I tried Polar OS 5.0 — here’s how it went

Tags: Tests | Polar | Smart

31.1.2026 | 6 MIN

Polar smartwatches have received a major system update, and I took a closer look at what Polar OS 5.0 actually brings, what it finally fixes, and where it still runs into its own limits.

Let’s be honest: lately I haven’t had many words of praise for Polar. Can you blame me? For years they’ve been releasing essentially the same watches in slightly different cases.

But when the big Polar OS 5 update landed, I just couldn’t resist. I fired up the Vantage V3 and dove into testing.

To be frank, I hit the first problem right at pairing — I just couldn’t get it to work for the life of me. Then I created a new account and, somehow, it suddenly worked.

That said, this update applies to the following models:

• Vantage V3
• Vantage M3
• Polar Grit X2 (PRO)
• Polar Ignite 3

A faster UI

Look, I don’t want to start by throwing shade, but I wouldn’t call it faster. Or maybe my particular update isn’t faster. If you browse Reddit threads, you’ll see some users have zero issues, some had the update freeze during installation, and some got it installed but are still dealing with plenty of bugs. I’m in that last group.

It feels like they amped up the animations, but those taxed the processor, so it’s still just as laggy. If you long-press the right middle button, a red circle slowly expands, then you get a list of red circles, and then labels appear inside those red circles for each sport profile. It takes 4 seconds to get to the sport selection — and that’s from one button press.

And the notification panel? That’s a bust. Pull it down and it’s almost impossible to swipe it back up. It just gets stuck.

To be fair, swiping through widgets does feel smoother to me.

Finally, I’m not seeing every notification 20 times

When I wore only Polar smartwatches for 30 days, the thing that annoyed me most was endlessly repeating notifications.

If I didn’t view a notification, it would just keep popping up (with vibrations) at random intervals. In daily life it was simpler — if it came the second time, I’d just clear it. But during a workout, there’s no time for that. The funny part was it would always fixate on a random one. Funny things tend to get annoying when they happen often enough.

Now it’s not happening twenty times a day — more like three. Yes, I still get notifications that say “17 minutes ago.” And that’s probably what irks me most.

The watch knows the notification didn’t just arrive, yet it presents it as if it were new.

So yes, thanks for the partial fix, Polar. But it’s still not fully resolved.

Map improvements

The biggest step forward is the gesture to zoom in and out on the map. Just use two fingers and zoom just like you would on a phone.

That said, I’m not sure “smooth” is the right word. You make the gesture, the map disappears for a second, and then it zooms in or out in preset steps (450 m, 250 m, 100 m, 55 m, 30 m). So you don’t have absolute control over the zoom level.

The gesture works more like a trigger than a fluid zoom. As my colleague Filip put it: “I expected worse.” Whether that counts as praise is another matter.

Still, the gesture is a step forward and I’m glad it’s here. What bothers me a bit is a map bug right in a workout. If you’re on the data screen with the map and press the right middle red button, voilà… the watch shuts down. Literally every time.

Let’s end on a positive note — Polar also added a dark map theme that’s easier on the eyes. Except quite often the display just goes completely dark, and then you see the Polar logo as the watch reboots. :)

It’s a bit of a shame you can’t set the map theme to follow sunset/sunrise.

Dang, so much for that positive ending. At least I’ll add that Polar now shows your route direction when you start an activity, so you don’t have to think too hard in the parking lot about whether to head left or right.

Multiple alarms

If I released an update in 2026 that lets you set alarms for different times, days, etc., I’d honestly tuck that into the brochure with a touch of embarrassment and hope no one noticed. Polar leads with it.

Yes, it works — but frankly, it should have worked ten years ago.

Time shown while charging

Same story as the alarms. A nice touch, but nothing groundbreaking. I get that it’s the kind of feature you don’t realize someone might actually need. Personally, I don’t check the time when my watch is on the charger.

New widgets on the main watch face

This, on the other hand, is a very welcome improvement. If there’s anything an athlete really needs to keep tabs on, it’s training volume and recovery. And that’s exactly what Polar has moved right onto the main watch face. I have to admit, the graphics are well done too.

Personally, I set it so I have three data fields next to the time. I dedicated the middle one to the basics — date and day of the week. The top one is for training volume, where alongside time spent training I see a circular breakdown of heart rate zones.

For Nightly Recharge — that is, autonomic nervous system recovery — the graphics simply indicate how well you’ve recovered. There aren’t exact numbers here, but in practice it’s sufficient.

More data in a paused activity

Most of the time, Polar only showed current heart rate when an activity was paused. Now you can open “Summary”, where for running you’ll find, for example, activity time, distance, average and max heart rate, calories burned, as well as average and top speed.

Keen readers may notice I’m saying speed and not pace. And no, that’s not a mistake. Even though I’ve set everything to use pace (min/km), what I see here is speed. And, hand on heart, that’s a metric no serious runner cares about.

And no, there’s no way to change it.

RPE assessment

It’s been in the app for ages, and now Polar has put it directly on the watch. After you end an activity, you can enter your subjective effort (RPE) on a 0–10 scale.

I’ll be honest — this option never showed up for me. And I looked for it thoroughly in the settings.

Flashlight

Another positive tweak. In the quick settings (the top pull-down menu), you’ll find a flashlight with four levels of white and one level of red.

The only odd thing is that the controls go against the usual touch-screen logic. For example, you’re in a menu and dots on the right indicate where you are. To move upward, just like on a phone, you have to swipe down.

In the flashlight it’s the exact opposite. You want to increase intensity, the dots are indicated the same way, but you have to swipe up.

Lower brightness in Do Not Disturb

This one I have to admit is nice. When Do Not Disturb is on, the display lights up very dimly on the first press. Only after the second click do you enter the watch’s UI as usual.

I think it’s great — no blinding flash in the middle of the night or right after waking up.

Among the minor additions, the watch also gained a weekly blood oxygen trend. The only question is — why only blood oxygen? Why not other health metrics too?

So how did it all turn out?

There are things that were needed, but honestly should have arrived ages ago. Alarms, time while charging, non-repeating notifications… In my view, Polar users deserved this much earlier, and the Finnish brand simply isn’t dynamic enough here.

Adding a GPX route directly from the app? Still not there. Notifications are still glitchy, and even in areas that were fixed you’ll stumble across plenty of bugs.

I don’t want to end on a negative note, because I like Polar as a brand. This update shows Polar isn’t throwing in the towel yet. Polar, release updates like this more often, test them a bit more, and I believe you’ll find your strength again.

There are already rumors that Polar is planning a major app overhaul. And honestly — I can’t wait. That alone shows how much I still believe in the brand. This is what could make the biggest difference. And maybe we’ll finally see the option to upload a route directly from the app without having to log in via a browser.

Photo source:

• official Polar photos