Polar Ignite 3 Review in 2023. The Polar Ignite 3 is the first Polar watch to ever use an AMOLED display, which is a noticeable improvement above the brand’s typical monochrome displays.
However, you might prefer the features of the Polar to those of the Apple Watch. Because the Ignite 3 had the potential to be a fantastic fitness watch, its flaws are all the more disappointing.
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Polar Ignite 3 Review in 2023:
ing various Polar trackers in the past, the watch’s excellent collection of fitness functions in a lightweight design made me sit up and take notice.
However, the Ignite 3’s software is so rudimentary and slow that it is difficult to recommend. Along with being more expensive than the Apple Watch SE ($329.95/£289/€329.90), Polar is in a losing battle with the casual, fashion-conscious customer it is attempting to win over.
Design & build:
- Very lightweight
- Nice AMOLED screen
- Four color options
A single button on the left edge of the Polar Ignite 3’s circular touchscreen allows users to navigate menus and pause or resume workouts.
It is available in brown copper, black, sand, purple, or other colors. Oddly, each of them has a different casing finish, including grooves, lattice, smooth, and scored, so make careful to see which one you like best.
Each strap has a silicone construction, a conventional buckle, and a loop for tucking the end when worn. They are smooth on the inside, but the outside has a design that I don’t like because it feels rough and tends to gather skin particles and dust, giving them a dirty appearance.
If you prefer to use different ones from Polar’s web store, they are simple to swap out and are 20mm in size. I looked at the black model, which is really basic yet the greatest option for an understated appearance.
With the strap, the Ignite 3 weighs only 35g, which is quite light. It’s the most comfortable watch I’ve worn to bed for sleep monitoring when other, bulkier smartwatches are a hassle (figuratively speaking). This is really impressive considering the watch has a heart rate sensor and built-in GPS, and it’s one of the main reasons to buy it as you can forget you’re wearing it. It’s undoubtedly one of the slimmest GPS watches available.
The watch’s 1.2-inch display is relatively small, which accounts for its featherlike feel, but I still found it to be large enough to check the time and statistics when out and about monitoring walks and runs.
It’s also waterproof up to 30 meters.
Performance & software:
- Frustratingly laggy
- No mobile payments
- Simple tile-based information
Although I’ve reviewed other Polar watches before, the Ignite 3 is more frustrating to use. Although the AMOLED touchscreen on the Ignite feels more premium than the monochrome memory in-pixel (MIP) screen on something like the Polar Pacer, the Ignite is difficult to use due to a lack of buttons and sluggish software.
The Polar Ignite 3 requires you to utilize touch, unlike the Pacer and other Polar watches, which offer buttons to swiftly cycle through Polar’s software menus. However, the watch’s weak internals are unable to keep up, giving it a very sluggish and delayed feeling that, quite frankly, ruins it.
It stutters when you even just swipe up to read alerts, and I don’t like that you can’t touch the screen to wake it up. To wake up, either lift the watch or press the side button.
When you’re actually working out, this makes it even more frustrating because there’s no option for a full always-on display. To examine your time, pace, and other useful metrics when jogging, for instance, you must raise the watch to your face, but the watch either doesn’t recognize that it has been elevated or takes a long time to turn on the screen.
The Ignite 3 is tiresome to use because it can’t keep up with my pace when compared to other running watches that either constantly display numbers or are responsive.
It only has a 192MHz CPU and 5MB of RAM, which is the bare minimum, and works great on watches with lower resolution screens but is insufficient for the Ignite’s vivid AMOLED.
The clock face may be smoothly scrolled left and right, cycling among full-screen tiles for activity, weather, sleep, and other features, such as a panel for “today’s suggestions.”
The watch can receive smartphone notifications, but they are pretty rudimentary and don’t allow you to do anything with them—like reply to a message, for instance.
The audio controls on the watch only function as a remote for your phone whether you’re listening to music or a podcast; you can’t load music onto the watch itself. If you listen to the audio while running, you must always carry your phone.
Every Polar watch requires you to manually sync your most recent data with your phone by pressing and holding the button. This still irritates me, and I don’t see why Polar can’t make an automatic sync function like it does for the majority of other brands.
Additionally, given that Polar is attempting to directly appeal to a customer base that is more fashion- or lifestyle-conscious with the Ignite 3, the lack of any kind of mobile payment option is more obvious than it is on the company’s more rigorous training devices.
Health and fitness tracking:
- Slightly wonky GPS tracking
- Several workout modes
- Detailed sleep stage tracking
A smartwatch is not what the Ignite 3 is. It’s a GPS-enabled fitness tracker with a good selection of wellness functions, as well as nice-to-have extras like interchangeable watch faces.
If what you’re doing isn’t specified, you can choose general indoor or outdoor activity instead. It can monitor running, walking, cycling, HIIT sessions, swimming, indoor cycling, treadmill running, strength training, hiking, and mountain biking particularly. By doing this, you can still be confident that your heart rate and GPS location will be monitored if necessary so you can record that workout.
Over the course of several weeks, I wore the watch constantly and kept track of my runs, hikes, and long walks. With the exception of the aforementioned performance limitations, the Ignite 3 performs a fantastic job of tracking. However, I noticed that some of my runs’ GPS trail overlays cut corners, making it appear as though I ran over greens that I did not, or that I had developed the ability to run through walls.
As much as I’d like to, I lack the ability. In my tests, the Polar Pacer and Apple Watch SE—both less expensive than the Ignite 3—performed better. It’s unfortunate, particularly in light of the Polar’s dual-band GPS, which is allegedly more precise.
Although there is a slight learning curve with the Polar Flow app that you use to sync the watch on Android or iOS, you can get a good granular view of data when you view your workouts, including heart rate and zones, pace by distance, elevation change, calories burned, and a full GPS map with distance markers.
The GPS seemed to lock on well and very seldom if at all, disconnected. I feel confident in the Ignite 3’s ability to accurately track my activities after seeing the results in Polar Flow, which contributes significantly to my desire to keep wearing it and my confidence in the data it provides.
The app and watch grow more helpful to you as you exercise. The ‘today’s suggestion’ tile, which you can press to see advised training for the day, is based on your recent workout loads and sleep quality, albeit the majority of details are simpler to examine on the app.
When exercising, you can also use voice guidance, but since the watch doesn’t have a speaker, you must use Bluetooth headphones or the speaker on your phone to hear it. It’s fairly useful once you get it set up because you can be guided through training sessions without having to check your watch or phone, however it only bases exercise activities on heart rate zones, so there is no run coaching. Polar Ignite 3 review is here.
Additionally, there are beneficial apps like Serene, which leads you through breathing exercises to promote mindfulness, Tests, which measure you’re starting walking, running, and fitness levels, Timers, and Fueling, which helps you create personalized reminders to eat and drink in accordance with training plans.
Polar’s sleep monitoring system is excellent. When you wear the Ignite to bed, it will offer you a thorough assessment of how well you slept and let you know up front whether it was “VERY POOR” or a little better. Determining when you were in light, deep, or REM sleep and whether you had any interruptions. There is also an excellent explanation of sleep stages.
battery life & charging:
- Multi-day battery life
- Proprietary charge cable
- No wall plug-in box
The battery life of the Polar Ignite 3 is ok. Every four days or so, which often required one or two workouts lasting longer than half an hour, I would have to charge it. Although using the GPS for outdoor activities will drain the battery faster, the watch should still last at least three days.
After a few weeks, the battery life stabilized after beginning off a little erratically. As predicted for a device that monitors heart rate and movement, it drains a little at night. The fact that it would have continued to drain quickly even if I wasn’t wearing it is more aggravating.
The USB-A proprietary cable that is included with it is used to charge it. There is no wall plug included in the box, but you can use a USB-A connection on a computer or a charger you may already own to charge it.
Price & availability:
Directly from Polar, the Polar Ignite 3 costs $329.95/£289/€329.90.
Even though it lacks the Ignite 3’s AMOLED screen, the Polar Pacer, which costs $199.95/£169.50/€199.90, has the majority of the same features.
With its $249/£259/€299 asking price and significantly superior wristwatch capabilities, the Apple Watch SE is a formidable rival and a better purchase, but its battery life is only one day. If you want a nice combination of a fitness tracker and a smartwatch and have a little extra cash to invest, you may also take into account the $449/£399 Garmin Venu 2 Plus.
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Specs:
- 1.2in 416×416 AMOLED touchscreen
- Gorilla Glass
- 192MHz CPU
- 5MB RAM
- 32MB storage
- Polar’s OS
- GPS
- Glonass
- Galileo
- QZSS
- Bluetooth 5.0