The Polar Grit X Pro Is a Wrist-Based Navigator, Trainer, and Fitness Tracker

Polar raises the bar with the Grit X Pro multisport watch. It now has built-in GPS and navigation, improved heart-rate tracking, and a rugged build.

The Grit X Pro multisport watch is a showpiece for all of Polar’s latest fitness and location-based tracking. It’s an active outdoors watch, with tracking modes for surfing, skiing, or hiking.

Weight geeks take note: The Titan Edition uses titanium for a much lighter version with the same durability and performance.

Shop the Polar Grit X Pro

Polar Grit X Pro Tracking

Up to 7 days of battery life on a single charge
40 hours of continuous tracking with HR & GPS
Turn-by-turn guidance and built-in GPS
Always-on outdoor features
Quick-access dashboards for vital info
Design tested against military standards.
Water-resistant up t0 100 meters

Top Polar Grit X Pro Functions

Precision Prime: Like most fitness watches, Polar tracks your heart rate on the wrist. The Prime Tech uses optical measurements with other sensors to avoid awkward or involuntary motions that might interfere with and skew the heart rate data.

Polar uses different-color lights to penetrate the skin and detect what is reflected back. Athletes with darker skin tones have had less accurate readings from trackers using single-colored lights.

Performance Tests: With benchmark tests, you can assess your track running and cycling performance to gauge your fitness level. From there, you can adjust your metrics, like training zones based on heart rate and power.

FuelWise: This personalized fueling reminder estimates your calorie needs based on your consumption and planned route, so you pack enough to get you through. If you’re one to zone out during long hauls and forget to fuel or spend mental energy crunching the math, this feature may be a big help.

Two more performance tracking features include Wrist-Based Running Power (measure power in watts) and Hill Splitter, which provides detailed data for climbs and descents.

Grit X Pro Navigation

Building off the Grit X, the Grit X Pro introduces some new and updated tracking and navigation technology.

To find your way, the watch will provide turn-by-turn guidance, using Komoot as its mapping source. Sync your saved routes to the watch and the screen can guide you in real-time, and help you return to your starting point.

New always-on dashboards provide instant access to data like altitude, coordinates, and compass direction. And while not quite navigation-related, the Grit X Pro will also update your weather based on location if you like.

Beyond the top-down GPS route tracking, the watch can provide slope angles and the elevation profile along your route.

The watch also gets GPS assists to update or fix times by supporting GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, and QZSS satellite systems. That should cover most of your routes, even when you travel.

After your run, track your performance with compatible fitness apps like MyFitnessPal, Komoot, and Strava.

Polar Recovery

Recovery data has been a big push from Polar. That’s because rest and sleep are like passive training, the “easy” part of the training but a crucial part of your big-picture health.

The simplest feature is the Nightly Recharge score given, which compares your rest and recovery to past nights.

Sleep Plus Stages: Automatically track the quality and duration of your sleep, and see how long you spent in each sleep stage overnight.

Recovery tests: A simple jumping test can gauge whether your legs are dead, rather than relying on soreness.

Our review of the Vantage V2 explores more of the fitness and recovery features also available with the Grit X Pro.

Grit X Pro Build Notes

The lithium-polymer battery provides up to 40 hours of battery life in continuous training mode with GPS and wrist-based heart rate tracking. There are power-save options, too, which can be cranked all the way for up to 100 hours of power.

By military grade, it means the watch withstood tests for extreme temperatures (-4 to 122 degrees), drops, and humidity. It also uses sapphire glass to fight scratches. (That’s the glass that has been used to protect smartphone camera lenses for years.)

The Titan Edition sheds roughly 26 grams by using a titanium bezel and a perforated leather wristband. It also comes with a fluoroelastomer wristband, too.