Garmin Swim evaluate: Swim-Tracker Watch

Garmin makes several water resistant wearable devices, however most effective considered one of them is designed especially for swimmers: the Garmin Swim. This watch counts laps, automatically detects the four essential swimming strokes (freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke and butterfly) and measures your performance within the water by using calculating some time and the quantity of strokes in line with lap.

you could use the Garmin Swim the equal manner you would use a stopwatch to time your exercising in the pool. but, not like with maximum stopwatches, you can also upload the recorded data on your pc and look at your stats online or on a mobile tool thru the Garmin join app. yet, even though the Garmin Swim can calculate your general distance moved and calories burned inside the pool, in addition to assist you keep a constant tempo at some point of your exercise, you can't use it to tune sports — for instance, taking walks or going for walks — on land.

At $a hundred and fifty, Garmin's non-GPS swim watch fees a lot less than a number of the corporation's cross-schooling watches which might be GPS-enabled and additionally tune swimming metrics. as an example, the Garmin Forerunner 920XT is a GPS-enabled watch that could song swimming within the pool and in open water, in addition to jogging and cycling, but the ones extra capabilities will fee you: The Forerunner 920XT sells for about $450 on Amazon.

i lately tested out the Garmin Swim, to peer how well it tracked my workouts in the pool. As a former competitive swimmer who now simply swims to stay in shape, I usually just try to keep music of how many laps i've finished. but for this assessment, I also examined the Garmin Swim's many different features, now not simply its potential to matter laps.

The Garmin Swim's nice features include its potential to track each a part of a swim exercising — even drills that do not require you to take strokes (like swimming laps with a kickboard). that is some thing that can not be carried out with the Swimovate PoolMate stay (which I additionally examined, and which, at $one hundred fifteen plus an additional $35 for the element had to add statistics from the watch to a laptop, is comparable in charge to the Garmin Swim).

The Garmin Swim watch is likewise exceedingly correct, recording the right variety of laps I swam even if my push off the wall become much less than ideal or once I chose now not to do a flip turn. I also appreciated this swim tracker's sleek design and lightweight experience.

I now and again had hassle seeing the face of this watch through tinted goggles, and there has been no choice to increase the comparison of the show. The Garmin Swim also lacks a silent alarm that buzzes your wrist whilst you've completed a sure number of laps or included a positive distance within the pool. The PoolMate live does have a silent alarm, and it changed into considered one of my favorite features of that device.

The Garmin Swim is very lightweight and comfy to put on, both inside and out of the water. I do not usually put on a watch, however i found myself leaving this one on long after i'd left the pool. however, the tool's slim layout does not leave room for the inner motor that permits the PoolMate live's convenient buzzing alarm. I would really like to have that characteristic on the Garmin Swim, despite the fact that it intended coping with a slightly bigger device.

The watchband is product of the equal rubbery plastic you may find on maximum health trackers, and the device's face is made from the same clear plastic used for maximum sports activities watches. whilst I should see the watch face underwater, it wasn't as easy to study through tinted goggles as the PoolMate stay, which has a sapphire face and a superclear liquid crystal display display. but, the buttons on the Garmin Swim are very smooth to navigate in the water, and the watch additionally has a dedicated Swim Mode button, so you do not want to scroll through a menu underwater to start monitoring your workout.

The watch makes use of a ordinary coin battery that may be effortlessly replaced, so there is no want to charge the device. i discovered it simple sufficient to perform different renovation duties at the swim tracker. as an instance, the agency suggests rinsing off the watch with freshwater after each swim, which is some thing you need to likely do with all your swimming equipment anyway. Garmin also recommends storing the watch in a area wherein it might not be subjected to excessive temperatures, that may completely damage the tool. [How to Clean Your Fitness Tracker]

setting up the Garmin Swim is easy. You want to download the business enterprise's software and use the ANT+ stick that includes the tool to pair the watch with your computer. in case you do not have a Garmin connect account already, you should create one on line earlier than you can view your facts. as soon as you've completed a exercise, you plug the ANT+ stick lower back into your laptop's USB port to transfer information wirelessly from the watch to your computer. you may then view your stats online via Garmin join or see everything for your mobile tool using the Garmin connect cellular app.

The Garmin Swim is very simple to apply within the pool, way to a hard-to-pass over feature: a bit blue button with a swim icon on it. You press that button to begin tracking it slow, laps and strokes. you may pause the timer after which restart it to report each interval of your exercise and maintain track of ways lots relaxation you're entering into among each set.

you could even tune drills with the Garmin Swim — a function that's lacking from the PoolMate live. The drill-logging characteristic helps you to document how tons time you spend drilling, as well as what number of laps you swim for the duration of drills. With the PoolMate live, you need to pause the watch during drills, and there may be no option to add those greater laps later.

The Garmin Swim also we could you make a decision which metrics you want to peer during your exercise. which means that, further to seeing records approximately how many laps you've got completed or how long you've got been within the pool, you could create some other display that indicates stats including your average stroke price and tempo. you may create a custom page on the watch itself by means of hitting the menu button and then choosing Swimming. From there, you pick out custom web page after which select the three custom statistics fields that you need to peer on the display screen for the duration of your swim.

The characteristic I dislike the most on the Garmin Swim is the shrill sound the tool makes whenever you begin or forestall the timer in the course of a exercising. I suppose the sound is supposed to reassure you that you did, in truth, press the proper button before commencing from the wall, but for the sake of the man or woman i used to be sharing a lane with (and for my very own sanity), I disabled the alert tone almost at once.

This watch offers swimmers with quite a few records. whether that information is beneficial without a doubt relies upon on the sort of swimming you do. in case you're training for a race or if swimming is your preferred technique of exercise, then the Garmin Swim will provide you with all the information you need to analyze it slow within the water. if you're a recreational swimmer or a beginner, this watch may additionally simply serve as an highly-priced lap counter. (you could purchase a guide lap counter that suits around your finger for approximately $30.)

The capacity to view stats from the Garmin Swim online and on a mobile app could be very handy. I desired to test out my stats on my pc, for the reason that display become larger and less difficult to navigate, but the Garmin connect cellular app also displays records in an smooth-to-study layout, complete with charts, graphs and a exercise precis.

via Garmin join, you can percentage your swimming stats with friends who also use Garmin gadgets.  And on the grounds that Garmin connect is the equal app used to sync data from the agency's other merchandise — specifically, Garmin's health trackers and GPS watches — you could effortlessly see all of your health records in a single place.

just like the PoolMate live, Garmin join does not do a exceptional process of setting the data you spot into context, or offering you recommendation for how to improve. in case you're looking for a swim tracker that also gives some recommendations right here and there, you can need to test out the Moov, a fitness band that could instruct you on swimming, running and boxing. There also are some water resistant health trackers that assist you to document your time in the pool, which include the Misfit Flash and the Jaybird Reign. 

The Garmin Swim counts your laps the usage of internal accelerometers. Its accuracy depends, in part, on whether you put on and use the tool nicely. you will need to ensure the watch suits snugly to your wrist and that you put on it on your nondominant arm. A robust push off the wall and an extended go with the flow at the start of each lap may also assist make sure that the watch counts your laps successfully.

I used the watch while swimming freestyle, backstroke and breaststroke, and did not have any issues with the accuracy of my stroke matter or lap remember. The watch has an automated stroke-type detection characteristic, so it is able to distinguish a few of the 4 fundamental strokes. And in contrast to the PoolMate stay, which can distinguish amongst stroke sorts however does not label them for you in its software program application, the Garmin Swim simply assigns each c programming language a stroke kind. So, if you like to combine up your strokes, you could without difficulty see which metrics follow to which strokes when you're reviewing your information later.

This Garmin swim tracker might not provide correct facts if you're swimming in a pool this is less than 18 yards (16.5 meters) long, in keeping with Garmin. this is much like the PoolMate stay, which simplest tracks laps and strokes in swimming pools measuring 19.7 yards (18 m) or longer. Neither of those watches tracks open-water swims.