Sleek but Mighty: See What’s New in the Polar Vantage V2 Sports Watch

The Vantage V2 is a feature-rich sports watch that measures all-day activity and downtime for a broader picture of your physical condition. It even has activity-specific fitness tests for athletes to set their own benchmarks.

Increasingly, athletes are embracing the crucial role of recovery in their training progress. Updates from Polar now provide more personalized data to inform training goals and prevent overtraining.

The watch itself has longer battery life and an aluminum body for lightweight strength. And because it’s made to wear all day, it connects to smartphones for easy access to messages, music, and more.

What’s New in the Polar Vantage V2

• Personalized speed, power, and heart-rate metrics from Running and Cycling Performance tests
• Leg Recovery test to incorporate into Training Load Pro and Recovery Pro
• Access to Polar Flow for test results to track and plan training, activity, and sleep
• Music playlist navigation and volume controls

The Vantage V2 fitness watch can continuously track the basics like GPS and heart rate 40 hours between charges. It also offers sleep monitoring.

Plus, the new Vantage V2 offers personalized metrics generated from a series of tests as well as the ability to track your progress over a long-term fitness plan.

Part of the appeal of tracking your fitness is to compete against past performances. That can mean a routine segment, an annual mileage goal, or a max effort uphill sprint. All these metrics can be recorded and stored with the Vantage V2. And if you have a poor night’s sleep or pushed too hard, there are training load tests to let you know to ease off the gas.

Adding to Existing Features

Recording daily data is great. Being able to easily access and make sense of that data is even better. To help, Polar’s Test Hub curates a variety of tests to track progress toward seasonal goals.

Polar’s existing tracking metrics and programs are worth a closer look. Take its Hill Splitter program, for example, which parses a bike ride into uphill, downhill, and flat segments. Or FuelWise, which uses personalized data to calculate caloric needs before a planned workout and provides reminders to hydrate during your effort.

The Training Load Pro and Recovery Pro factor in cardio and muscle strain on the body to gauge the intensity of your training. It also calculates your body’s ability to tolerate more based on the previous 4 weeks of data.

Gaining a better understanding of training intensity through data and your own perception can increase your overall health and help prevent overtraining or injury. And these are just a few of the programs you can access within the Vantage V2.

Polar Vantage V2: More to Love, Less to Carry

A bulky sports watch is something you’re bound to notice during workouts or your everyday routine. To address that, the Vantage V2 shed 14 g from its predecessor, thanks in part to its aluminum body.

Additionally, if you plan on wearing a sports watch all day, style matters more. Polar offers the Vantage V2 in black, green, and gray-lime. For some variance, additional silicon accessory bands are available in those colors as well as red, rose-plum, and white for $35.

Of course, this isn’t just a style update. The added tech and lightweight build (compared to previous models and competitors), as well as new smartphone controls, make the Vantage V2 worth consideration for first-time buyers or athletes who want to upgrade their fitness monitoring.

This article is sponsored by Polar. Find out more about the Vantage V2 and other Polar products here.

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