Polar’s best sports watches just got a big update with new features including map improvements, a find my phone tool and the ability to charge during long workouts.
The updates are available now for the Polar Vantage V3 and Polar Grit X2 Pro watches, and will roll out to the Polar Vantage M3 in Q2 2025, when the Polar Ignite 3 will also get the updates aside from the map improvements, since it doesn’t have offline maps.
While the updates are not ground-breaking new features for sports watches, they address a lot of the minor complaints I've had with Polar’s devices when testing them, and should deliver quality of life improvements for Polar users.
To update your watch, sync it with the Polar Flow app and click update when the notification pops up. It took about 15 minutes for my Polar Vantage V3 to update. Along with the usual vague ‘bug fixes’ here are the key new features you’ll be getting.
Points Of Interest on Maps
The offline maps on Polar watches will now show Points Of Interest (POI) around you, and you’ll be able to navigate to them during activities.
The latter is done using a pointer because Polar’s devices can’t create routes on the fly like the best Garmin watches, but this is still an useful upgrade which will help users find important local facilities like water points.
Note that to get this part of the update you’ll have to plug your watch into a computer and use the Polar Flow website to download the latest version of the maps you need to your watch.
Charging during workouts
You can now charge your Polar watch during activities while it continues to record, so you won’t run out of juice during epic hikes or ultramarathons. Polar says a 20-minute charge will add 10 more hours of GPS tracking, so adventurers worried about their watch not lasting all day, or even a whole multi-day hike, can put those fears to rest.
Find My Phone
This is a small but much-needed addition that brings Polar into line with other sports watches. As long as your phone is within Bluetooth range you can make it play a sound using the new Find My Phone feature, and the watch will also display a map showing your phone’s last known GPS location and an estimate of how far away it is.
Improved training analysis
Polar’s Cardio Load feature has been updated to give more useful and accurate feedback in certain situations, with a new training status called ‘Recovering’ replacing ‘Detraining.’
The watches are also less likely to say you are ‘Overreaching’ which I have noticed comes up too much on Polar devices during my testing of them, especially when I first start using a watch.
Swimmers also get more info after they complete workouts, including a breakdown of the stroke type used and insights into swimming technique that can help you improve.
More customizable watch faces
I’m always pleased to see sports watches add more watch faces to AMOLED watches, because it does help them to compete with the best smartwatches with regards to customization.
Polar has added two new analog and three new digital watch face options, all of which can be customized to show data like the weather forecast and widgets like music controls.
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