Swimming app for the 230/235/260?

We don't currently support writing custom data to a FIT file, but that's planned for later this year.

Custom data, no. But for a simple swimming app: total average pace, total time, total distance, and perhaps also broken down by the equivalent lap data ...? None of these are custom are they?

There are apps in the CIQ store right now that record runs with this information, and upload as an activity to GC.

All of those are automatically calculated for some activity types. If GPS is enabled, the device knows how far you've gone and the elapsed time, so it can easily determine the average pace, total time, total distance and more. If the device has no way to tell how far you've swam, and without distance it can't automatically determine the average pace, total distance, and the lap data. As Brandon stated, there is no way to communicate to the device (or the fit file) how far you've gone, and without this the data will not make it to the fit file. Yes, you can display it in the app, but as soon as the app throws it away (probably on exit), that data is lost.

Travis

All of those are automatically calculated for some activity types. If GPS is enabled, the device knows how far you've gone and the elapsed time, so it can easily determine the average pace, total time, total distance and more. If the device has no way to tell how far you've swam, and without distance it can't automatically determine the average pace, total distance, and the lap data. As Brandon stated, there is no way to communicate to the device (or the fit file) how far you've gone, and without this the data will not make it to the fit file. Yes, you can display it in the app, but as soon as the app throws it away (probably on exit), that data is lost.

Travis

Appreciate the explanation Travis.

Yes Travis is absolutely right.
With my test app, I can add laps, see the elapsed time for each one, see average speed, etc.
But when saving, only laps and their individual time are saved in the FIT file. Distances (and so speeds) are zeros :(.

What I do after a swim is export the activity from Garmin Connect as a "tcx" file.
I then change the distances manually, and import the new "tcx" file.
I then have a swimming activity with the correct distance, laps, times, speeds, ...

I hope we will shortly have the opportunity to write things like "distance" to the FIT file! :D

This is one main reason why I've not ported my apps for swimming. I really don't swim well and the native app will screw up distances due to my inability to swim straight/smooth. And the laps don't work well either on the native app due to this. Essentially having to press the lap key 2x at the wall to denote a new lap.

Yes Travis is absolutely right.
With my test app, I can add laps, see the elapsed time for each one, see average speed, etc.
But when saving, only laps and their individual time are saved in the FIT file. Distances (and so speeds) are zeros :(.

What I do after a swim is export the activity from Garmin Connect as a "tcx" file.
I then change the distances manually, and import the new "tcx" file.
I then have a swimming activity with the correct distance, laps, times, speeds, ...

I hope we will shortly have the opportunity to write things like "distance" to the FIT file! :D

Hello Florian.
Do you plan to make your test app available ? I would love to use it, even if the values are only displayed and not recorded.

I recently bought a forerunner 235. Love everything about it except that it will not track swimming. I am contemplating returning it and buying the vivoactive so I can get the swimming function. Should I return my forerunner for the vivoactive? If there was a way to add a swim lap that would track laps that would be fantastic. I would definitely pay to have such an app. Any app coming out?

I recently bought a forerunner 235. Love everything about it except that it will not track swimming. I am contemplating returning it and buying the vivoactive so I can get the swimming function. Should I return my forerunner for the vivoactive? If there was a way to add a swim lap that would track laps that would be fantastic. I would definitely pay to have such an app. Any app coming out?

have you checked this one?
https://apps.garmin.com/de-DE/apps/b14a4e1b-baf3-4371-98ca-23afd94009c4
if you are missing some metric, you could contact the developer. he might want to implement it. he has a premium version of the app, so new feature ideas might be interesting for him.

have you checked this one?
https://apps.garmin.com/de-DE/apps/b14a4e1b-baf3-4371-98ca-23afd94009c4
if you are missing some metric, you could contact the developer. he might want to implement it. he has a premium version of the app, so new feature ideas might be interesting for him.

Thanks for the reply. I recently downloaded the trail version but forgot to use it yesterday with my swim... Stupid... App looks good but I'm not sure it will count my laps as I swim. Has anyone tried it for swimming?

The problem with swimming is LOTS.

I have detailed it (I think) in this thread perhaps a few pages back.

1) Apps can do lap counting (not auto) unless developer do some magic with accelerometers and this would (i beleive) need a lot of fine-tuning which Garmin spend years doing
2) even if you do manual lap counting - it's stupid, yuou can't write that data into teh FIT file and thus once uploaded to Garmin Connect, you get a bunch of time only. no laps. no distance.

So, at this time, Swim app can be done, but doing it solves nothing. Else i would have done one for my own use (cos I swim like a clown and i can't get correct distances and I wish to do manual also i can't cos many issues w/ internal garmin how they detect things and my clown swim.

:-p