The new Polar Ignite 3 is the best smartwatch for sleep tracking

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A woman running while wearing the Polar Ignite 3
(Image credit: Polar)

Whether you're looking for the best smartwatch, fancy one of the best fitness trackers, or simply need a great running watch, the chances are you've heard of Polar. Launched in 1977, Polar began life tracking the heartbeats of athletes on a Finnish cross-country ski track.

These days, the formula has been refined, and the Polar range is sleek and well thought out. You'll find a smartwatch range that has a distinct character, without looking out of place.

Now, following on from the Polar Ignite and the Polar Ignite 2, we have the Polar Ignite 3. Packed with a host of features to help you balance your lifestyle, the Ignite 3 is designed to give you all of the information you need about your sleeping and workout habits. Could this be the best Polar Watch yet? Lets find out.

Polar Ignite 3 Features

The majority of features on the Polar Ignite 3 are designed to help you balance your lifestyle with your circadian rhythm. That starts with sleep. The Ignite 3 features SleepWise, a tool which analyses how your sleep affects your day, including a forecast of your alertness levels and an estimate of when your body is ready to fall asleep.

On top of that, Nightly Recharge and Sleep Plus Stages are included from the previous iterations. Nightly Recharge measures how well your body recovers from stress, and other daily demands, during your sleep cycle, while Sleep Plus Stages tracks your time spent in different stages of sleep and rates their quality.

Once you've got your sleeping pattern down, the next key for your circadian rhythm is exercise, says Polar. With that in mind, a host of useful fitness tracking capabilities are included, to make your workouts more insightful. There are 150 pre-defined sports profiles, to accurately track whatever activity you enjoy. FitSpark gives you on-demand exercise suggestions, which suit your body's readiness and conditioning, while in-training voice guidance will give you real time feedback and metrics via your headphones.

After your workout, Energy Sources will give you a summary of where you used energy during your session, breaking down fats, carbohydrates and proteins to let you know what you made use of. And, with Smart Calories, you'll be given a breakdown of your calories burnt during workouts, as well as through your regular activity.

On the tech side, the Ignite 3 has a vivid, 1.28" AMOLED display, features dual-band GPS for ultra-precise tracking of your location and has a long-life battery which will last up to five days in watch mode, or give you 30 hours of continuous training. Plus, a new processor makes it twice as fast as the last generation of Ignite.

Polar Ignite 3 will set you back £289, and comes in Night Black, Purple Dusk, Greige Sand, and Brown Copper.  

Sam Cross
Staff Writer

Online news writer at T3.com, Sam has five years of experience in online and print journalism, with work featured in publications like Metro and Last Word on Sports. After years writing about music and football, Sam now turns his hand to bringing you news about new phones, smart home products, smart watches, laptops and TVs. Sam is a longtime fan and user of Apple products, including iPhones, MacBooks and Apple Watches.He’s also T3’s resident football expert, bringing you everything you need to know about the big games, including how to watch them. In his spare time, Sam is a keen guitarist, watch lover and (very) amateur golfer.