Polar CS300 weblink software, polarpersonaltrainer.com and Mac OS X

Posted by ijonas in Media & Technology Aug 7th, 2007 | 10 responses

Polar CS300 Cycling ComputerI’m noticing quiet a lot of search results hitting this blog, looking for ideas on how to integrate the Polar CS300 and your trusty old Mac… in my case a MacBook Pro.

Well, I’ve got it working but it isn’t the most elegant of solutions… First of all there is to my knowledge no OS X version of the Polar software, therefore I’ve had to employ the following…

Ingredients

  • 1x copy of Parallels Desktop for Mac (installed on your Mac)
  • 1x copy of Windows XP (installed inside Parallels)
  • 1x Mac Book Pro
  • 1x Polar CS300 watch
  • 1x Polar WebLink SW software installed (installed on Windows XP)

The Polar CS300 computer setup uses a PC microphone to transfer and convert the data held on the watch. The great thing about Parallels is that it comes with microphone support, meaning the Windows environment running inside Parallels gets to hear what’s happening in the outside world.

So all you need is to setup the ‘ingredients’ listed above. Then:

  1. Launch Parallels with Windows XP.
  2. Once your inside Windows launch the WebLink SW software providing the details as per the Polar manual. At this point place the software in transfer mode so that its listening out for data.
  3. Now grab your CS300 and activate ‘Connect’ mode, choosing ‘Send’… SonicLink will start squelching all sorts of little sounds.
  4. Quickly place the watch on top of the microphone. In the case of the MacBook Pro, the microphone is underneath the speaker grill to the left of your keyboard.

If you run into any problems, go ahead and use the comments section below… I’ll see if I can help.



10 Responses to “Polar CS300 weblink software, polarpersonaltrainer.com and Mac OS X”

  1. BBA says:
    January 5, 2008 at 3:20 pm

    Hi, after buying my RS200 I had the same problem!

    Now I’m able to run the polar weblink sofware with ‘DarWine’, that’s a port of the project ‘Wine’ to emulate the windows API.

    Look here for a screenshot: http://picasaweb.google.com/bartbaas/Public/photo#5152010523522040354

    You can get a copy of Darwine here: http://thisismyinter.net/?p=29

    Now a can start the app with a nice link on my desktop..!

    If you have some questions, email me.

    - Bart

  2. Marietjie says:
    February 12, 2008 at 6:08 pm

    Hi Bart

    I have installed darwine and the polar weblink software. I keep getting an error when trying to connect my watch. Can I connect it through the microphone or do I need a usb port connecter?

  3. Kevin says:
    May 14, 2008 at 10:42 pm

    I just got the F11. Will installing XP on my iMac work with transferring the data from the F11?

    Thanks!

  4. ijonas says:
    May 15, 2008 at 7:24 am

    Hi Kevin,

    If you take the Parallels route, then I think your F11 should definitely work. Its the same SonicLink & Weblink SW at work. I’m not sure about the DarWine route… If I get some time I might try that route and document here on this blog.

    My suggestion is to download trial versions of Windows XP and Parallels and give it a shot… If it fails, all you’ll loose is an afternoon’s work. Also if you’ve got a blog, document your steps and send me a link, that way we can create a body of content around Polar Mac Hacks.

    Good luck.

  5. Dave says:
    July 29, 2008 at 10:16 pm

    I am not able to get the mic listen to the noise the watches sends. However I am using straight apple boot-camp (running Vista Natively). Do I need to run something like VMWare or Parallel ?

    Thanks

  6. ijonas says:
    July 29, 2008 at 10:24 pm

    Hi Dave,

    BootCamp Vista “should” work… Can you check that the microphone is properly working ? Maybe you could check with a sound recording programme or Skype ?

    VMWare Fusion or Parallels is only necessary if you’re not ‘boot-camping’.

  7. Dave says:
    July 29, 2008 at 10:49 pm

    good call, where do I change the mic on Windows (only worked ever with Mac)

  8. David says:
    July 29, 2008 at 10:55 pm

    Seems to work now. Moved to low volume Sonic.

    Many thanks again.
    Dave

  9. Eric says:
    November 10, 2008 at 5:06 am

    What about using Wine? Has anybody gotten Polar software to run (and data to import) using Wine? I’d prefer not to install a Microsfot OS on my Mac.

  10. Kristian says:
    June 15, 2009 at 8:39 pm

    Wine definitely works very well for Weblink on an Intel Macbook – in fact, far better than it ever worked on a previous machine running Windows. WebLink is in the AppDB of WineHQ. It was necessary to include the MS XML versions 3 and 4 supplied with Wine to make it connect properly.

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