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Not recording number of lengths correctly

Hi all. Since getting my Swim 2 in Dec, I don’t think I’ve ever had a week where it 100% recorded lengths correctly.  Was usually the first swim of the week on a Monday that would be a bit glitchy but remaining swims in the week usually (about 90%)  ok.  I put it down to my poor technique.  This week, since the last update though not one swim has recorded correctly - yesterday for example I swam 2250m and it only recorded 1850, so dropping out about 50m every 500m interval. I am just swimming front crawl in a 25m pool, no tumble turn.  Is it all due to my techinque?  I always try to push off strong at each turn.  

I did find during some swims that it would have gone wrong, but a length or two later would have fixed itself - how does it do that?  I thought that if your SWOLF suddenly went from say 56 to over 100 it would realise something was wrong and try to fix, or am I wrong with that?

Anyway, does anyone have advice or is anyone experiencing the same since last update?

  • It happens to me every day too, but mainly when I swim breaststroke. I don't think I've ever noticed it with crawl no matter if  I do flip or easy turns. But with breaststroke, it tends to steal up to 100 m every 400 m. I try to push off strongly and I usually swim at a regular pace. 

  • I've had the watch a month now and am generally very happy with how it's going. It doesn't get the distance 100% right in the pool but it's pretty close. What I've noticed is the more drills you do, more things like kick with a board  or say swimming with fins and no arm movement is where discrepancies will happen. You can't realistically expect a watch to get this 100% right in those circumstances as it's registering by arm movement and if you have little or none of that then errors may occur. It's easy enough to adjust in the app if the distance is a little out. This morning I swam 5000m but it registered as 5066m with the difference occurring during some drills at the end.

  • StuartW Correct, it won't register lengths without arm strokes. For any kicking with or without flippers, use the drill mode and enter lengths manually.

    Yudhishthira for breaststroke, you will need to push off firmly with arms extended, do an underwater pull, followed by a kick (glide in between all 3), and then surface to start the stroke. It registers well then.

    It definitely isn't perfect given the simplicity of measurement, but usually very good if you are careful.

  • It doesn't track lengths very well at all. I'm a master swimmer with good technique and flip turns with long glide and the lengths are still mostly wrong. Sometimes the lengths aren't displayed in real time so glancing after a turn is mostly useless, unlike my other Garmins. It'll also add the odd length mid lap giving me 13sec average per 100m LOL. If I speed up my stroke rate to 80pm the tracking is a total disaster. This watch was not tested by serious swimmers and I'm assuming the accelerometer is not up to the job.

  • It may depend on your stroke and swim conditions. If you are doing sets with other team members and accelerate or decelerate mid-lap bc of other swimmers in the lane, it will register incorrectly. I am an experienced swimmer and I get 99% accuracy and usually know what causes it to mess up when it happens (e.g., passing).

  • It is not only the Swim 2 that lags lenghts. I tested the Vivoactive 4 and the Venue. Both lag lenghts. It counts zero lengths until I get to the 10th lenght and then it shows 8. Then it gets stuck again on 8th lenght until I am close the 20th. These newer models are a piece of junk for swiming. I have a Swim 1 and a Vivoactive 3 that are 100% accurate. Garming messed up something in the newer models. I think the processor can't cope with all the functions they added and plus count lenghts.

  • @Osasco,

    The problem is, that the "Length" data field is updated only every 9 or something length. This is a bug. I use "Interval length" instead, and everything is fine. There is no problem with the processor capacity.

  • I will set the display to show interval lenght and try it Tuesday. Thank you for the help @PG.

  • I did what you say above and thank you. It worked fine with Vivoactive 4. Only that setting auto rest kept restarting the lengths counter all the time, so left auto rest off and set the display to interval lenghts. Much better now. Thank you.

  • Glad it helped.

    Just now I reported this issue again to Garmin Support, as it seems that they did not touch it since introduced. The weird thing is that I reported the "Length" field issue nearly one year ago. This is a very basic function, and they do not care, or just the report missed the support attention.

    On the contrary they made a new SW version just for correcting the "intensity minutes" miscalculation, what is a flashy but otherways  useless function.