USB to IrDA Adapter

Discount Price: $7.99

Customer Reviews:

A how-to from a Polar S725X owner [Posted on 2008-05-23]
I bought this device based upon the recommendation of other reviewers of this product who owned Polar heart rate monitors, immediately after opening the padded envelope it arrived in I knew I was in for an adventure. Not even lying the packaging for this product claims "Easily and wirelessly transfers data betwenn [sic] PDA, notbook [sic], cameras, Mobile phones, etc." Well I followed the instructions provided and installed the drivers on the mini CD provided in the package and set about trying to transfer the weeks worth of training data I had acquired while waiting for this product in the mail. This failed miserably. I tried Polar's FAQs, re-reading product reviews on Amazon for tips, uninstalling and reinstalling product drivers, trying it on other computers in the house, downloading Microsoft's ActiveSync, and ultimately leaving comments on reviews for the product begging for help. Nothing worked. Finally Monday rolls around and I get Polar tech support on the line after holding for roughly 40 minutes and here are the settings that allowed me to connect my Polar S725X to my PC using this USB to IRDA adapter.

From Polar's ProTrainer 5 select Options>Preferences>Hardware
Make sure IRDA is selected now press Options, uncheck the first box (Polar USB Interface AutoCheck) and the last box (Get day temperature automatically from Polar product).

Now select Tools>Edit Polar Product Settings
This should bring up a little window with an animation of two IR devices communicating. You want to take your HRM and put it in the connect mode (For the S725X you push the lower right button once) then put the IR window on the HRM directly against the IR window on the USB to IRDA super mini. If the HRM recognizes the USB to IRDA it should begin flashing "COM" continue to hold the HRM next to the USB to IRDA adapter.

This will bring up a new window, now to transfer your data it's pretty self explanatory, but I'll cover it anyway. From the General tab you select Exercise Files, then select which ones you wish to save, this will transfer them over to your PC. Once you confirm they are in your Polar ProTrainer 5 calendar feel free to delete them.

Hope that helps!

Works flawless with my hubby's Polar S725x HRM, but does prevent screensaver from working properly [Posted on 2008-07-04]
Thanks to the recent reviews of Patrick and especially Brad's (I followed his instructions for install), my husband is extremely happy with this item.

It worked first time with my husband's polar s725x HRM and with no problems. Couple caveats, though [and reason it gets 4 stars and not 5]: (a) this item will prevent your screen saver from starting. So you either have to manually start your screen saver, or do a Cntl+Alt+Del to take the item out of the running processes (in Win XP SP2, that is). (b) Never EVER pull this out w/o properly "stopping" it as per your system tray's "Safely Remove Hardware" icon. My hubby did this once and the system reacted by totally freezing. [Something Win XP doesn't do easily.] It required several re-starts in order to get things back to normal.

Other than that? It is definitely worth the major savings over Polar's IR usb adapter.

Works with Windows Vista and Polar S625X [Posted on 2008-08-31]
Does everything I bought it for - runs without issue on Windows Vista and the Polar sync software I use with my S625X watch.

NOTE FOR VISTA USERS: Vista won't automatically find the driver over the internet. You need to use the CD that comes with the adapter, and point it towards the folder with the Windows XP driver. After approving the driver for installation, it should work fine.

With a simple tweak, it works on Vista for Polar F55 [Posted on 2008-09-05]
Good cheap option for polar monitors. Does not come with WINDOWS VISTA drivers. To make it work with VISTA, copy the driver for xp and install manually.

control panel -> Hardware and Sound -> Device Manager -> Infrared devices -> Kingsun KS 959 ---> right click and update/install driver from new location.

WARNING - Incompatible with Vista [Posted on 2008-10-05]
Be warned that notwithstanding other reviews, this product is incompatible with Windows Vista. I have tried various fixes and none have worked. I finally tracked down a tech support representative from the manufacturer who confirmed that this product will NOT work with Vista. It's disappointing that this caveat is not found in the product description.

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