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swimming styles and heart rate detection

joelnx
over 5 years ago

Hi all.

I have two questions for swimmers:

1. Garmin allows HR detection in FR 245 while swimming with the latest sw. Are you happy with the results?

2. FR 245 does not have a gyroscope, only have an accelerometer. So, there is no 3D movement detection. All tri watches of Garmin that supports pool and OW swimming have gyroscope. Is FR 245 successful in detecting swim styles  although it doesn't have a gyroscope?

  • 0 over 5 years ago
    joelnx said:
    All tri watches of Garmin that supports pool and OW swimming have gyroscope.

    Incorrect. The first garmin watch with a gyro was the F5. Nothing prior to that had a gyroscope, and both pool swimming (with stroke and style detection) and open water swimming were available on many earlier models.

  • 0 over 5 years ago in reply to tmk2

    Thank you for correction but this knowledge is irrelevant with my question. Now i correct: all tri watches after f5 have gyroscope.  

    But I still have the same questions. If you have experience with it and share it with us, i will be very happy

  • 0 over 5 years ago in reply to joelnx

    I apologize if I caused any confusion. My point was that gyroscope is not needed for successful stroke/style detection.

  • 0 over 5 years ago in reply to tmk2

    Thank you for your info tmk2. Accelerator may also detect swim styles but a 3D movement detector as in gyroscope would be much more successful. My old tri watch had that and never made a mistake, so i thought gyroscope was better for style detection. Breaststroke, backstroke, crawling, all have different arm movements which are easier to detect with a gyroscope. They must not be so easy to be detected by a 2D accelerometer. Besides, if an accelerator is sufficient, what does the gyroscope do in sport watches?

  • 0 over 5 years ago in reply to joelnx
    joelnx said:
    They must not be so easy to be detected by a 2D accelerometer.

    Accelerometers in Garmin watches are 3-axial. They are very sensitive and more than sufficient for style detection.

    joelnx said:
    what does the gyroscope do in sport watches?

    Generally gyroscopes are used to measure direction change, not arm movement style. A quote from Garmin's website for the F5:

    "In addition, there’s an internal gyroscope to help improve position accuracy (and battery life) in UltraTrac mode."

  • 0 over 5 years ago in reply to tmk2

    Thank you verty much. But Garmin's web page says, if i understand correctly from the diagram and knowledge they give, accelerometer is 2 axial, not 3: 

    https://www.garmin.com.sg/garmin-technology/multi-sensor/

  • 0 over 5 years ago in reply to joelnx

    I'm sorry, but in the link you provided I could not find any details about the accelerometers. Perhaps you refer to the simple animation that shows you the principle of acceleration. I think it's oversimplified, as it shows motion on one axis only. Please note that the animation for the gyroscope shows rotation around one axis only as well. In fact accelerometers in garmin wearables can measure acceleration in all 3 axes. I think even the IQ API gives you access to precise measurements for all 3 axes, and that has been used in 3rd party IQ apps.