Polar Flow Wellness (HR) import

TLDR: Looking for insight in getting daily HR data from Polar Flow to Intervals.icu as it doesn’t appear to be working for me.

I started using a new Polar watch this last week (Tuesday 8.8.23) primarily as a daily fitness tracker as well as for sleep. I am not using it to record activities. It would appear Intervals has been able to sync the sleep time and sleep score, however heart rate data—HRV (morning orthostatic test) and resting HR—has not synced with intervals. Has something changed on their API that can be updated here or am I out of luck in this case?

There may be the possibility that I’m just being impatient and it hasn’t synced as I haven’t had the device for a week.

Unfortunately I now know that Polar doesn’t share their continuous HR tracking with say Apple Health so I would not be surprised if something similar turns out to also be the case here, in which case I’ll be returning the watch. I am not planning on manually entering data and I don’t have the skill to make my own script.

Especially since previously using a Garmin device that just works.

I had a look at the Polar API docs and didn’t find any mention of that morning HRV test data. It doesn’t look like it comes through as an exercise either.

Intervals.icu does process the nightly recharge stuff and uses that for resting HR:

  • hrv = recharge.heart_rate_variability_avg
  • readiness = recharge.nightly_recharge_status
  • avgSleepingHR = recharge.heart_rate_avg
  • restingHR = recharge.heart_rate_avg

https://www.polar.com/accesslink-api/#nightly-recharge

Alright thank you for the double check. With a new device I guess it takes time to figure out what’s what. Although it is a bit silly that polar doesn’t send that particular data. I’ve sent a message to Polar support to find out if there is a way to have that data exported and may update here if it turns out there is a way.

Thanks again!

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Hello,
Did you manage to load your HR and HRV data every day? I’ve connected my polar flow but I can’t see any data.
Thanks in advance

Hey there, Polar support returned my email stating that there was no way to export their morning (orthostatic) test results out of the Polar Flow platform. The HRV measurements taken using the Nightly Recharge recovery setting should import into intervals.icu if you are importing wellness data.

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Thank’s a lot for your answer

I was “vibe coding” today with claude, a google apps script which connect to polar web and downloads sleep data, and also connects to intervals.icu to download training data (they are complicated to download from polar web).

And exactly as OP states, sleep HRV data were not synchronized - but only for last 6 days, before that i can see them. Claude suggested that it may be polar business decision to only let HRV data be available with a delay…

Hi Vladimir, check if you see the plot for the HRV in the polar flow app (they are a bit hidden: In Nightly recharge tap on ANS-Status). If not, manually change the sleeping time (you actually do not have to change it, you just need to go through the process).
This should make the ANS plot appear. Then check intervals.icu again. If this fixes the problem you encountered a very weird bug in the polar services I ran into already quite some time ago. Polar knows that since over a year but did not really care to fix it.
If it fixes you problem you need to do this for each day you do not see the HRV plot from now on.

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Thanks m_h - unfortunately I can see HRV data for last days in polar app, but even if I edit the sleep lenght (which I guess could refresh something somewhere :), it won’t go through to intervals.icu, and even less so to my script.

Since 7th of june, I can’t see HRV data on intervals.icu or my google sheet app (doesn’t look like any intentional delay anymore). I wrote to polar developer helpdesk (b2bhelpdesk@polar.com), we’ll see if they come up with anything. Btw if I delete all my entries in google sheet, and let them re-synchronize, still HRV ends on 7th of june. We’ll see.

…so the helpdesk replied they also can’t see those missing HRV data online (so if I can see them in my android polar app, that app synchronizes offline - interesting, didn’t know that).

They suggested factory reset of my pacer pro watch - and it did help! I didn’t get those missing HRV values from cca one week, but new data is syncing everywhere again - from watch to mobile app, to polar web, to intervals.icu, and to my google sheet app.