Extremely inaccurate swimming pool tracking by epix gen 2

Guys, my technique is not perfect of course. And I'm not opposing that) And thank you for a detailed answer. 

Maybe I would accept that answer if only if I haven't had another experience with much simpler watches that gave me correct tracking.

Basically what you are saying - that I'm not fit for the garmin, which is ridiculous both from the standpoint of consumer and producer.

BTW I'm not that bad at swimming - the tempo of the session was mainly a coach's directive, please stop making that as an argument. 

maxLufter said:

Basically what you are saying - that I'm not fit for the garmin

No, I would put it the other way around. Garmin - while perfectly fine for some - is no good for you.

if coaches directive to swim too slowly for Garmin auto lap tracking then as stated use the drill feature as that is effectively what you are doing and why that is built in. So it doesn't count laps and then you just add the distance later.

Here is some updated comparison from today's swim session. There were no exercises, just a plain freestyle swimming, just a couple of stops to correct glasses position. 

Autorest was set to ON.

Surprisingly both watches recorded the same 1700m distance, which is a bit of relief to the previous experience. 

Still, amount of strokes recorded differs by 10%, as well as tempo and average stroke measurements. And in this case it's hard to tell which measurements are closer to the truth. 

Sorry to hear that. I have an Epic 2 and have been swimming with it for a year regularly. 5-6 days a week in a 25 yard pool. I do intense workouts broken into varying intervals for 2500-3500 yards a day - about 15k per week on average. 

I am happy with the lap count. I swim varying 25, 50, 100, 200, 300+ reps and count in my head as my watch counts (I can also add up the distance for the workout).

Most of the time, it is accurate. When I dive in to start, I kick underwater for 15-25 yards, so this throws off the count. 8 can add that extra lap when I edit the workout.

I do wish that there was an easy way that it would account for kicking sets. I have to add the kicking yardage in after the workout and I'm sure it throws off my pace. Also wish that the watch would figure out when I'm reating between sets (pretty easy because I'm stationary) and factor in the interval without having to stop and start. That is a pain on hard, fast sets with little rest 

Definitely could be improvements made for the swimming but this watch is clearly made with the runner/cyclist in mind. 

I've little to complain about when swimming in the pool or the open water with the watch too. Rarely lose lengths so distance tracks fine.

Paddy Mc said:

I do wish that there was an easy way that it would account for kicking sets. I have to add the kicking yardage in after the workout and I'm sure it throws off my pace

You can switch to Drill Mode for kicking sets. Do the set then add the distance, then switch back.

Paddy Mc said:

Also wish that the watch would figure out when I'm reating between sets

The watch can also be set to Auto Rest. However, I have found that there is usually a small delay when stopping and restarting. Not much, but enough to skew data so I disable that option. 

Thanks for the reply. I will give the auto rest setting a try. As for going to drill mode, I may try that. There is not normally much time between sets and I like talking to teammates or catching my breath during that time. 

Cheers! 

Garmin says explicitly you should use drill mode if you swim in any other style than the 4 official competitive stokes. You should definitely use it for kicking sets. The drawback is you have to enter the length yourself. But it's better than having the watch count it wrong. 

support.garmin.com/.../

maxLufter said:

Surprisingly both watches recorded the same 1700m distance, which is a bit of relief to the previous experience. 

Still, amount of strokes recorded differs by 10%, as well as tempo and average stroke measurements. And in this case it's hard to tell which measurements are closer to the truth. 

10 month old reply, but here it is...

If you average 17 strokes/length and you wear one watch on the left arm and the other on the right arm, you could easily be out by 10% depending on which arm you start pulling with and which arm you reach to touch the walls with (I'm assuming you're doing open turns based on your speeds).

The 46:24 in "moving time" on your Epix would be used to calculate the pace 2:44/100m. You're other watch used the "total time" (48:27) to calculate the 2:51/100m pace which would be comparable to the Epix "total time" of 48:37 and pace of 2:51.5/100m.  Garmin watches like fast starts, turns, and stops if using Autorest. A slow turn may trigger Autorest and pause the watch for a second or two. 68 lengths x 1.5 seconds is close to the difference between your watch's "moving time" and "total time".  My recommendation if you're going to swim long, continuous swims is to disable Autorest. (or speed up your starts/turns )

Paddy Mc said:

I do wish that there was an easy way that it would account for kicking sets.

Once you practice using Drill mode it's fairly easy to switch to and use. If you like talking and aren't too fussed about tracking your kick set times and rest times, then don't track each repeat. Just start the drill and end the drill recording say a 200m set instead of 4x50m repeats.