Polar’s Stride Sensor sends signals to a Bluetooth Smart-equipped phone that monitors your progress while you run.Polar’s new Stride Sensor allows runners to collect information about their stride and then link this information to a phone app that calculates speed and distance data through GPS. It connects to the phone through Bluetooth Smart, and is helpful for people trying to track calories or improve their running performance.
Using the device just a few times, I was able to take 30 seconds off my mile time by taking smaller steps. For a runner, that is pure gold.
The ovoid, $80 Stride Sensor is about the size of half a small hen’s egg, larger than the Garmin model, which connects through an Ant+ signal.
The Stride, which can be used in tandem with a heart rate monitor, sends signals to a Bluetooth Smart-equipped phone (later-model iPhones and Samsung Galaxys, according to the Bluetooth Web site). The phone, using the Polar training app, follows and charts your progress. While you are running, it gives audible guidance, telling you when you cross set distance markers, or when you reach a target distance or time, or burn a specific number of calories.
But before this can benefit the most serious runners, it needs some improvement. For maximum accuracy, the sensor needs to be calibrated on a one-mile course. No matter how many times I set it, it remained inaccurate by the same tenth of a mile. That is enough of an inaccuracy to make the sensor nearly useless to a competitive athlete. A company spokesman said Polar was looking into the problem, which may in fact be with the app, or the phone GPS.
