My Garmin swim watch bit the dust. (Warning to anyone who has one - make sure the back is really snapped down after you change the battery or it will get water inside...like mine did!) I really enjoyed having this as a tool to keep track of what and how I swam at each workout. But I'm debating replacing it with the Swimovate Poolmate Live...which appears to have an option for open water swimming. Has anyone used either of these watches, or both, and have an opinion to share?
I have the Swimovate, never had a Garmin, so I can't compare. The only way one uses it for open water is simple chrono mode like a run watch. It can't measure distance, stroke length, efficiency, etc. unless it first knows the length of the pool.
The Garmin Swim is a very good watch for pool swimming. I have had one for several years, and the battery lasts over a year. But if you want something for open water swimming, you need a watch with GPS and open water mode. Open water mode simply uses a different algorithm to filter the raw GPS given path, which can be very noisy, as the arm is more than half of the time underwater. I have a Garmin 920XT, which supports both pool and open water swimming. It used to be an expensive triathlon watch, but it seems to be on sale now and you can get it for $200. DCRainMaker has a website with very good triathlon gadget reviews, including some swimming watches. It also has pointers to possible discounts, sales etc.
I have both a Garmin 920 XT (a GPS triathlon watch with swim function) and a Swimovate Poolmate 2 (has OW mode) - not exactly the same models you list but many of the same features. You really have to get a GPS capable watch for accurate OW data. Garmin & Suunto being the main options. Without GPS, OW mode is just an estimate based on stroke count. The varied water conditions of OW can change your stroke efficiency too much for stroke count alone to be meaningful. Both brands will accurately count lengths in the pool sharing the same limitations - they require strong push off from the end, can get fooled if you stop mid way or change strokes. Garmin is way more expensive but offers much more data as well as customizable data screens. The swimovate is much cheaper, but basically just counts laps. The other advantage of the swimovate is that it is much smaller on my female wrist. I started with the Swimovate and have since passed it on to another family member who only needs to count laps. If you aren't interested in spending the $$ for GPS triathlon watches, then best just to give up on OW mode and just pick a pool watch that has the features / price you prefer. One other option for OW that I have heard of is to put a GPS running watch in the swim cap, but that assumes you already have one.
Has anyone yet tried the Swimmo (http://www.swimmo.com/specs/) and, if so, can you make any comments about the accuracy of the heart rate monitor functionality? I really don't want a swim watch for anything other than 'instead-read' heart rate, but I've not yet found one that works.
I'd be interested in any Swimmo reviews as well. Holding out on a purchase until I can read more about it; it seems to have all of the features I'm interested in, but I'm not sure how accurate or durable it is.
I have a Garmin 735XT - has running, biking, tri, pool, and open water options, plus other apps to add (hiking) - and I really like. It charges via a USB cord, so no battery changing :)
I'd be interested in any Swimmo reviews as well. Holding out on a purchase until I can read more about it; it seems to have all of the features I'm interested in, but I'm not sure how accurate or durable it is.
Hi, I went ahead and bit the bullet and ordered the Swimmo. I did so because I do a lot of long distance swimming and found my mind wandering and losing track of my laps. When it worked, it was generally pretty good - it tracked laps fairly accurately. It displayed the distance and time pretty closely (I still rely on the pool clock as the Swimmo doesn't have a very good stop feature (you have to double tap it hard with your fingernail and there is a delay, so you can't be sure it stops. I usually had a 10 to 15 second lag, which is workable.)
The problem is that it was very difficult to charge. It came with a loose USB cord and when I used a better quality cord, I was sometimes getting a charge. However, there is no way to be assured the device is charging - there is a battery icon that flickers on initially, but I soon found that didn't mean the watch was charging. I would plug it in and see the icon and put it on the next morning only to find that it hadn't charged. A few times, when I plugged it in, the battery actually drained overnight. For the past week, I have not been able to get it to charge at all. I am going to return the watch.
Some other notes -
it doesn't yet track open water swims or the treadmill pools; although the company indicated they hoped to upgrade the software to do this in the fall of 2018.
It does track beats-per-minutes while you swim. I'm not sure how accurate it is. My resting bpm is pretty low (in the 40 range) and the device generally showed my resting heart rate at 10-20 bpm higher. Yet, my workout rate seemed kind of low for me. That is the highest I could get it to register was about 100bpm, but I'm sure my heart rate was higher.
As I said, I like to do long swims without stopping. Since I'm in a 25 yard pool, that means 200 laps for a 5000 yard swim (yesterday). The watch has a nice feature that buzzes you at the 25%, 50%, and 75% point (and also at the 100% point, if you select that). However, for a long swim that's almost too far. So, I found I will do several 1000 yard or 2000 yd. swims for a more frequent "buzz."
Unfortunately, you cannot adjust the watch directly, but have to go through an interface on your cell phone. So, you program your available workouts before you get to the pool and then select the appropriate distance when you turn the watch on and start swimming. And you have to start right away - the clock starts immediately.
Similarly, you can only make alterations to the cell phone interface if your Swimmo watch is near by and actually has power. You cannot program the cell interface without a working watch.
As I understand it, there are plans for a future workout interface. I'm not sure how this would work.
There are other features which I haven't gotten to try out - pulse, pace, etc. These might be nice, but the learning curve was steep for me with the power problems, so I just stuck to distance training.
So, overall, I was disappointed in the watch. Perhaps I just got a bad watch, but (judging from the poor customer service), I think there may be a lot of other users who might have the same problem.
I'll probably go back to using the clock to keep track of my distance.
I'm interested to hear if anyone else has had a better experience.
Yeah, I found out how accurate the swimmovate open water mode is tonight. It tells me I went 225 yds in 57 minutes and even though it was 2 loops around a big triangular course in a lake, the watch says I did 9 laps.
