Poolmate watch

Sorry for the delay with my review. I went to swim on Friday and found the pool at my gym overrun with a youth swim team (actually, that's not a bad thing). Saturday I swim Open Water practice and the watch does not work in that environment. Sunday, is my rest day and Monday I have a swim class, which didn't give me any time to really try it out. So.... to make a long story even longer, :D I used the Pool-Mate during my Masters workout this morning and couldn't be happier with it! Some highlights: Very accurate - My coach keeps count of our yardage on a white board during our workouts and the total on my watch matched her numbers exactly. I can pause between swims - Another swimmer in my Masters group has a similar watch by Oregon Scientific that does not allow him to pause. If he stops for more than 30 seconds, it resets. The Pool-Mate does not do this. All you need to do is press a button to pause and when you're ready to resume swimming, press it again. It provides stroke count - Yay! No more counting strokes! It provides stroke efficiency - What a cool piece of information! I have been working hard to retrain myself in the High Elbow/Early Vertical Catch technique, and having this feature has given me instant feedback that I'm doing the right thing. Stroke efficiency is based on the Swim Golf method (new to me) which breaks down to distance travelled per stroke and time per stroke. less than 30 - Excellent-Professional Athlete 30-40 - Very Good (I consistantly swam 38) :) 40-50 - Above Average 50-70 - Average more than 70 - Below Average Easy to program - The only time I refer to the user's manual is to better understand what each feature is capable of doing. I have owned quite a few sports watches and the Pool-Mate is by far the easiest to program. There are two slight drawbacks: It is recommended that you do not dive with the watch as it may drive water into the case, which will kill the electronics. You cannot press the buttons while underwater. Not really a problem, as I don't see myself needing to do this. In all, I am very glad I made the purchase and look forward to many happy laps using my Pool-Mate.

Sorry for the delay with my review. I went to swim on Friday and found the pool at my gym overrun with a youth swim team (actually, that's not a bad thing). Saturday I swim Open Water practice and the watch does not work in that environment. Sunday, is my rest day and Monday I have a swim class, which didn't give me any time to really try it out. So.... to make a long story even longer, :D I used the Pool-Mate during my Masters workout this morning and couldn't be happier with it! Some highlights: Very accurate - My coach keeps count of our yardage on a white board during our workouts and the total on my watch matched her numbers exactly. I can pause between swims - Another swimmer in my Masters group has a similar watch by Oregon Scientific that does not allow him to pause. If he stops for more than 30 seconds, it resets. The Pool-Mate does not do this. All you need to do is press a button to pause and when you're ready to resume swimming, press it again. It provides stroke count - Yay! No more counting strokes! It provides stroke efficiency - What a cool piece of information! I have been working hard to retrain myself in the High Elbow/Early Vertical Catch technique, and having this feature has given me instant feedback that I'm doing the right thing. Stroke efficiency is based on the Swim Golf method (new to me) which breaks down to distance travelled per stroke and time per stroke. less than 30 - Excellent-Professional Athlete 30-40 - Very Good (I consistantly swam 38) :) 40-50 - Above Average 50-70 - Average more than 70 - Below Average Easy to program - The only time I refer to the user's manual is to better understand what each feature is capable of doing. I have owned quite a few sports watches and the Pool-Mate is by far the easiest to program. There are two slight drawbacks: It is recommended that you do not dive with the watch as it may drive water into the case, which will kill the electronics. You cannot press the buttons while underwater. Not really a problem, as I don't see myself needing to do this. In all, I am very glad I made the purchase and look forward to many happy laps using my Pool-Mate.