Frontier X2 review: the heart rate monitor I actually prefer using over the Polar H10

Frontier X2: One minute review

While the Polar H10 chest strap is used by athletes the world over as a heart rate monitor accuracy benchmark, one of its biggest pain points can be its connectivity issues. It’s hard to know whether it’s going to drop out, or you need to replace or clean the strap, until you actually start a workout. There’s also no interface or control on the heart rate monitor itself, and the app is cluttered and outdated. I like using the Polar H10 for its accuracy, but when it doesn’t work for me, it’s not always obvious until after the fact — which, when testing multiple devices simultaneously, is a frustrating experience.

Frontier X2 from Fourth Frontier offers a different chest strap experience: a more modern app and a USB-chargeable device, with a screen and a button allowing you to manually start a workout and receive haptic feedback. That haptic feedback also triggers when you cross heart rate zone thresholds.While you can’t view the screen while wearing it on your chest of course, it does make workout preparation and phone connection so much easier than Polar’s offering. Guessing the heart rate monitor is working, even checking your phone to make sure heart rate is streaming correctly, only to have it drop out halfway through and lose my data due to a poor connection or crap strap, is an experience I’d like to leave in the past.