Today was a normal day with a recovery run, nothing fancy. The GPS track looks very nice, smooth and accurate. I used the Stryd, still don’t know how much calibration (if any) Polar applies on the Stryd – but I haven’t seen something strange in the pace/distance. I’ll do some tests on a measured track next week to confirm the accuracy of Stryd, also ask Polar some questions regarding their calibration.
Funny facts, or worthy of being mentioned…
The orthostatic test notification looks weird to me, I mean I get a notification in the previous evening to let me know that tomorrow I have to do the test – and that’s fine. But what’s not that funny is the fact that in the early morning I get another notification at 4AM (?!!) that I should do the test. Luckily, I have the DND active till 6AM and that notification doesn’t wake me up, but I see no reason to be notified at 4AM about the test … maybe a better way would be a notification 5 minutes after waking up, that would make sense.
Another interesting fact – related to orthostatic test – Polar needs to treat error/information message with more care…if you don’t have the H10 (or H7) connected to your watch (not even paired/defined), Vantage V complains about not moisturising your strap, instead of saying “Please connect a compatible HR sensor”.
Regarding the altitude, it seems there is a problem on the device – even though it measures the altitude (this morning it was pretty accurate) and you can see that in Polar Flow web, the information about ascending/descending is missing consistently (with every workout). Something is fishy there ..
Tools:
Polar Vantage V (FW 3.1.7)
Polar H10 (FW 2.1.9) only for Orthostatic Test
Stryd (FW 1.1.9)
Brooks Ghost 10
Liviu Nastasa 
Hi! Really appreciate your post on the Vantage V. Keep up the good work. I just realised that The Polar Beat app connected to my STRYD and there´s an option to calibrate length after a run. I am guessing that calibration would carry over to the FLOW app and the sport profile used in the Polar BEAT app (standard RUNNING). If so, one could calibrate the STRYD on a track and never worry about Vantage V doing some hidden GPS autocalibration on the go. What do you think? Maybe something you could ask Polar about when contacting them about Stryd calibration. All the best.
Thanks Fredrik, I’ll try the Polar Beat option; in the meantime I sent an message to Polar, asking for details on their calibration options.
Great. Looking forward to hearing their answer. I still find it confusing, with wildly different opinions on how foot pods work with the VV posted on fb.
Hi!
Your diary is very interesting. I am opting on buying this sportswatch (in fact I am between this and Suunto 9 Baro due to native power support) in order to be used with H10 and Stryd, that I am currently using with iSmoothRun.
There are couple of things that are delaying my purchase on VV (small screen and dim screen), otherwise I think VV is hard to beat.
Thank you for your time and effort putting your experience in this blog
Polar Vantage V has the advantage over Suunto 9 because of the ecosystem – Flow is a great companion. With the migration from Movescount to Suunto App, Suunto lost a tempo for the moment. I personally like the Suunto 9 more in terms of looks and hardware capabilities, but till they will get something done with SA, that’s not the watch to select if you’re more than just an outdoor/hiking fan – Polar has more to offer for athletes focused on recovery and beating their records. In terms of GPS accuracy, they share the same chipset, with various feedback – personally, Vantage V worked great for me (better than the Fenix 5X+ I usually have with me). I haven’t tried Suunto 9, I can’t comment – though I have a SST that I borrow from my son.
For athletes/triathlon I’d go with Vantage (or Garmin 935), for outdoor adventure and hiking I’d choose Suunto 9 or Fenix 5X+.