Rita El Khoury / Android Authority
About two weeks in the past, I placed on my swimsuit and jumped within the pool for my first lap swimming session in 4 years. In lower than one size, it was apparent to me that nothing had modified: I nonetheless knew find out how to freestyle swim (though I used to be instantly out of breath) and Fitbit trackers have been nonetheless completely ineffective at swim monitoring.
I’m at the moment carrying a Pixel Watch and utilizing it to trace my walks, random hikes, and, for the previous couple of weeks, swims. And let me let you know one expertise is just not just like the others. So in case your most popular type of train includes doing back-and-forths within the pool, I wouldn’t suggest you get a Fitbit and I’d warning you towards the Pixel Watch too; there are a lot higher smartwatches for swimming on the market.
Do you observe your swims with a health tracker or smartwatch?
11 votes
The place are the swim stats, Fitbit?
As you possibly can see within the left screenshot above, once I begin monitoring a stroll or hike, I can see loads of stats on my Pixel Watch‘s display screen, from the full distance to the variety of steps, coronary heart fee, tempo, energy, energetic zone minutes, and extra. I may even customise the show setup to solely present the stats I care about. However as the appropriate screenshot reveals, once I begin a swim, all I can see is the elapsed time and, uh, that’s it. Only a stopwatch on the display screen. No laps, distance, tempo, coronary heart fee, or something of the type. A $10 digital watch does the identical factor. Heck, I might merely have a look at the wall clock within the pool and calculate the length of my swim!
A $10 digital watch can observe the length of my swim simply as effectively.
Issues don’t get a lot better once I’m out of the pool and sync my train with my Pixel 7 Professional. The app reveals me what number of lengths I’ve swum and calculates the full distance. These are all the right swimming stats Fitbit deigns to present me. Any seasoned swimmer will let you know that they don’t want a health tracker for that; we already rely laps in our heads and we are able to do the mathematics. Multiplying by 50m or 100m isn’t rocket science.
What we want is tempo, common length per pool size, break length, splits, a SWOLF rating, and all of it clearly organized by swim stroke sort. (I personally alternate freestyle and backstroke and I’m positively sooner on the former). Exhibiting me complete length and distance is opaque and pointless; it doesn’t permit me to match my stats, observe my development, or be taught something attention-grabbing about my present swim. Runners, cyclists, and hikers have it so a lot better with Fitbit.
Even after syncing to my telephone, all I get is complete length and distance. It is pointless.
And sure, there are three different tabs of so-called stats, however none of them imply all that a lot for swimmers. Energy burned get two tabs for some purpose, with a graph that’s mildly attention-grabbing to observe my basic development and relaxation. One other tab reveals coronary heart fee zones, however I doubt they’re correct as a result of, for some purpose, coronary heart fee doesn’t seem like tracked throughout swims. Wait, what?!
The place is the center fee information, Fitbit?
For different train varieties, Fitbit measures and shows my coronary heart fee in an in depth graph. For swimming? Nada. As I discussed earlier, even the energetic minutes don’t seem like correct as a result of it doesn’t matter what I do — swim sooner, slower, or relaxation — all my minutes are counted as “fats burn.” Even my first swim, once I struggled quite a bit, couldn’t breathe correctly, and felt my coronary heart soar out of my chest, was supposedly all spent within the decrease “fats burn” zone. I do know my physique and I’m assured I hit the cardio zone repeatedly and peak coronary heart fee a number of occasions.
Coronary heart fee information is totally lacking when monitoring swims.
It appears to me that, as a substitute of counting on measured coronary heart fee information from my smartwatch‘s built-in sensor, Fitbit is making use of some previous algorithm that appears on the swim’s length and complete distance, then assigns a mean coronary heart fee zone to your entire train, no matter what I’m doing or how intense the train feels to my very own coronary heart.
I wore an Apple Watch on my second wrist the opposite day, simply to see if the Pixel Watch was messing up my zones, and effectively, sure. In accordance with the Apple Watch, I spent over 50 minutes above 149bpm, which ought to qualify because the “cardio” zone on my Pixel Watch. However based on my Fitbit stats, I used to be chilling within the “fats burn” zone almost your entire time. In case you’re questioning, the 2 watches measure the identical coronary heart fee exterior the pool, so it isn’t a matter of considered one of them being defective.
One other fairly telling proof is that coronary heart fee information through the swim is totally lacking from the day’s graph too. Test the screenshots under. I went for a swim round midday on Tuesday, July 25, and Thursday, July 27. Coronary heart fee information is notably lacking throughout these workout routines (identified by the purple arrows), so there isn’t a manner for me to inform how intensely I swam. In any respect.
Fitbit’s swim monitoring is crap, get a Garmin as a substitute
Kaitlyn Cimino / Android Authority
To be honest, this isn’t something new. Fitbit’s swim monitoring has been under par for years. Even again in 2016, once I was testing the Flex 2, I observed that it failed at monitoring any attention-grabbing particulars about swims. Seven years later, it nonetheless does. Fitbit shows the identical stats now because it did in 2016. There ought to’ve been loads of time to enhance these algorithms and supply a greater swim-tracking expertise. Alas, nope.
Fitbit’s swim monitoring hasn’t improved in additional than seven years.
The Pixel Watch’s solely saving grace is the third-party Swim.com app. It measures many of the stats you want and appears correct sufficient. However the information doesn’t sync again to Fitbit and combine with the remainder of your workout routines, leaving you with one other app to maintain your eye on. (No, Swim.com doesn’t assist Google Well being Join.)
That’s why I’d suggest you get one other health tracker in case you’re all for monitoring your swims and bettering your tempo. Garmin trackers are wonderful for swimming and even a fundamental possibility just like the Garmin Forerunner 55 ($199.99 at Amazon) will run swim laps round the most effective Fitbits or the Pixel Watch with excellent data on the display screen, when you swim.
Alternatively, if you need extra apps and smarts, Apple has upped its swim capabilities and the newest Apple Watch Sequence 8 will present all of your laps, swim kinds, tempo, and extra. It nonetheless has some points measuring laps and detecting wall flips, although, in my expertise.
And at last, if you wish to stay sooner or later, the FORM swim goggles ($249 at Amazon) overlay your stats inside your goggles as you swim. I used to put on them once I was ceaselessly swimming 4 years in the past and, though I disliked the slim subject of view, I discovered the expertise of seeing all my stats in entrance of my eyes insanely superior and helpful. It was like having my very own relentless coach, and it helped me push myself and enhance my swim far more than glancing a couple of times at a watch display screen ever might. I nonetheless have it in my backpack so possibly I’ll take it for a spin on my subsequent swim. I simply want Fitbit on my Pixel Watch might come anyplace close to that.
