About a month ago Polar announced it’s H10 heart rate strap, claimed to achieve a new level of heart rate accuracy, and now the Finnish tech brand has lifted the veil on its latest head unit, the M460 bike computer.
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Superseding the M450 that was launched in 2015, the new unit gets a stealthy new aesthetic, expanded power meter compatibility, Strava Live segments and more.
Highlights
- Claimed weight 50 g
- Display size 34.65 mm x 34.65 mm (128px x 128px)
- IPX7 waterproof rating
- 16hr battery life
- Bluetooth wireless uploads to Polar Flow
- Smart notifications
- Safety light
With a claimed 16-hour battery life Polar has gone with a stealthy faux carbon fibre cover instead of the white as used on its previous units as well as making the buttons textured and a bit more pronounced, fixing one of our complaints about the previous model.
As you'd expect from a modern GPS cycling computer the M460 records all your basic speed, distance, power and heart rate based data fields. However, Polar is making a big push when it comes to power recording with the new unit now offering normalised power, intensity factor and training stress score as well as metrics like left-right power balance and force vectors.
For the M460, Polar has also added support for Power Tap's C1, G3 and P1, Stages, Wahoo Kickr, 4iii precision, Rotor 2INpower as well as Look’s Keo Power.
As with Polar’s previous head units and watches, there's no ANT+ connectivity, with the brand saying Bluetooth offers the most stable connection. While Garmin does own the ANT+ protocol which has been the standard for bike sensors for some time, Polar is one of only a few holdouts who won’t use it, and even Garmin has added support for Bluetooth sensors on its latest Forerunner 935 watch.
Beyond just Bluetooth support for sensors, the computer will display notifications from your smartphone as well as upload your activity wirelessly to Polar's Flow training software, which is quite nifty if you're not already locked into another application. From Polar Flow activities can automatically be pushed the Strava and new for the M460 TrainingPeaks.
Also new is support for Strava Live segments, though you’ll need a Premium membership utilise this feature - this device comes with a free two-month membership.
The screen, which seems quite small given the surface area of the head unit itself, is a high contrast black and white, measures 34.65 mm x 34.65 mm (128px x 128px) and can show up to 10 pages of four metrics which are customisable through the Polar Flow app.
Along with built-in GPS, the new M460 gets a high precision Barometer to take a real world altitude reading instead of relying on GPS altitude which isn’t always accurate. It also gets the built in ‘please don’t run me over’ blinky LED on the front which can either be set to turn on at dusk or always on.
Available now, the new M460 is set to cost £154.50 / $180/ AU$329 / €180 and is available with the new Polar H10 for £199.50 / $230 / AU$458 / €230 with a two-month Strava Premium membership.