H10/H9 Connectivity issues with Android 13

Applies to: H10 heart rate sensor, H9 heart rate sensor, Polar Beat, Polar Flow app

After updating to Android 13, many phone models have been experiencing connectivity issues with Bluetooth peripherals, and unfortunately this affects some of our Polar H10 and H9 heart rate sensor users as well. These issues originate from the phone and the specific Android version they have. Some phone manufacturers have published updates to correct this, or are not affected with it, like Samsung and Google Pixel phones.

Problem symptoms

• Your sensor does not show heart rate anymore if you had the sensor registered to your Polar account before updating your phone to Android 13
• You cannot connect to your sensor at all if you are a new user with Android 13

Solution

We have developed and included a work-around to this issue in our latest firmware releases for H10 and H9. To correct this problem right away, your sensor needs to be updated to the latest firmware. In order to do this, follow the next steps:

1. Check that your phone operating system is up-to-date. Some phone manufacturers have published updates to their phones with a fix to this issue, among others. Try to connect and update to your sensor again after updating your phone.
2. The easiest and fastest way is to connect and update your sensor with another phone or tablet not affected with this issue, like older Android versions or an iOS device for example. Just install Flow app onto one, log into your Polar account, pair the sensor and install the firmware update once prompted.
3. If the previous steps do not work, then you can send your sensor to Polar Service Center to be updated by us.