Hot on the heels of Garmin’s controversial subscription plan, Polar’s just unveiled its own matt.evans@futurenet.com (Matt Evans) | usagoldmines.com

• Polar launches Fitness Program, a ‘subscription-based addition to the Polar ecosystem’
• It’s an adaptive four-week training program costing €9.99 (around $11 / £8.50 / AU$18)
• The announcement comes following Garmin Connect+’s disastrous reception

Polar, maker of some of the best running watches, has revealed its new Fitness Program addition to its Polar Flow app, a ‘subscription-based addition to the Polar ecosystem’ costing €9.99 (around $11 / £8.50 / AU$18) per month.

For the price, you get access to a four-week customizable training program claimed to be adaptive, science-backed and based on the data collected from users’ Polar accounts.

Users get weekly and monthly rewards (although what these rewards consist of is unspecified) and is said to be ‘an ideal add-on for those users who’ve asked for new, more adaptable ways to train’.

In a press release, Polar said Polar Flow will remain free, and a subscription is not necessary to ‘fully enjoy’ Polar products or the Polar Flow service.

Polar must be painfully conscious of the disastrous reception of Garmin’s Connect+ initiative, a paid tier on top of its previously-free Connect app. We saw a ton of readers write in with their Garmin Connect+ complaints, fearing that future new Garmin features, which previously would have been free updates to users’ expensive Garmin watches, would be paywalled.

The language of the official press release we saw uses words such as ‘personalized’ and ‘adaptable’, which usually means ‘AI’ in tech circles. Garmin’s use of generative AI to create questionable insights has been getting a lot of stick on social media.

However, there are some differences between Polar’s approach to a premium tier and Garmin’s: a Polar spokesperson reached out to me and confirmed AI is being used on some level to tailor the programs to individuals, but generative AI, responsible for placing Garmin’s analytics into friendly sentences and paragraphs, is not being used.

Polar’s spokesperson also confirmed the company’s stance on putting new features behind a paywall, stating: “the new Fitness Program does not affect the development of other Polar services in any way” and would continue to roll out new features to users of every tier.

Fitness Program is available to Android users now in the EU, Norway, and in the UK. iOS expansion is expected later in the year.

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