It is perfectly compatible with Garmin's transmitter... and this strap is not affected by sweat

2) the latest firmware of your Garmin 310 makes the watch also good for swimming (open water).
Check the Garmin website

Sling Runner said...

by7,

Thanks for your comments in my blog.

You mentioned about sporttracks. What are the main benefits compared to the Garmin's training centre? Is it better distance accuracy, elevation profile or something else?

by7 said...

@ Sling...

I will elaborate more on the different SW (Polar VS Garmin TC vs Sporttracks) in a future post because in these days I am a bit tight with time, but in short I can tell you that the Garmin TC stands at Sporttracks like an old PC Intel286 with DOS compared to an Ipad...
-> more functions
-> more user friendly
-> a lot of add-ons
-> can really set up reports based on your needs