Polar (Finland) - Polar, the leader in wearable sports and fitness technology for over 40 years, announces Polar Ignite, the company’s newest GPS fitness watch designed to motivate athletes and fitness enthusiasts and challenge them to meet their fitness goals. Equipped with sleep analysis, overnight recovery insights and personalized and adaptive training guidance, Polar Ignite is a versatile training tool for a variety of sports and activities.

Polar Ignite introduces overnight heart rate measurement and an array of new smart fitness features such as Sleep Plus Stages™ and Nightly Recharge™, FitSpark™ personalized training guide, and guided breathing exercises with Serene™. Developed for busy athletes and fitness enthusiasts who want to incorporate a variety of indoor and outdoor activities into their training, Polar Ignite delivers accurate data across more than 100 sports, allowing users to focus on their improvement by sport category. Equipped with Polar’s Precision Prime™ optical heart rate monitor, the only heart rate technology that integrates three sensor types for a high level of accuracy and reliability, Polar Ignite offers continuous heart rate measurement and 24/7 activity tracking. The slim, lightweight design features a bright color touchscreen display and up to five days of battery life.

Sleep Quality Insights with Sleep Plus Stages™:

Results from a recent validation study of Sleep Plus™ note that Polar detects sleep and wake as accurately as the current, commonly used wrist-worn devices in research and clinical practice. Sleep Plus Stages takes this even further, offering insight into the amount and quality of sleep as well as information on how users cycled through light, deep, and REM sleep stages. Polar Ignite measures multiple sleep parameters and condenses them into a simple, easy to understand Sleep Score. The Sleep Score informs users how well they slept and can also help them learn how daily choices and lifestyle habits affect sleep. The new Sleep Plus Stages feature, developed by Polar, has also been scientifically validated with third parties.

Recovery Insights with Nightly Recharge™:

Nightly Recharge takes sleep measurement analysis even further by interpreting a user’s Sleep Score and then combining it with daily recovery information from the body.

“Knowing your body’s recovery status entails much more than just knowing if you got enough sleep the night before, and just because you feel rested doesn’t mean your body is fully recovered,” said Mari Junttila, Segment Manager at Polar. “With Nightly Recharge we automatically measure how well you are recovered from training and stress. The core of the measurement is your heart’s beat-to-beat intervals, which are measured with an optical sensor in the watch. Nightly Recharge combines information from your sleep with the status of your autonomic nervous system (ANS). ANS measurement relies on your heart rate, heart rate variability, and breathing rate showing how your body calmed down after the challenges you faced that day. Nightly Recharge lets Polar offer you personalized tips to help adjust your daily plan, so you can continue to improve your sleep and recovery, and ultimately improve your performance and fitness.”

Personalized Training with FitSpark™:

FitSpark is a daily training guide that provides athletes with personalized, adaptive guidance based on their fitness level, training history, and Nightly Recharge measurement. Polar Ignite suggests exercises within cardio, strength training, and performance categories. Athletes can choose from these suggestions, select their favorite sport when doing cardio exercises, and then start their training session and follow the personalized targets and supporting exercises.

Sophisticated Smart Coaching & Additional Features:

In addition to new sleep analytics and fitness guidance, Polar Ignite provides a variety of performance features spanning multiple sports:

• Serene™: Offers new guided breathing exercises, right from the wrist. Athletes’ bodies don’t distinguish between stress from training and other parts of life, and mental well-being is an important part of recovery. Regular, daily breathing exercises with Serene can help balance body and mind, recover better, and even help with better sleep.
• Daily Activity and Continuous Heart Rate: Intelligently combines activity and heart rate data to calculate daily calorie burn and steps outside of training, and offers a comprehensive view on everyday life, accurate calorie consumption and activity data.
• Running Index: Provides a straightforward number that scores running performance. Running Index automatically provides an estimate of a runner’s Running Vo2max score based on their submaximal or typical runs.
• Running Program: Polar’s free, personalized and adaptive training program that offers guidance on completing anything from a 5k to a marathon.
• Swim Metrics: Tracks indoor and outdoor swimming sessions with metrics such as stroke rate and distance.

Polar Ignite is available today at Polar's website for $229.95USD/€199.90/£174.50 in color black & silver with a thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) wristband and $229.95USD/€229.90/£199.50 in colors white & silver and yellow & black with a soft silicon wristband. Silicon accessory bands are $24.95/€24.90/£21.50 each and available in black, white and yellow in size medium/large and in black and white in size small.