Incorrect OpenWater Swimming total distance and speed

for best performance it comes down to the less time the watch is under water and a longer recovery time, ie more time out of water. 

My up to date dealings with the Fenix 7.

I've had a Fenix 5 for four years and been very impressed so I thought I'd upgrade to the Fenix 7. Expecting greater mapping accuracy, not really necessary but would be nice. I bought the device on 13-08-22, received it on 15-08-22. Initially, I was very impressed. It looked, felt and performed well.

My first Open Water swim was on 20-08-22, it was a new location so I wasn't certain of the course distance. The Fenix 7 measured 1000m, but what was surprising was my pace. I normally pool swim at 1:30min/100m and open water at sub 2:00min/100m, all from historical data recorded on my Garmin account. The Fenix 7 had me at 3:31min/100m for the 1000m swim. I was confident the time was correct and therefore suspicious of the recorded distance. Second swim, same location 1154m measured with a pace of 3:18min/100m. I then checked other swimmers data for the same lake which showed the Fenix 7 to be around 33% inaccurate.

Next step was to swim at a known location with a known distance. I'd swam this lake numerous times and my Fenix 5 measured it, on average at 820m approx. The distance was also confirmed by other swimmers and the lakes owner. The Fenix 7 measured 553m with a pace of 3:23min/100m, again approx 33% inaccurate.

I then searched Garmin Forums for Open Water problems and found numerous occasions of the same problem.

I then contacted Garmin with all the data I had. Their first response was to send out a pre prepared script about GPS inaccuracies i.e. make sure you have a connection prior to starting, swim crawl to ensure watch is out of the water as much as possible, make show your Garmin is on your wrist and not in the boot of your car (sorry, me exaggerating couldn't resist that one).... I confirmed that all these factors were taken care of and that I was using the Fenix 7 in direct comparison to data recorded by my Fenix 5. I gave Garmin access to all my historical data.

I did a bit of checking on the maps and it did not seem to be a problem with the GPS location. This seemed to map my location accurately but the calculation from the GPS data to distance seemed to be at fault. If you search Garmin Forums there is data supplied by smarter people than me that backs this up.

After waiting days and days for Garmin to respond, numerous messages saying 'sorry for the late reply' they said they had 'raised' the problem and that I would be updated. By this time I was getting close to the 30 days return window, so I asked for some reassurance from Garmin that if the watch could be returned, outside the 30 days if the problem was not resolved within a reasonable timescale. They could offer no reassurance and basically confirmed that it needed to be returned within 30 days.

I did like the watch and was loathed to return it but, as my main sports are cycling and swimming, and I have a Garmin Edge 530 for the cycling, it seemed stupid to keep the Fenix 7 when I still had the Fenix 5 which was much more accurate. So it was returned on 12-09-22, for a refund (still waiting for the refund).

In conclusion, if your interested in using this watch for Open Water Swimming, I'd look elsewhere. When I searched Garmin Forums about this problem, I found numerous posts going right back to the release of the product. And when I asked for feedback, users commented that Garmin were well aware of the problem but didn't care about Open Water Swimming. Also, in my communication with Garmin, I was told I would be updated as they looked into the problem. That was 3 weeks ago and still no update! I'd would have loved to have a constructive discussion with Garmin about this problem but it was like there Customer Support are working off pre prepared scripts and are more interested in deflecting problems rather than dealing with them. PS I've been a Garmin user for 10/15 years from watches, cycle computers, car Sat Nav and have always been very satisfied with the products.

I have posted several times regarding this issue and really dont think that Garmin is doing anything about it. OWS distance for me is as good as a random number generator.  Due to various reasons, sometimes it is way short, way long, and if you are lucky, just by chance it may be reasonable.  This started with the F6 and now I guess I can only hope that the F8 will actually do something to improve OWS.

I share the opinion that garmin is not trying to fix open water swimming bug, based on hownlong ago it was reported and no feedback was provided whatsoever.

avikoren1 said:

if you are lucky, just by chance it may be reasonable

It's always the case that those who have a problem, any problem for that matter, appear to stick rigidly to believing that it either affects everyone or those who are not affected are lucky. While others repeatedly have problems with OWS distance etc, there are others who don't. Accept then that  because the problem does not affect everyone it's not an easy problem for Garmin to resolve. I'm back in the water again and getting the same good results from my F7 as I was before I stopped swimming in June.

Vizi said:

I share the opinion that garmin is not trying to fix open water swimming

it is extremely unfortunate if some people struggle to get good OWS results but it's unfair to suggest Garmin are not doing anything about it. I'd hope they are. I believe they are. But it's clearly not an easy fix to remedy the problem for those unfortunate to have the problem. I hope a resolution is reached soon. All I can suggest those affected do is to keep letting Garmin Support know a problem exists as provide them with data to show the problem.

This is a screenshot from today's swim. If you'd care to check back to my earlier posts with examples you'll see little has changed. 

Are there anyone else that doesn't have any problem with OWS ? Just for asking...

You know there are others as you have also posted in the threads where others have presented examples of good swims. I understand being annoyed when things don’t work but this insistence that I am the only one who doesn’t have a problem demeans you. Here’s one of my Strava connections in the UK https://www.strava.com/activities/7860407143. Of course there are others  it beggars belief to believe that of all the thousands upon thousands of Garmin watches sold around the world, that I, and I alone have the only one that works in open water swimming  

As I, and others, have said before, the best way to get to a solution that works is to keep contacting Garmin and submit activity files that show the problem. The more bad data Garmin have the sooner a fix can be presented. 

I start using the watch  for OWS, even though I reported the initial problem in this post. I try to get some statistical evidence.

• Usually the track is logged quite descent.  On the tracks above I only found one deviation of about ?? m.
  
  
• The track is pretty smoothed. This means the track is rounded off and might cut corners. This is what you might expect for OWS. Since there is no satellite reception under water, it losses signal and has to regain it when the arm is above water. If no smoothing is applied, the track would be ragged.
  I have one track (18-09-2022) in which I compared the Garmin to the track logged with my TomTom (without smoothing), attached to the buoy (so excellent reception): The Garmin under reported -8.7% due to smoothing. Next swims I will get some more data on this.
  
  
• I compared the distance reported by the watch/garmin connect to the distance calculated by OziExplorer when importing the track logged in GPX format. What you see normally is 1-3% under reporting of distance (last column).
  I found two occasions in which the watch under reported 27% and 10%. In this situation I attached the watch to my buoy and not to my wrist (these findings were the cause of this post).
  Since I use the work-around of GPX import, this inaccuracy doesn't bother me

Bottomline: I start trusting the Fenix to a certain extent, knowing that it under reports the distance due to smoothing. Maybe I use my good old TomTom on the buoy for OWS.

I use to (front) crawl, resulting in the watch being above water about half of the time. I wonder what stroke you people are using, because I think it is a major factor?

Philipshambrook, I think you are part of the problem and not the solution.  I don't disagree that some people are getting good results from their Fenix 7 watches, but it is also pretty obvious that a lot of people aren't getting accurate results for OWS.  For a £600 investment in a product that claims improved GPS accuracy but then performs worse than the model it replaces is very poor.  I do appreciate that GPS recording is never going to be pin point accurate but customers are entitled to a reasonable level of accuracy.  Either that or Garmin should state in their adverts that the Fenix 7 is good at lots of things but can be pretty poor at OWS tracking!

However, it is not the poor performance for OWS that is the real issue.  The real problem is Garmins decision to ignore the problem and your 'head in the sand' attitude which only distracts Garmin from taking seriously what is a very real problem, for a lot of Garmins regular customers.

There is a 'knee jerk' response to this problem, when reported to Garmin, which centres around how 'dodgy' GPS tracking is in water and that is Garmins default position when the problem is raised.  However, results on here and my own results (all of which I've made available to Garmin) show that the tracking is actually more accurate and it is the distance calculation from the GPS data that is incorrect.  As the pace is calculated from time and recorded distance, this is then incorrect.

I was reluctant to return my Fenix 7 and therefore asked for some reassurance from Garmin that the problem was being dealt with.  As it's pretty obvious from this thread that the OWS problem was reported some 4/5 months ago, I expected Garmin to give me some brief up date of the problem.  But, all I got was a denial from Garmin that there was a problem and this was an unreported issue specific to my watch.  Needless to say, after this direct lie, my watch was parcelled up and returned.  However, Garmin did confirm that they had raised a ticket against my reported problem and said they would keep me updated.  That was three weeks ago and still no update?  This lack of customer support is the real issue and will not bode well for Garmin in the future.  Especially, with the rise of other GPS sports trackers.

If you really want to be supportive of Garmin, maybe your time and effort would be better spent encouraging them to deal with the OWS problem.  There are obviously good watches, that work well and bad watches that don't, out there.  But it is not a good business plan to 'bury your head in the sand' and hope more customers get good ones than bad ones!

I went back to my old Fenix 5 this weekend and was instantly a minute faster in my 100m pace.  The GPS track was not as smooth as previous tracks from the Fenix 7 but the distance calculation and therefore pace, was significantly more accurate.

PS I also have friends who don't have a problem with their Fenix 7 watches but they don't use OWS!  There may be a lot more problems out there which don't come to light as the users are more focused on other sports for which the Fenix 7 performs well.