POLART31 Coded Chest Transmitter and Elastic Strap

I bought this "NEW" in June of 2016. In July 2018 it started not broadcasting my heart rate for about the first 20 minutes every workout until it gets warm and a little sweaty, then it starts working, slowly coming down from 220 indicated BPM or so to what my actual heart rate is. (my heart doesn't go 220-bpm) There are 25 spinning bikes in the room, it does the same thing ON ALL 25 BIKES, EVERY SINGLE BIKE SAME THING, so it is not the heart rate indicator on "THE BIKE"! I have used Polar HRMs since the 1990s maybe 1980s? Within the last 5 or 10 years or so the battery life has gotten shorter and shorter. Maybe mine sat on the shelf in some department store or in some bike shop for the first 5 or 10 years of its life before I bought it "NEW" from Amazon? I honestly don't know what to do. I have to buy another one because all the equipment i use at the health club (where i work) is Polar compatible. Maybe the non-coded one is cheaper and will last longer, we will see.This is a follow up, March 2019. I tried an experiment for the last month or two. I run the transmitter under water in the sink at the health club for a second or 2, just to make it wet. I put it on wet and i go into the spinning room and it works perfectly the second i turn on the heart rate indicator on the bike. All the way through the workout it works perfectly. SO if you have one that stopped working or works intermittently, run it under water and put it on to see if that makes it work. Maybe it is an indicator that the battery is getting low but this saved me from buying a new one at this time. Good luck!

I purchased this heart rate monitor transmitter to replace the one I lost. I use a Polar F6 (A few years older model) and it works flawlessly with it. I'm 6'2" with a 42" chest and this strap fits comfortably with little adjusting. When I'm working out I don't feel it and the slender form factor doesn't show through my clothes when I'm exercising, but I suppose it could if you wore tighter fitting clothing such as those Under Armor shirts or a bicycling shirt.The transmitter communicates well with the Precor machines at my gym, however I have noticed that it reads about 1 BPM off between my watch & the exercise machine. It's not that big of a deal, it's just something to point out. Using the Polar brand, you're introduced to the OwnZone, which is a custom tailored heart rate range for the day. It's really a great tool to use. I now focus on getting my heartrate into that range as quick as I can and keep it there throughout my workout. Make sure you read the instructions and wet the transmitter areas before you work out. This will help transmitting and if the exercise machine you're on isn't reading properly, I found that moving the band down a 0.5" to 1" will make it start reading normally.I've heard the big negative to this device is that the battery must be changed by the factory and it's less expensive to replace the entire product. With an approximate 1-3 year battery life, I'll probably purchase another rather than send it in and wait for the turn around.

I've been using this strap at the gym with a LifeFitness elliptical and treadmill. When I first used it, it was excellent. I just hopped on the elliptical and started the workout and the strap automatically kicked in and sent information to the machine. I didn't even have to sweat a whole lot. Same thing with the treadmill. Throughout my roughly 1 hour workouts for about 1 week, it worked perfectly.A few days ago though I started noticing problems with the heart rate reading on the machine. From the usual 158-165 BPM I try to stick to, it all of a sudden goes to like..130 or 140 or even 120 out of nowhere. Since the machines I'm using are basing the strain of the exercise on my inputted target heart rate (160), when there's a sudden drop like that, the whole workout gets all screwed up (the resistance on the elliptical skyrockets, or the incline on the treadmill). Sometimes the reading just flat out shuts off and the machine tells me it needs my heart rate.I'm pretty sure I've ruled out the possibility of interference, as for that first week when the strap was working just fine, there were sometimes people right next to me with a polar wrist strap on. No interference. On top of that, it's happening when I'm at least 5 machines away from anyone else.Also, I don't think the problem is with the battery either. Before I made my purchase, I read that the sensors are very sensitive to wetness. Everytime I'm done with the strap, I take it off and dry it well, then place it in a dry area until the next day.Lastly, if it were a problem with the machine itself then why is it happening on multiple machines, of two different kinds?I'm compelled to believe that it's a faulty product.