Polar Soft Strap Set

Excellent replacement for the Garmin soft strap supplied with my Garmin 310XT GPS watch. After a few weeks the heart rate signal started to drop out. I replaced the battery, tried electro gel etc all without success. Research on the Internet advised to buy the Polar strap , which I did. Works brilliantly. No need to buy the transmitter (the hard rectangular bit) as the Garmin transmitter clips directly onto the Polar replacement strap. Likewise no need to pair it again. My thanks to Polar and to those who posted the solution on the Internet. Garmin really should sort this problem out as I shouldn't have had to buy a replacement on something only a few weeks old. The hard strap on my Garmin 305 has worked without any problems for years, just the occasional battery replacement which I would expect. 25/2/16 FURTHER TO THE ABOVE The rubber sensors have now started to peel away from the elastic strap giving a slightly erratic reading, so I purchased a replacement only to find the transmitter would not clip on. Thinking the 'poppers' were faulty I ordered another - same problem. I then looked more closely and found the rubber surrounding the 'poppers' was slightly raised compared to the first one I had purchased, so careful use use of a sharp knife (Stanley Blade) I trimmed off the excess and all is now fine. Seems like Polar have slightly altered the manufacture of these straps.

I first bought a Polar Strap as a replacement for the Garmin strap (the Garmin one fell apart after 9 months). Today I've just replaced this Polar Strap with another new Polar Strap and it has over 2 years of constant use - I run 6 times a week, 50 miles per week. It is super-comfortable and I don't even notice it on 15 hour races. Highly recommended for Quality & Performance. I rinse it under the shower after every run, sometimes with a bit of shower gel and leave to dry naturally hung up with my run clothes. I think I've put it in the washing machine twice in 2 years - as I rinse it as soon as I come in from a run it never got that grimy. The only thing is the price has gone up - the one I bought 2 years ago was £9.63, I see they are now £17.50 each! Have bought another one today to keep in a draw as a spare...the price is only likely to rise!

This is my second strap in less than a year. I have a Garmin Fenix3 and when the contact pads on the back of that HR strap started to come away, I resented paying nearly 40quid for a new one, so when I found out that this one works, I purchased. You need to use a sharp knife to cut away some of the rubber around the poppers in order for the Garmin sensor unit to snap in place, but after that I found the strap performed very well. I like that the sensor strip cover the whole strap in one piece rather than the 4 pads on the Garmin one. However, sadly after just a few montbs, when unpopping the Garmin unit one day, one of the poppers came away from the strap. I bought a replacement again, but shortly after, I noticed the price of the official Garmin ones have come down too, so next time I'll probably buy Garmin. I'm going to try to be more gentle when unpopping the unit now, but it's a shame the strap didn't last at least a year. I always look after my kit, but I guess you do get what you pay for at the end of the day... Buy cheap, buy twice.

I bought this chest strap to replace the one that came with my Polar V800 HR monitor. I had been experiencing major issues with erratic readings on my HR watch for months but had been putting it down to RF interference and static build up. In the end the HR feature of the watch had become virtually unusable so I decided to try replacing the chest strap as a first step. I’m delighted to report that all of the issues I had been experiencing vanished once I started using the new strap. No more unreliable and inaccurate readings. Polar advises users to take care of the strap by washing after every use in warm soapy water. This is a piece of advice I neglected to follow with the original and which undoubtedly led to its premature demise. I have been diligently washing the new strap after every use and am pleased to report that the strap has performed without a hitch over five weeks of daily use at an average of at least an hour per day. The other good news is that the battery in the transmitter seems to be draining at a far slower rate than it did on the old strap. Update October 2020: since writing my original review my impression of this product has plummeted. The replacement strap I purchased in February lasted about 4 months before it started giving the same erratic output as the original. I ordered another replacement in July and that lasted less than ten weeks before it too started giving useless output. I followed the care instructions with diligence bit it has made no difference.

I bought this to replace the strap for my Garmin FR220 heart rate monitor. The Polar strap is compatible with the Garmin transmitters (both use press-studs to attach the transmitter to the strap). The Polar strap is reputed to provide a better signal and overcome the known Garmin problems of spikes, excessively high HR records during the start of a workout, and susceptibility to wind effects (more relevant to cyclists than runners). You can find out more about this these issues on the excellent DCRainmaker website. The Polar strap needs minor modification to work with a Garmin transmitter - just to trim about 1mm off the plastic collars around the press-studs on the strap. This will take you about 30s with a sharp knife. Once that's done you are good to go. After a few runs, I can confirm that everything is true - the HR plots for my runs now omit the "Garmin Spike" of high HR during the first 5 minutes, and everything works perfectly. It has saved me from wasting money on a complete new strap & transmitter.

It’s a good strap except it falls apart where the sensor attaches to it. The metal connector came detached from the strap within 7 weeks of use.

This worked well for a while and didn't chafe for a while. I followed the care instructions but found it increasingly unreliable on settling down to an a credible HR reading and it began to chafe on runs similar to those I'd done at the start. It's good value but doesn't perform well enough to be recommended.

I bought a Garmin Edge 800 back in 2011 with the premium 'Soft Strap' heart rate monitor, which gave loyal service until last month (03/2014), when I had problems pairing the heart rate module with the 800 (after a software update to version 2.70). When the module would pair the 800 would first show your heart rate, then either just show a single reading or more often than not would go blank, the readings (despite not been visible/single reading), would also record a heart rate that was very erratic when viewing an uploaded ride on Garmin Connect/Base Camp. At first I thought this was a problem with the software update but a search on forums found that other people were not only having the same problem with the module after software updates (earlier than 2.70), but people reported that their's just stopped functioning a few weeks after purchasing or warranty replacement (so I count myself lucky it lasted three years). What all the forums recommended was to replace the original strap with this Polar Soft Strap, though sceptic, after all the heart rate monitor was working perfectly prior to the update I decided to purchase the Polar strap. Still sceptic even when I clipped the Garmin module onto the strap switched on the Edge 800 and it detected it first time, my scepticism was soon dissipated when the reading stayed constance and/or fluctuated according to my heart rate. If your looking to replace your Garmin soft strap because your having the same problem that I had or just looking to replace a worn tatty strap then look no further than the Polar strap, its half the price of the replacement Garmin soft strap and despite been slightly wider its a lot more comfortable to wear, particularly around the ribs, the Garmin always felt tight when breathing out which I don't get with the Polar, in fact I hardly notice I'm wearing it this might be because the electrodes on the Polar are more flexable and softer than the Garmins. The only downside I found with the Polar strap is that the module kept popping out when the strap was stretched (I'm what you would call 'Barrel Chested'), and the fact that the distance between the pop studs on the module is slightly narrower than the studs on the strap, this was overcome by slightly bending the thin wires inside the studs out a bit and now it holds firm no matter how much you stretch it. Overall I'm very pleased with the Polar Soft Strap and would recommend it to anyone who needs to replace a faulty Garmin strap or looking for a more comfortable strap to the Garmins.