New Polar RCX5 triathlon unit coming out soon

The internet has been buzzing with rumors about the new triathlon unit from Polar. First discussion appeared few weeks ago on Slowtwitch where users Chris and wvarta from Polar noted that new products are indeed going to be announced as soon as April. It seems that the news will be announced sooner since there is new thread on Polar forums linking to leaked picture of the new watch and to French Polar site that is promising announcement of new unit the Polar RCX5 on Monday March 21st.

Good source in Polar confirmed we can expect announcement on Monday through Polar USA Facebook page. So stay tuned until Monday. I certainly hope Polar listened to our feedback and added at least some of the highly requested functions to the watch.

From what you can see from the picture it looks as if the new unit has dual belt (e.g. belt that works with both W.I.N.D. sensor and the older 5kHz frequency which is great news for people going to gym often and missing their HR on the display of treadmill or stair master). It remains to be seen if the watch itself works on dual band as well which would make it able to record HR under water - common complaint to Polar, Suunto, Garmin and Times as none of these units does this so far. The next improvement seems to be with the GPS unit as Polar is introducing a new one with this line the G5 - it is hard to see what the sensor looks like, but I would expect longer battery life and better GPS sensor inside.

The next improvement is use of the new Polar WIND Link unit for data transfer which works similar to Bluetooth so there is no need to have line of sight between the unit and the USB sensor. S3 sensor seems to be slightly different shape, color and the fork that holds it in place seems to have different shape as well. So we will see what the improvement is there.

The unit itself looks like little bit of a come back to the original design of Polar watches from 70s (or it may be just the picture). And it seems that there will be different color models - orange and black are showing on the picture. The prices seem to be around the same level as for the RS800cx units today - from 299 EUR for watch with belt and WIND Link to 399 EUR for the multisport pack with GPS unit.

Well that is what I can glean from the picture. Rest is to be revealed I'm sure soon. By the way if the unit is any good on the paper I'm most likely going to upgrade - especially if the GPS works well I may prune my HRM stash and just stick with one or two instead of current running count of 5+.