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Pool Swim - how are you getting on?

Former Member over 7 years ago

I got my watch a few weeks ago and went for a swim. Firmware 3.10.
It was like magic! Each time I finished a length it had counted it and added distance. When I got home I could see stroke, SWOLF and distance.
Really good tracking and motivation.

Updated to 4.2
During the swim the distance looked really high. I then realised that it was adding distance as I watched during a rest. It jumped 210m in one go, then I saw the numbers start to count up like a clock!
When I hit save, the distance dropped dramatically and when I looked on Garmin connect the distance and lengths were close to what I did, with some errors.
This means tracking seems to work OK but in activity, display is out.

I then tested in the living room, doing 'fake' strokes!
15 seconds or so to count a length.
All was OK up to 15 lengths, then it shot up to 31. I hit stop and it reverted to 15 again.

Currently rolled back to 3.1 and the 'fake' activity seems to track OK. Not had a chance to check it in the pool yet.

I have filed a report to the Beta team, but just wondered if anyone else is getting good results? I have seen other reports of oddness with recording and am trying to work out what to do....from install firmware to send the watch back!

I hope it's working for you, but I feel like a guinea pig at the moment - here was me thinking the 5 plus would just enhance the 5 and all bugs were ironed out before launch.

Would love to hear other experiences.

0 ic3cold over 7 years ago

Is the watch useful only for crawl swimming or also for breast stroke swimming?
I ask because in my first outdoor breast stroke swimming session there was absolutely no useful gps data recorded.

The watch works for all strokes. In the iphone app, when you look at the set breakdown, it will tell you what stroke you were swimming. If you did a set with multiple strokes (e.g. 200 IM) it will say MIXED, but if you did 400 FR it will say Freestyle. Interesting to note, but on the watch and the Garmin Connect webpage, you can open the set itself and then see a split breakdown by length, including what stroke it picked up. You don't get this in the app :(.

For myself, I find that FR, BK and FLY are tracked accurately. BR sometimes gets tracked as FR for whatever reason. I don't care too much about that, because BR is my worst stroke even when I was competing . I'm more interested in splits, distance and general tracking of the workout. Have not tried open water swim, but I know there are some issues with GPS at the moment. I think the latest Beta has some comments about updates to GPS firmware.

I'm currently running 3.10 on my F5+. For my swim today I added the HRM-Swim, which was cool. Now I get anaerobic and aerobic stats. Strap stayed on well, although I think I had it too loose when I started. Had to tighten mid workout, but just did it on a rest interval.

0 Former Member over 7 years ago

I just found out that I can see strokes for lap on the Android app.
Go to the laps 'tab' then turn the phone to landscape and stroke type for the lap is shown. You don't get detail per lap, so next time I'll try to hit rest when I change stroke.

I also have Aerobic/Anaerobic split data showing, but no HR strap, which is weird.

0 renton82 over 7 years ago

Rolled back to 3.1 and it all went swimmingly (groan!)
Perfect results, worked really well.
I'm waiting to see if this bug is acknowledged and fixed, fingers crossed.

I have some questions to ask you before roll back and lose all data...
1)can you confirm that lengths count works well with 3.1?
2) altimeter bug (slow to react on fast ascend/descent) is solved? Maybe was something related to sensor hub update and even if this version exhibited the bug now is solved
3) does this version suffer post gps activity battery drain?

Thank you!

0 Former Member over 7 years ago

1) Yes, length count was brilliant. So was stroke identification. All tracked well. Only one 1000m swim so far though.
2) Can't comment on this one
3) It doesn't seem to, but battery life is variable and so is my use. It's not the 10 days they advertise but I think I've only charged 4 times and had it about a month now.

0 renton82 over 7 years ago

1) Yes, length count was brilliant. So was stroke identification. All tracked well. Only one 1000m swim so far though.
2) Can't comment on this one
3) It doesn't seem to, but battery life is variable and so is my use. It's not the 10 days they advertise but I think I've only charged 4 times and had it about a month now.

Tank you very much!

0 ic3cold over 7 years ago

Had my F5+ since the end of July. In the last 4w I have swam approx 42,000m. Watched tracked the distance beautifully. Running v3.10.

0 Peter0004 over 7 years ago

I am running the latest 4.2 firmware.
Two swims, 1x2000m and 1x 1750m. Both tracked fine. From past experience I usually expect 5% or so deviation, but not so far.
I was lucky to be swimming in a nearly empty lane, so could get a consistent stroke.
The accuracy is also improved by a strong kick-off at each length. The watch can detect the turns, and I believe uses this to calculate the distance.

All in all I am very pleased with the upgrade from my Fenix 5.

0 renton82 over 7 years ago

I have just tried 4.64b in a pool. Total lengths/distance data fileds seems right now but I noticed another thing. Are interval pace and interval swolf data fiels visible during swimming? I can't see any data until I press lap or stop activity. If I remember correctly, before this update, I could see these data fields (interval pace and interval swolf) while swimming, now I can't until I press lap or I stop the activity.

0 renton82 over 7 years ago

I have just tried 4.64b in a pool. Total lengths/distance data fileds seems right now but I noticed another thing. Are interval pace and interval swolf data fiels visible during swimming? I can't see any data until I press lap or stop activity. If I remember correctly, before this update, I could see these data fields (interval pace and interval swolf) while swimming, now I can't until I press lap or I stop the activity.

I can say that is a bug! My old Garmin Swim display these data field also while swimming! So we can say that they have fixed a bug but they introduced another one!

0 Former Member over 7 years ago

Is the watch useful only for crawl swimming or also for breast stroke swimming?
I ask because in my first outdoor breast stroke swimming session there was absolutely no useful gps data recorded.

Breaststroke is not recommended for Open Water Swimming. Since the watch stays under water the device is unable to get a GPS signal. Some 'Best Practices for OWS' can be found in this FAQ link.