Open Water / Endless Pool Swim App

Former Member over 9 years ago

Would be nice to have a swim app that used stroke length to calculate swimming distance without GPS or counting laps. This could be used for open water swimming as well as for Endless pool swimming. An option that would be useful for Endless pools would be the ability to set (and remember in future swims) the pace as mm:ss per 100 yds or Meters.

Top Replies

K.Tsourinakis over 9 years ago +4

Given that the length of your stroke changes dynamically based on how you are swimming, I don't think it makes any sense to allow the user to specify it. Allowing the user to specify the speed, and then…
darktears over 6 years ago +2

I second the need to have such support. The solution from K.Tsourinakis could be a great start and probably leveraging a lot from the existing support. Please Garmin, consider it.
3457852 over 4 years ago in reply to darktears +1

Yes, that’s needed urgently

All Replies

travis.vitek over 9 years ago

Given that the length of your stroke changes dynamically based on how you are swimming, I don't think it makes any sense to allow the user to specify it. Allowing the user to specify the speed, and then using the elapsed time, and stroke count you can determine the stroke rate and stroke length.

Unfortunately, just because the values cannot be calculated doesn't mean that it would be useful. There is currently no way to insert data in the the .fit file data stream, so if you wanted to get the data into Garmin Connect, you'd have to manually insert it after uploading your swim (just like you'd have to do now).

Travis

Former Member over 9 years ago

Clarification

I was thinking along the lines of the Indoor treadmill apps for running and walking. That the strokes would be counted as a distance measure as are steps in those apps. Not sure how a stroke length algorithm would compare to the step length algorithm in terms of accuracy though.

For the other idea of entering a fixed speed, as in using the Endless pool with it set to a speed, I did not understand your response.. are you saying that if the user specifies his swim speed there is no way to insert that into the data stream to be used for distance calculations, etc?

travis.vitek over 9 years ago

I was thinking along the lines of the Indoor treadmill apps for running and walking. That the strokes would be counted as a distance measure as are steps in those apps. Not sure how a stroke length algorithm would compare to the step length algorithm in terms of accuracy though.

It is my understanding that the run/walk apps use data from outdoor run/walk activities to establish your stride length, and that the values will update when you do an outdoor run/walk. Something similar may already be done for the swimming apps, but that data isn't available to ConnectIQ apps.

For the other idea of entering a fixed speed, as in using the Endless pool with it set to a speed, I did not understand your response.. are you saying that if the user specifies his swim speed there is no way to insert that into the data stream to be used for distance calculations, etc?

I'm saying it is possible to write a swim app to estimate the stroke length and swim distance based on a pre-programmed speed and the detected cadence and elapsed time. That data could be displayed on the screen for you to see, but that would be it. The distance wouldn't be recorded in your device under the total swim distance, and if you uploaded the recorded activity to Garmin Connect, the distance and stroke length that you saw on your device would not appear there either. If you wanted it to be in Garmin Connect, you'd have to upload the activity, then edit it and insert the corrected values.

Travis

Former Member over 9 years ago

Work > important than Speed

Although speed is always sexy, it may not be the most important measure of effort or performance while in the water. Consider that swimming 1 mile against the current is much slower and energy consuming than swimming with it.

However, how about strokes/minute? In my opinion, strokes/minute and the total accumulated number of strokes would be very telling during an open water swim or for that matter on an Endless Pool (where speed is somewhat constant). I would love to see them on an app for my Vivoactive. Any volunteers or partners?

victor_lessa over 9 years ago

Would be great to have something to show swim distance in meters based on stroke rate that come from pool swim that you did in the past with your garmin watch. There is something similar from Suunto in an app way like connectiq is for Garmin.

http://www.movescount.com/apps/app10044264-StrapOn_Pool_(beta):cool::cool:

K.Tsourinakis over 9 years ago

Given that the length of your stroke changes dynamically based on how you are swimming, I don't think it makes any sense to allow the user to specify it. Allowing the user to specify the speed, and then using the elapsed time, and stroke count you can determine the stroke rate and stroke length.

Unfortunately, just because the values cannot be calculated doesn't mean that it would be useful. There is currently no way to insert data in the the .fit file data stream, so if you wanted to get the data into Garmin Connect, you'd have to manually insert it after uploading your swim (just like you'd have to do now).

Travis

It would be very easy for Garmin, to create another activity called "counter current swim" whereby the user could insert the flow rate (which is set and known) in min/100m and Garmin would calculate the total length swam (= time* flow) and also provide the stroke rate...
Why can't you do this at the next update of 920?

darktears over 6 years ago

I second the need to have such support. The solution from K.Tsourinakis could be a great start and probably leveraging a lot from the existing support. Please Garmin, consider it.

Former Member over 4 years ago in reply to K.Tsourinakis

Excellent idea!

3457852 over 4 years ago in reply to darktears

Yes, that’s needed urgently

RBMarch over 4 years ago

I also second this request, since I swim in a small pool tied to a bungee cord, so it is basically the same concept as an endless pool.

Aside from this specific app, I also need the Garmin Connect App on my phone (Android) to allow the creation of Swim Workouts based on time instead of distance, because that is the only way to structure a workout on this kind of pool. Or, if the app estimates the distance based on my swim pace and the workout considers this estimated distance, then this time-based workout would not be needed anymore.