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Vivoactive 4 not counting swimming lengths correctly during activity

2599095
over 3 years ago

I just recently upgraded from a Vivoactive 3 to 4. The software on my new 4 is at the latest 6.3.0 version. I've noticed that when swimming it doesn't actively count the lengths correctly in the 25 yard pool I use, sometimes the lengths update while I'm actively swimming but usually after several laps and even then it's several behind the actual number.

I generally swimming something like a 20 lap series of 14 front-crawl laps and then 6 ***-stroke laps three or four times. The distance measured when I pause to rest between series is usually off by about 50 yards, which isn't a big deal. The main annoyance is that sometimes I'll forget which lap I'm on and have to look at the watch. My Vivoactive 3 was always able to correctly count which lap I'm on unless I did something weird with my left (watch-wearing) hand during a lap.

When I finish my activity I can see that the average time per 100 yards is generally off by a full minute but it will usually quickly get corrected to the proper lengths I swam. For example it will say 3 minutes per 100 yards on the screen before saving the activity, then on the activity review screen and when my phone gets the push notification it correctly says 2 minutes per 100 yards. In other words in the end it DOES correctly count lengths. However, the whole reason I bought a Garmin watch was so that I don't have to actively keep count in my head while swimming, often times I'll usually forget if I'm focusing on my breathing real hard.

Is there anything I can do to properly calibrate the watch to correctly show which lap I'm on? I'm mostly irritated that I spent money to upgrade from my Vivoactive 3 to now have a watch that's less helpful.

  • 0 over 3 years ago

    Probably no because it depends on Garmin software and usage (swimming technique, unecessary hand movements, etc).

    My friend used Vivoactive 3 for almost years for swimming constantly and it performed very well for more than a year but after some software update in started miscounting laps by huge margin (very big errors).

    Nothing she did helped (in terms of resetting, factory reseting, tweaking settings, etc). She is almost professional swimmer so the cause is not change of swimming technique or similar user related potential issue. I imagine that the same problem is with Vivoactive 4, because they probably share same algorithm for swimming.

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to Vizi

    I think the watch counts the lengths based on compass direction. Kicking off from the end of the pool with arms stretched forward, the compass direction changes 180 degree every time you turn. This is what the watch tries to count. Looking at the data after a swim, it seems correct for my pool sessions, but I also had a feeling that the number indicated on the screen while swimming was sometimes wrong.

    I have the same feeling when running in forests. The indicated speed is too slow, but looking at the data after the run, it seems correct.

    Maybe there is some error correction done in post processing of the activities?

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to ovekvam

    As I explained, there are users who do not have proper measurement on the watch. This is not post processing issue, but watch measurement issue. And that issue was not present before because the watch was very good at measuring for some time. Then suddenly, it is not any more. 

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to Vizi

    I was not saying it was a post processing issue, but that the strange values I saw while swimming were gone when I looked at the activity log on Garmin Connect afterwards. Like it had been corrected in post processing. 

    On my old Vivoactive HR, the current distance while swimming seemed to be more correct, but there were always some lengths that were counted wrong. It was easy to see in the activity log, since the swimming pace was way off for those lengths. Now it is the opposite way. No faults to see in the log, but current distance while swimming is sometimes off.

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to ovekvam

    As I said, this is issue of incorrect measurement (lap count) on the watch. 

    In case of user (experienced swimmer that I mentioned earlier) values at the watch are shown in Garmin Connect (as it should be). Correct value of laps is nowhere to be found. And these are quite significant discrepancies (not just 1-2 laps). 

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to Vizi

    Mine just stopped measuring distance, period.  Timing is correct but distance shows zero.   It's within the return window at Amazon, so back it goes.