FORM swim goggles

I got a pair as an early birthday present. They are pretty impressive tech and the software is done well. They are far better than watches for getting distances and splits correct. You can play around with the settings to minimize the distraction (eg adjust brightness, select what information is displayed). Swimming with these is somewhat like getting a cyclocomputer with cycling. You get real-time feedback about your pace and splits (if you want it) and you get all your repeat times after it syncs with your phone. If you are obsessed with documenting your training, this is a game changer. Based on about a week of swimming with it, I'd say the splits are about 0.5-1 sec slow compared to what I get off a pace clock. After some experimenting, I think I figured out the reason: the stopwatch resets/starts pretty much immediately when you submerge, which is a beat before I push off the wall. I am used to timing my push-offs to coincide with the start of the interval, and the "pace clock" in the goggles were always about a second ahead of the pace clock on the wall. The difference is not a big deal for longer swims, but it is huge for 25s and off-putting for 50s. It is also something that I would think could be addressed by software or firmware update (and maybe even user-settable?) On the other hand... While I am NOT obsessed with documenting my training, I am very obsessed with getting my times on repeats. When I swam in college, for example, I was adept at getting my splits during longer swims by taking a very quick look at the clock (analog!) with a breath into or out of the wall. I don't do that any more, but I do get my time on everything. Even so, the input from the goggles was just too much. I don't need to see my every 25 split in real time and I found myself honestly not enjoying the training as much. When masters swimming at my home pool started back up in the fall (so I no longer had to swim on my own) I stopped wearing the FORM swim goggles. I can see very much appreciating them in the following situations: - if I swim in a place where there is no pace clock, or the pace clock is not visible from one end of the pool. This does happen to me; in particular, in the summer we spend many weekends in a place where I have pool access but no pace clock. I had purchased a PacePal for this purpose, but I can't read it from the other end. The goggles are better and actually cheaper. - if I want to do long distance work where exact pacing is important. I can also see these devices being very useful for people who want to do the USRPT sets to, for example, get exactly 20 sec rest between intervals. You can set them up so that after you finish a repeat, it will display your time from that repeat and start timing the rest duration. You can mentally adjust for the added time (if you also find that the goggles do this for you) to define the times you have to beat for your particular set. Anyway, that's my experience. YMMV.

I got a pair as an early birthday present. They are pretty impressive tech and the software is done well. They are far better than watches for getting distances and splits correct. You can play around with the settings to minimize the distraction (eg adjust brightness, select what information is displayed). Swimming with these is somewhat like getting a cyclocomputer with cycling. You get real-time feedback about your pace and splits (if you want it) and you get all your repeat times after it syncs with your phone. If you are obsessed with documenting your training, this is a game changer. Based on about a week of swimming with it, I'd say the splits are about 0.5-1 sec slow compared to what I get off a pace clock. After some experimenting, I think I figured out the reason: the stopwatch resets/starts pretty much immediately when you submerge, which is a beat before I push off the wall. I am used to timing my push-offs to coincide with the start of the interval, and the "pace clock" in the goggles were always about a second ahead of the pace clock on the wall. The difference is not a big deal for longer swims, but it is huge for 25s and off-putting for 50s. It is also something that I would think could be addressed by software or firmware update (and maybe even user-settable?) On the other hand... While I am NOT obsessed with documenting my training, I am very obsessed with getting my times on repeats. When I swam in college, for example, I was adept at getting my splits during longer swims by taking a very quick look at the clock (analog!) with a breath into or out of the wall. I don't do that any more, but I do get my time on everything. Even so, the input from the goggles was just too much. I don't need to see my every 25 split in real time and I found myself honestly not enjoying the training as much. When masters swimming at my home pool started back up in the fall (so I no longer had to swim on my own) I stopped wearing the FORM swim goggles. I can see very much appreciating them in the following situations: - if I swim in a place where there is no pace clock, or the pace clock is not visible from one end of the pool. This does happen to me; in particular, in the summer we spend many weekends in a place where I have pool access but no pace clock. I had purchased a PacePal for this purpose, but I can't read it from the other end. The goggles are better and actually cheaper. - if I want to do long distance work where exact pacing is important. I can also see these devices being very useful for people who want to do the USRPT sets to, for example, get exactly 20 sec rest between intervals. You can set them up so that after you finish a repeat, it will display your time from that repeat and start timing the rest duration. You can mentally adjust for the added time (if you also find that the goggles do this for you) to define the times you have to beat for your particular set. Anyway, that's my experience. YMMV.