Fashion x Fitness – Polar A360 review

I’ve been wanting to get a fitness tracker for some time now. But I what I really wanted, was one that could track your heart rate (without being a bulky eyesore)!

Lately, there has been a lot of innovation within the wearable technology industry.  So many different fashion forward designs have come out, but in my option, most of them are either straight up ugly or are not nearly “smart” enough to be worth purchasing.  I mean my iPhone already counts my steps, why would I want to carry a glorified pedometer on my wrist that does the exact same thing that the phone I am already carrying does?!?

Anyways, recently I got a chance to try out the new Polar A360  (available in Canada here & here!) and I was genuinely impressed.  Not only does it track your steps, but it also monitors your heart rate during workouts and is able to send smart notifications from your phone.  Oh, and the design is perfectly minimal and slim enough that you can stack it with a few other bracelets when you’re not working out.

It also has smart notification capabilities which has actually been really liberating!  When working I’m always super tempted to check my phone every few minutes for new messages and emails (and lets be honest, when you check your phone for messages it’s waaaay too easy to get distracted by social media feeds!).  But, I now have it set up so I will get a notification on my watch when something important is sent to me, so I don’t have to keep constantly checking my phone!

Most fitness trackers are really good at tracking activities like running, but I personally *hate* to run just for the sake of running.  When it comes to workouts, I much prefer to take a hot yoga class or doing some high-intensity interval training at home.  Luckily, the A360 has settings that can use your heart rate to track your activity level even when you are doing non-traditional exercise.

I love horseback riding (training & competing in showjumping used to be my everything!) and I was happy that through the online platform & iPhone app, you are able to track riding as a workout.  After I got home from the barn where I ride, my watch automatically synced to my computer and I was able to see my heart rate levels throughout my entire riding lesson, along with how many calories I burned and tons more data.

So neat right?  Anyways, I’m curious how many of you guys already wear fitness trackers?  Make sure to let me know in the comments what kind of tracker you wear and your favourite way to style it 🙂