It's A Fitness Watch... It's An Activity Tracker... It's A GPS Watch... It's A Polar M400

I started this whole quest just wanting an activity tracker to count my steps, motivate me to move more, and eat better. I started with the Jawbone UP24, went through a couple of the Fitbits, a Garmin Vivoactive, and just recently a Basis Peak (which I had high hopes for, but turned out to be a disappointment).

As I expanded to more than just tracking my steps and eating better, to doing actual exercise sessions, I moved up to the Fitbit/Garmin products because they had more options for exercise and heart rate monitoring. They were limited however to only certain types of exercises that you can record.

I started looking for something that could be more flexible with the type exercise that could be recorded, and came across the Basis Peak. It boasted that it can automatically go into activity mode because it sensed that you were exercising and what activity you were doing. It also boasted 24/7 heart rate monitoring and very accurate calories burned. It turned out to be a big disappointment across the board after only one day of using it.

I started looking at the Polar products and found the M400, so I did a little research on it. Turns out you can setup pretty much any custom exercise you want, and upload it directly to the watch. And not only that, but you can set them to use the HRM, GPS, and customize the screens that you see on the watch to display what you want to see while you are doing the exercise. You can add the exercises you want onto the watch and remove the ones you don't want, and customize them anyway you want.

It also has a heart test that determines your VO2. You set your age, height, and weight, and use the heart rate monitor to perform the test. You lay down with the heart rate monitor on and start the test. After about 5 minutes it determines your VO2 number and stores it. When you exercise, it uses that number along with your heart rate and personal data to determine calories burned.

I know this is just an estimate, but to me it seems like the most accurate estimate compared to other trackers that I have tried, and based on the exercise sessions I have done so far, it does not seem to be overestimating like the others.

I also has 24/7 activity tracking and sleep monitoring, but it does not focus on just steps like most activity trackers do. The goals are set by a combination of all activity, and not just how many steps you take. I think this is much better because it makes you think about overall activity and not just having to get your 10,000 steps a day in.

I like to kayak (which is something that many of the fitness trackers don't have as an option), and was able to create a custom workout for it, and upload it right to the watch. I set it to use the GPS and HRM. Yesterday, I took my kayak to the lake to try it out, and it worked perfectly, and gave me what seems to be a pretty accurate calorie burn number.

So, if you are looking for something that is flexible, customizable, and pretty darn accurate, its definitely something worth taking a look at.