Have the newer textile style ones improved. I know they had teething troubles at first, but have they got better since then?

I’ve polar and garmin soft straps. I swap the head unit between the two and haven’t noticed any difference in performance between them.

No, ive had 4 each have stopped working properly after about 6 months. To be fair to garmin they replaced them for free.

Im now using a polar soft strap which the garmin unit fits into, only had it a couple of weeks so dont know how it will last yet but it is comfortable to wear

My 910 came with a fabric strap, it gave up the ghost after 6 months. Didnt help I had washed in the the washing machine a few times … D’oh.

Anyway replaced the fabric strap with a Polar one as they are much cheaper to source…. The Garmin Ant+ unit fits fine onto the polar strap.

Not sure that answers your question…??

Basic garmin one works much better than the soft one.

I got lots of false readings from ‘clothing flutter’ on my soft strap, don’t get any with the plastic one.

My soft premium strap works a lot better than the original hard strap for me.

In 2010ish they changed the design of the soft strap which I think improved a lot of the early problems which caused people to swap to the Polar strap.

had one for a few weeks – no issues.

+1 for garmin strap and polar monitor seems to make better contact

I have a Polar strap and Garmin monitor….only because the Polar straps are cheaper, did need a bit of dremmelling to get a solid connection.