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Forerunner 965 swim issues

2074927
10 months ago

I’ve been using the Forerunner 965 for my swim workouts, and overall, it’s a great device (I am a new Garmin user). However, I’ve noticed a couple of areas that could use improvement:

  1. Editing Swim Lengths After Activity:

    • Currently, there’s no direct option on the watch itself to edit the swim distance after ending an activity.
    • It would be incredibly helpful if we could adjust the swim length directly on the watch, rather than relying solely on Garmin Connect.

  2. Distance Accuracy:

    • The Forerunner 965 occasionally overestimates or underestimates swim distances, especially in 25m pools.( although I follow tips from garmin)
    • Could there be a way to fine-tune the distance tracking algorithm or provide better calibration options?

  3. Personal Records (PRs) Update:

    • When the watch overestimates the distance swum, it registers a new, incorrect personal best (PR) in the app.(distance and tempo)
    • It would be great if PR updates could happen automatically without manual intervention, now you have to edit activity manually and only way to set new personal best is thru web Garmin connect
  • 0 10 months ago

    On Distance Accuracy (effectively Lap count accuracy) The main thing is to focus on your push off in the turns so that the number of lengths is (close) to correct. I normally get it with one length.

    After many swims on a 25m pool, I've been using a small pool where I am at the mo and doing a circular lap with a Push off at end each loop and It works remarkable well if my push off is forceful.

    Other thing is not to dilly dally in the middle of a length :-)

    I had problem with it recognising my backstroke so I look at some techniques on YT and after a small change to my arms movement for backstroke it detects it perfectly.

    I have found this site very useful for correcting strokes after the fact

    https://www.swimmingwatchtools.com/

    I appreciate you wanting everything on the watch or even more functionality on GC sites , but sometimes parties that focus only on software have many more functionalities so I have learned to use what makes the end result what I am looking for.

    Same with Running Activities etc , the use if Fit File Editor helps to address some errors etc

    Enjoy the 965

     

  • 0 10 months ago in reply to S.M.R.

    Thank you for your comment but I think you missed my point on software issues that are annoying that can easily be fixed - rather than looking for workarounds iit should be fixed at source

  • 0 10 months ago in reply to 2074927

    I am aware of what you are saying , We can hope that will happen ...over the past 20 plus years of using a Garmin its definitely improved and hopefully your ideas will also work through.

    But in the meantime there are resources that can be useful, so I was pointing you to those, to be helpful.

    You should log ideas here also

    www.garmin.com/.../

  • 0 10 months ago in reply to S.M.R.

    Thank you for sharing! I was not aware of this I will definitely send my feedback there

  • 0 10 months ago

    I have these nifty FormSwim goggles, and my FR965.
    the goggles display pace, distance and such for each lap.  In the maybe 20 times that I've used them  both together, the Form goggles have nailed every lap.  My FR965 hasn't completed a single full workout without error.  it gets most of the laps right, but often adds or subtracts a lap from sets.  

    I'm a decent swimmer.  Generally good stroke.  decent pace, about 1:15-1:30 per 100.  Even if I do a good flipturn and solid pushoff for every single lap... it still messes up.  Sometimes it loses a lap, telling me I've swam 225 instead of 250m.   And sometimes it adds a lap. Yes- it even added a lap to a 50 and called it a 75.  like, how could it mess that up?

    I DID NOT HAVE THIS PROBLEM WITH MY FENIX 6 PRO

    is this something we should call Garmin Support about?  or, is it just as good as it will be.  like- I don't expect accurate HR when swimming.  (although the FormSwim goggles are pretty good for that)

  • 0 10 months ago in reply to morey000

    I called support with my Swim issues a while back (late in 2023) .. there is no harm in doing that I guess.

    It can be that the watch has a hardware error , although its likely the way the programming is done that is causing the misinterpretation. It seems sometime the way things are calculated changes across device generations (for no good reason), look at the OHR issues recently as a prime example. Too many things seem to get broken when they dont need to be messed with these days.

  • 0 10 months ago in reply to S.M.R.

    did Garmin Support help in any way with your swim issues?

  • 0 10 months ago in reply to morey000

    Just the normal suggestions as they have in their support note.  as mentioned. a small stroke change definitely helped my stroke recognition ad concentrating on how I did my first length (I often got that split in two) and on the push offs resulted in far less errors for me ,,,maybe 1 length of 25 m out on a 1km session.

  • 0 10 months ago

    I had the original garmin swim watch and then the Vivoactive 3 and now the Forerunner 965. I have been swimming with them for the last 10 years and I find they all worked similarly. Maybe I have gotten used to the shortcomings and adapted to suit the algorithms, but I find it to be accurate for my distance 95% of the time. I typically swim 2-3 sessions a week of about 1.5km and it maybe adds/subtracts 1 lap around 1 in 20 sessions, and I can typically identify that when there was an error I interrupted my normal because someone talked to me or I was sharing a lane or something. I am nothing special as a swimmer and consider beating 2min/100m an achievement, and I don't look at any other info other than distance, but it does the job for me. 

  • 0 10 months ago in reply to vosadrian

    My workouts are typically about 2000-3000m.  In each session, it adds or subtracts a lap one or more times.  I’ve never had it be perfect. or- if I have, it’s pretty rare.  I’ve just lived with it as it doesn’t really matter.  But- what got me more annoyed is that my FormSwim goggles always get it right.  So, how can this watch, with all of its processing horsepower and 15 years of legacy data not beat a startup goggle company?