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Open water swimming on Instinct

Kuba01
over 5 years ago

Hey guys,
has anybody been able to figure out how to make the Instinct be as accurate as possible with open water swimming?
For now i really have no idea how this works.
Before my swim i get GPS signal and get into water - swim various styles - does not matter and all i can see is 0 for distance/speed, etc (obviously GPS does not work under water). When i stop to rest, or finish my activity - with hands above a surface - Instinct starts to slowly catch up - meter by meter a distance is growing. Water only just now got warm here so i have not had a change to test it much - but as far as i can see a distance - even if my break was 5 mins long - never stopped to increase with GPS on - maybe it stops after it catches up, maybe not - i dont know. What if im in rush and need to switch to another activity - how long i need to wait until it catches up. What is my start and stop point is the same place - i think the distance might be 0 meters than..?
Anyways - anybody using Instinct intensively open water? Some tips i should follow to make it as accurate as possible?

  • 0 over 5 years ago

    you have to swim either crawl or back. if you do *** your hands are underwater and gps can't be received under water. as soon as you stop and rise your hand above water instinct tries and fixes a gps signal and interpolate your distance from start point to the end were your gps were received above water. if you swim crawl or back the watch uses accelerometer to recognize when your hand is above water and fixes gps for the next fixed point. by me works everything very well because I swim only crawl. and even then it has some gaps on recording:

    connect.garmin.com/.../3759347278

  • 0 over 5 years ago in reply to mihailstacanov

    Thanks Mihail, that makes sense, will test crawl.
    Good you dont have to keep your ID in your swim shorts these days as i can see you do cross boarder Crawl :-)

  • 0 over 5 years ago

    I stuck the watch under a surf hat while swimming and it picked up some GPS. 

  • 0 over 4 years ago

    Guessing you'll be thinking about swimming outdoors with your Instinct again soon. I've had a few swims with mine and generally had good results. I swim front crawl (freestyle) only.

    This has been typical of the tracks that I get. The main part of the swim is close to 2500m. In this swim there was some playing around at the end. The water was warm so took the wetsuit off and had a bit of a splash around. Point is, if you have a reasonable freestyle stroke the GPS works well. If you breastroke with your arms below the surface for long periods you will not get a good result. 

    As noted, you can out the watch under your swim hat or perhaps tow it behind in a float bag.

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to Dr Phil

    Hi

    good swim .

    how is the GPS accuracy in open water swimming after updates ?

    I watched a few videos ( recorded around 11 months  ago ) and GPS accuracy for swimming was not so good 

    thanks 

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to 1699004

    Im on my replacement F5. After 2 years of back and forth with Garmin about its appalling inaccuracy, they gave me a replacement, due to C19 hitting the world this year, I ve only just got back into open water swimming to test the new one, and its as bad as the original. Inaccurate distance and the map tracking looks like I spend more time on land. WHAT A WASTE OF SERIOUS MONEY, and Garmin of course cant be contacted now without a 30-45 minute wait time. My opinion to anyone asking about buying one would be DONT.

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to Tim7777

    Fortunately my Instinct works pretty well for open water swimming as long as I swim freestyle. And when I swim breaststroke, I put the watch under my swimcap and it works then well too. 

    What can help in case of troubles, is keeping your ephemeris file up-to-date - either having a phone with reliable mobile data near you when you start the GPS Activity, or checking for updates over USB and Garmin Express on a computer before you leave home.

    Another measure that helps with acquiring the GPS position quicker is enabling the GPS+Galileo (or GPS+Glonass) option in the Open Water Swim Activity settings.

    And then, it is also wise to allow for the so-called GPS Soak Time - after you start the OW Swim activity and get the GPS lock, wait some minutes more, before the location gets stabilized, and the watch locks on more satellites. And when you notice the watch stops updating the distance while you swim, make a pause, raise your arm with the watch high above the surface, and wait till the position is correctly acquired and the distance updated.

    If all of that does not help, then you perhaps need to work on your swim style, keeping on mind that GPS cannot not work when the watch is under the surface. Or keeping the watch under the swimcap, as I already wrote at the beginning.

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to Tim7777

    Are you talking about the instinct or the fenix 5? This is the instinct forum