Most electronic drum kits are sold on the sound library. The Polaris is sold on something else entirely, and the something else is the reason it exists: every drum and cymbal lights up, so the kit itself tells you where to hit.
This review works from the published specification and the manufacturer's documentation: what the TOD1 includes, who it suits, how the lighting actually changes practice, and what the honest limitations are for anyone planning to play in a flat.
Short version: a mesh-head kit with lights in every pad, a full set of hardware in the box, and the same real-world noise constraints as any electronic kit.
What is the Polaris drum set?
A full electronic kit with lights in every pad.
A five-piece electronic kit with mesh heads and lights built into every drum and cymbal, driven by the free InstaDrum app.
The model is the TOD, also listed as the TOD1, and it is a complete kit rather than a tabletop pad: one mesh snare, one bass drum, three toms, three cymbals, two foot pedals, drumsticks and headphones, mounted on a rack that arrives pre-installed. The sound engine lists 308 sounds, and the app that drives the lessons is InstaDrum, which is free to download from the app page on this site.
The distinctive part is the lighting. Lights are built into each drum and cymbal rather than placed on a screen, and they respond to every strike. In practice that means a lesson can indicate the next pad directly on the instrument, and a beginner who cannot yet read drum notation can still play a pattern correctly in the first session.
Mesh heads are the other specification worth naming. A mesh head is a woven surface that gives a rebound closer to a real drum than a solid rubber pad, and it is the difference between a kit that feels like practice equipment and a kit that feels like a drum kit. The comparison with solid-pad kits is covered in mesh pads explained.
Who is the TOD1 for?
Players who want a real kit feel at apartment volume.
Beginners who want a real kit rather than a practice pad, and households where an acoustic kit would never be allowed.
Three groups fit. The first is an adult beginner who has decided drums are the instrument and wants a hierarchy of pads rather than a flat surface, since learning to move between a snare, three toms and cymbals is a different skill from hitting a grid. The second is a returning drummer who wants something that behaves like the kit they used to play. The third is a household buying for a teenager where the alternative is an acoustic kit, which is not a realistic option in most homes.
Two groups should look elsewhere. Anyone who needs to carry a kit to a rehearsal or a friend's house will find a roll-up pad far more practical, which is what the TRD portable kit is for. And anyone with very little floor space should measure before ordering, because a five-piece kit with a rack takes up more room than the photographs suggest.
How do the lights change practice?
They show you where to hit before you hit it.
Guidance before the strike is different from feedback after it, because every electronic kit reports a wrong pad while a lit kit shows the right one first.
Every electronic kit can tell you that you hit the wrong pad. The Polaris is unusual in telling you where to hit before you do it, which is a different function: one is feedback, the other is guidance. For a beginner the guidance matters more, because the first problem with drums is not accuracy, it is knowing which limb is supposed to move next.
There is a real argument that a light-driven beginner learns to follow lights rather than to hear the pattern, and the honest answer is that the lights should be treated as a rehearsal aid and switched off when you want to test yourself. The equipment does not decide this; the practice habit does. The general principle that short attempts with immediate specific feedback move a skill fastest is the one Edutopia describes for practice generally, and it is exactly what a lit kit supplies.
The app's content is described on the product page as coming from drum performers, clinicians and session musicians, with progress tracked visually so that improvement has a direction rather than a feeling.
What is in the box, and what it adds up to
| Snare | 1 mesh snare drum |
| Toms and bass | 3 toms and 1 bass drum |
| Cymbals | 3 cymbals |
| Pedals | 2 foot pedals |
| Hardware | Pre-installed drum rack |
| Included accessories | Drumsticks and headphones |
| Sounds | 308 |
| Lighting | Built into each drum and cymbal, responding to every strike |
| Connection | Wireless connection to iOS and Android apps over Bluetooth |
Two items on that list matter more than they appear to. Headphones in the box means the kit is playable the day it arrives without buying anything else. And the pre-installed rack removes the assembly day that stops a surprising number of kits from ever being set up.
The wireless connection is the standard Bluetooth route used across the range; the specification itself is maintained by the Bluetooth SIG, and the connection requirements follow the same version rules as the other instruments, with a wired fallback available on Android, and note data exchanged with recording software follows MIDI.
Two things about the lighting are worth thinking through before you buy, because they change how you should practise rather than just how the kit looks. The first is that guidance and feedback are not the same thing, and a player who only ever plays with the lights on is following a cue rather than reading a pattern. The second is that the lights make the kit look like a game, which is an advantage with children and a mild disadvantage with adults who want to hear what they are playing. The practical answer in both cases is to use the lights to learn a part and then turn them off to test it, which is a habit rather than a setting.
How loud is it really?
Quieter than acoustic drums, and not silent.
What remains audible is the stick hitting the pad, the pedal action, and the vibration that travels through the floor into the room below.
Mesh heads remove most of the pad noise, and that is the part the marketing photographs emphasise. What remains is the strike of the stick on the head, the click of the pedals and, in the case of the bass pedal, mechanical vibration that travels through the floor into the room below. That last one is the complaint that actually gets kits banned in blocks of flats.
The practical answers are a mat under the kit to break up the vibration, a sensible practice window, and a habit of playing with headphones rather than through the speakers. The kit comes with headphones, which handles the third. The first two are covered in what a drum mat does and in keeping an electronic kit quiet in an apartment.
Hearing protection is worth taking seriously as well. Drummers sit directly in front of the source and hearing damage accumulates without any single loud event, which is the mechanism described in the NIDCD guidance on noise-induced hearing loss and addressed by the WHO listening-safety programme. Headphone volume is the variable that matters here, not the kit.
There is also a version of the noise problem that has nothing to do with the pads, and it is worth planning for. The kick pedal transmits vibration into the floor, and vibration travels further than sound through a building, which is why a neighbour can hear a bass drum pattern through the ceiling while hearing nothing else. A mat under the pedals breaks that path, and placing the kit away from the wall you share with a neighbour helps more than turning anything down. If you are on an upper floor in an older building, this is the detail that decides whether the kit is usable at all.
FAQ
Do the Polaris drums work without the app?
The kit produces sound on its own and the pads respond without any connection, so you can sit down and play immediately. What the app adds is the lighting, the guided lessons and the progress tracking, and the product page states that some special free content is available even without a TheONE kit. In practice the lights are the feature that makes the kit distinctive, so playing it permanently offline means paying for hardware you are not using. Pairing takes a minute and is worth doing on the first evening.
Is the TOD1 suitable for a total beginner?
Yes, and it is arguably the easiest way to start, because the lit pads remove the first problem a beginner faces, which is not accuracy but knowing which limb is supposed to move next. A full kit also teaches coordination across a hierarchy of pads rather than across a flat grid, which is closer to what playing drums actually is. The trade is floor space and assembly: this is a kit that stays assembled, so it needs a permanent corner rather than a cupboard.
Are the drum heads mesh or rubber?
The kit uses mesh drum heads, including a mesh snare, which give a more realistic rebound and less pad noise than solid rubber surfaces. The material difference matters more than the specification suggests: a mesh head returns the stick the way a drum skin does, so your hands learn a response that transfers, while a solid rubber pad teaches a flatter stroke. The sound still comes through headphones or the speakers regardless, so the mesh surface is about feel and noise rather than about volume.
How much space does it need?
More than the product photographs suggest, because the rack holds a snare, three toms, three cymbals, a bass drum and two pedals, and you need room to walk around it rather than just room for the frame. Measure the floor area before ordering rather than after, and add a hand's width of clearance on every side. If the space you have is a desk rather than a corner of a room, the roll-up TRD is the kit that fits, and it is cheaper for exactly that reason.
Verdict
The Polaris TOD1 makes sense for a beginner who wants a genuine kit and benefits from being shown where to hit, and for a household that needs the noise to stay inside the room. It makes less sense for a player who needs portability, where the roll-up TRD is the practical choice, or for someone who wants the largest possible sound library on a budget. Specifications and current pricing are on the Polaris product page.
Shipping and returns in short. TheONE ships free within the 48 contiguous United States, with orders usually processed in 1–3 business days and delivery estimated at 3–7 business days after dispatch. International delivery is estimated at 5–15 business days, with shipping and applicable taxes included in the price shown at checkout. Returns within the United States can be requested within 30 calendar days of receipt and require approval.
See the full specification and current pricing for the Polaris drum set.
