This discussion has been locked.

You can no longer post new replies to this discussion. If you have a question you can start a new discussion

Garmin Swim accuracy in data collection

Former Member over 13 years ago

I started using the Garmin Swim on 10 September 2012. Since that date I have accumulated very near 76,000 yards of data which most have never been reported accurately. I have repeatedly contacted Customer Service and their reply just restates my problem. I have asked for Engineering support and have had no further contact from Garmin since making that request. In reading this Forum I see that others have the same issues. What I have not fully discovered is if anyone is actually reading the Connect data. You can only correct the total distance. That is the extent of the allowable change in the user interface on Connect. It is obvious that the error source is the device itself. I can honestly say I would love to claim a Max Speed of 43 seconds per hundred but I couldn't do that as a teenager let alone in my late 50's. Then there are the average 100 times that are impossible. No post manipulation can correct bad data.

My question to the Forum is, what can be done about such poor recording functions and the seemingly "no interest" in effecting a solution or even working with those who can, and do, collect vast amounts of data.

Simply put, the device is only minimumally useful but very unreliable for anything except guessing at your lap count. The downloaded data, given the poor quality of information supplied, is mostly useless.

Does anyone think that Garmin cares enough to correct, or even acknowledge such quality issues?

Swim on, and swim often.
JB

0 nord0296 over 13 years ago

My question to the Forum is, what can be done about such poor recording functions and the seemingly "no interest" in effecting a solution or even working with those who can, and do, collect vast amounts of data.

Simply put, the device is only minimumally useful but very unreliable for anything except guessing at your lap count. The downloaded data, given the poor quality of information supplied, is mostly useless.

That's a lot of yards, nice job! I probably swim about half of that if I can force myself out of bed in the morning enough times each week :)

You could try to edit your data with a tool such as this: http://fitfilerepairtool.info/download/ but if your data is as far off as it sounds, that would take some time.

I've been a lucky one in that my lengths are always counted correctly, the length times can seem odd (I seem to get fast, slow, fast, slow, fast, slow...) but the total time per 100 or 400 should be correct. I think for me the length timing jumpiness is likely caused by my lack of flip turning.

The stroke counting seems accurate (but if I do drills it throws off the overall workout average... no strokes during drills).

When it comes to best 100 yd time I agree that it can be a little odd -- this seems to be a common problem with Garmin Devices. My Forerunner GPS almost always has ridiculous "best pace" numbers in a workout. I think filtering out a good "max speed" is a challenge to truly catch a valid maximum and not use a hiccup of swim data or GPS glitch (in terms of a GPS device).

In general I am happy with the data, but hope that Garmin will address concerns of all of their users.

0 gildenhuys over 13 years ago

Thanks for posting about your concerns. We are aware that some swimmers do experience problems with the Garmin Swim and we are continuing to work on the swim algorithms to try to make the results accurate for all swimmers using this device. The improvements will be released as software updates that you can download to your device. The updates will appear on your Dashboard on Garmin Connect when they are available, I will post on this forum, and you will receive an email if you registered your device on Garmin Connect.

I'm not sure what information you have already received from Support, so I apologize if this is repetition of what you've already been told. There are some FAQs that contain information and tips about length counting accuracy that may be useful to you: http://support.garmin.com/support/searchSupport/case.faces?supportPage=Garmin%20Swim&caseId={41c35e70-facc-11e0-73d0-000000000000}&locale=en_US

If you are willing to post the Garmin Connect link for one of your swims on this thread, along with your specific concerns about that swim, I should be able to comment further.

0 Former Member over 13 years ago

I am having problems regarding distance (length/lap) measurement. It seems to work fine to start with for a few hundred meters but then it almost stop counting/measuring length. I have tried to 'restart', pressing pause and push off from the wall again, but it doesnt always help. I've read the faq but hasnt been able to improve much yet, I am guessing as I am getting a bit weary my strokes are less evident. I am also experiencing problems when meeting pool traffic (which is unavoidable at times), it doesnt seem to recover afterwards even when not in traffic later on..? What is the best way to make measurements work properly again? Pause button, and unpause when ready to push off from the wall again?
Could you tell us something about how the clock is sensing turns/counting the laps?

BTW I am not a pro swimmer, just a technical/scuba diver doing some swimming in the pool regurlarly to stay in reasonable shape..

I also have a question regarding the water resistant rating. The clock says 50m water resistant, and in the manual it says 'avoid pressing the keys under water'. Isnt the 50m rating normally used for watches barely meant to be immersed in water?
I understand that this isnt a divers watch, but I find it strange that a swimmers watch risk drowning if I press the blue swim button below surface to see my current total time or swim to the bottom of the pool 2m depth to pick something up. Any comments?

0 gildenhuys over 13 years ago

Starting with the easiest questions first... The water resistance rating: The watch is designed for surface swimming in a pool and it can handle any underwater swimming you might do in a pool. I'm not aware of any pools deeper than 50 m. As for pressing buttons underwater, that statement has actually been removed from the manuals since the buttons are designed for and can be pressed under the water. Keep in mind that the watch is designed for lap swimming. I can't imagine a use case where in lap swimming you swim down to the bottom of the deepest part of the pool and start pressing buttons, and I wouldn't recommend doing that.

The watch has an inertial sensor that detects the motion of your wrist. The watch detects turns because the motion during a turn "looks" different from the regular stroke pattern of swimming. Since not everybody swims or turns the same way, there are a number of criteria that go into the turn detection. Strong swimmers typically have a pronounced acceleration spike when they push off the wall. All swimmers have a pause between strokes during the turn and/or glide phase. There are also some criteria to keep two turns from being detected unreasonably close together or unreasonably far apart.

The behaviour you describe about the watch stopping counting lengths after a few hundred meters or traffic is very strange. It would certainly help to see the Garmin Connect data from a swim where you had this problem. To be clear, you are still swimming and it is undercounting your lengths? Are you sure the watch is in swim mode (black text on light background) and not paused (reversed)? What stroke are you using when you have this problem? Have you seen this FAQ about lane traffic (http://support.garmin.com/support/searchSupport/case.faces?caseId={08519320-0271-11e2-e8a7-000000000000})? It may help, although typically lane traffic will cause an over-counting because there are stops that occur not at the end of the length. Yes, pressing pause at the end of the length and then un-pausing and resuming swimming is a good idea if you feel lane traffic has confused things.

0 Former Member over 13 years ago

Starting with the easiest questions first... The water resistance rating: The watch is designed for surface swimming in a pool and it can handle any underwater swimming you might do in a pool. I'm not aware of any pools deeper than 50 m. As for pressing buttons underwater, that statement has actually been removed from the manuals since the buttons are designed for and can be pressed under the water. Keep in mind that the watch is designed for lap swimming. I can't imagine a use case where in lap swimming you swim down to the bottom of the deepest part of the pool and start pressing buttons, and I wouldn't recommend doing that.

Some (most?) watchmakers use the 30m/50m/100m ratings as a (silly?) scale to indicate waterresistance, but as long as the Garmin Swim can handle regular pools then everything is fine (the deepest one I swim in has a max depth of 5m). Even better that I can press the buttons (a bit) below surface as well. :)

The watch has an inertial sensor that detects the motion of your wrist. The watch detects turns because the motion during a turn "looks" different from the regular stroke pattern of swimming. Since not everybody swims or turns the same way, there are a number of criteria that go into the turn detection. Strong swimmers typically have a pronounced acceleration spike when they push off the wall. All swimmers have a pause between strokes during the turn and/or glide phase. There are also some criteria to keep two turns from being detected unreasonably close together or unreasonably far apart.

Hmm interesting, I assumed that it was the push off from the wall and the glide phase that made the clock count turns, not the turn motion itself by the wall, my turn is probably a bit uneven/erratic then (and getting worse as I am getting tired). Maybe I should focus more on the turn.. :)

The behaviour you describe about the watch stopping counting lengths after a few hundred meters or traffic is very strange. It would certainly help to see the Garmin Connect data from a swim where you had this problem. To be clear, you are still swimming and it is undercounting your lengths? Are you sure the watch is in swim mode (black text on light background) and not paused (reversed)? What stroke are you using when you have this problem? Have you seen this FAQ about lane traffic (http://support.garmin.com/support/searchSupport/case.faces?caseId={08519320-0271-11e2-e8a7-000000000000})? It may help, although typically lane traffic will cause an over-counting because there are stops that occur not at the end of the length. Yes, pressing pause at the end of the length and then un-pausing and resuming swimming is a good idea if you feel lane traffic has confused things.

Answer to your questions, yes, I'm still still swimming, it is undercounting, and its in swim mode (not reversed display). I am mostly doing breaststrokes (sometimes a bit crawl, no backstrokes).
After pool traffic should I unpause before the wall and then do the turn and push off, or do the turn and then unpause before pushing off from the wall?
Connect data: last swim, new firmware, previous swim, old firmware (looks strange when looking at it now, I'm pretty sure it wasnt paused like that in the middle..)

0 gildenhuys over 13 years ago

Hmm interesting, I assumed that it was the push off from the wall and the glide phase that made the clock count turns, not the turn motion itself by the wall, my turn is probably a bit uneven/erratic then (and getting worse as I am getting tired). Maybe I should focus more on the turn.. :)

I'm not sure I explained the turn detection very well. Sorry! It IS the push off from the wall and a nice, long glide phase that are most important for accurate length counting, though nice turns won't hurt. :-)

Answer to your questions, yes, I'm still still swimming, it is undercounting, and its in swim mode (not reversed display). I am mostly doing breaststrokes (sometimes a bit crawl, no backstrokes).
After pool traffic should I unpause before the wall and then do the turn and push off, or do the turn and then unpause before pushing off from the wall?
Connect data: last swim, new firmware, previous swim, old firmware (looks strange when looking at it now, I'm pretty sure it wasnt paused like that in the middle..)

I can't see your Connect data. You can unlock the privacy settings for an activity using the little padlock icon just above the word "Summary". Please post again if/when you do this and I'll provide more feedback.

As for your specific question related to handling lane traffic, it won't really matter which of those options you choose for unpausing, so do whatever is easiest. I would get to the wall, unpause, then push off.

0 Former Member over 13 years ago

I can't see your Connect data. You can unlock the privacy settings for an activity using the little padlock icon just above the word "Summary". Please post again if/when you do this and I'll provide more feedback.

Public now: last swim (I assumed you had more access than regular users).

0 gildenhuys over 13 years ago

Thank you for posting your data. I can see it now. The most remarkable thing is that there is significant rest time at the end of your swim intervals. Are you pressing Pause as soon as you stop swimming to rest? In Interval 1 there is 2:34 that is shown as resting after 5 lengths of swimming, was that 2:34 actually swimming as well? If you have it for this swim, it would be helpful if you could tell us your true distance (or length count) for each of the intervals. Or if you could send the GC link and truths for some other swim, that would be just as good.

Do you ever rest at the wall for more than a few seconds without pausing the watch?

0 Former Member over 13 years ago

Yes I was pressing pause when resting, no long rests without pressing pause.
BTW I dont do long rests at all when swimming, just for a few seconds a few times during the activity. I dont know why the watch doesnt separate the time in actual pause mode, and time when running but unable to count my strokes..

A lot of details below, probably not interesting for anyone else than ag_swims.. :)

For the same activity as above: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/234373390
In interval 1, the 2:34 part was swimming as well (breaststrokes, no backstrokes at all in this activity). I believe the distance was 225m for interval 1 (and then I took a break by pausing for 33 secs).
For the rest of the acitivity there is a lot of strange lengths. I'm sure no length took a minute, and for sure I did not swim a length in only 17 secs (I'm not that fast). The total length for this activity is about 1400m.

I've been swimming today as well, separated in a second activity after about 9 min to see if that helped counting lengths.

First:
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/236699834
It counted fine for about 100m, then swam 2 min (75m) without counting. Then pause/unpause for 3 secs to 'reset', swam another 100m (shown as 2:38), no distance counted. Then 4 seconds pause/unpause by the wall and 75m swimming. I then pressed stop and save.
Real distance first activity 350m.

Second, new session:
http://connect.garmin.com/activity/236699826
3min 28sec breaststrokes, no counting, 3 sec pause, switched to crawl (shown as int 1), counting is correct (yay! :) ).
Between interval 3 and 4, 2min 12 sec (75m) breaststrokes, no counting, pause/unpause and back to crawl.
Between interval 4 and 6, two new attempts on breaststrokes.
Between interval 6 and 7, another breaststroke attempt.
Interval 7, got fed up :) and swam the rest of the activity by crawling, counting is correct.
Real distance second activity 1050m (or 1100m).

(I've been swimming on and off for years now and I usually swim about 1400-1500m when I do a 35-40min swim).

0 gildenhuys over 13 years ago

A lot of details below, probably not interesting for anyone else than ag_swims.. :)

Well, this is very interesting to me anyway :-) I have sent you a Private Message.