GPS watches for tracking distance and time of open water swims

I would like to invest in a Garmin to track my open water swims. There are so many models, I thought that I would open this thread to see which one is favored by forum members. Thank you for your input.
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I wish I had a 910xt. I use a Garmin 205 for open water. It's not supposed to be waterproof, but I haven't had a problem. I put on a silicone cap, then my goggles. I anchor the Garmin straps under my goggle straps, buttons pointing up. Then I cover the whole thing with a latex cap. I turn the Garmin on before I strap it on. I hit start when I start, and I hit lap before and after every feed. If you don't hit lap, it's very difficult to get split information.
When you're finished swimming, you have to turn the Garmin off. If you just hit stop, the timer stops, but it maps your route home.
It takes some practice to get used to hitting the buttons while it's on your head. Aside from the waterproof issue, wearing on your head captures a more accurate route.
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For lap swimming I use a Swimsense. FINIS replaced it after about a year when the digital display started flickering. On both the replacement and the original, I've had problems docking with the computer. Agree with others that the quality of construction on the Garmins is higher... though I've heard from some tri friends that the Swimsense is more accurate at stroke counts & lap counts, compared to the 910xt. That could change with future firmware upgrades...
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I never had one replaced for the docking issue. I could always get around that by pressing it in very firmly and holding all four corners until it showed up. The replacements have been for more serious issues. They start to leak a little, and then they freeze up while you're swimming. On my last one, the auto pause feature didn't work right.
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With the Garmin on the head you can set the time and distance alert it to 'Buzz'. ie 500m and 15minutes with different buzzes, kinda fun. Be warned when i first wore it and it Buzzed i jumped out of my skin, - one hell of a fright. Have tried to get the HR strap to pick up, alas failed. Side benefit of GPS tracking is checking out how direct you are swimming. helped me on that front. all in all a winner
I find my 910xt has been bang on in pool workouts for distance and stroke counting. However, when I'm sprinting free, it has been known to record those laps as butterfly laps... probably stroke problems vs the garmin.
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http://notdrowningswimming.com - open water adventures of a very ordinary swimmer
We bought a new computer (Dell) which has Windows 8. I've plugged the thumb drive (ANT+) into a USB 2.0 port (computer said not to plug it into a 3.0). No matter what I do, it cannot find my device.
I've restarted several times. I've also checked and the drivers are all updated.
Ideas?
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http://notdrowningswimming.com - open water adventures of a very ordinary swimmer
Please join the Lake Issyk Kul Swimming Federation on FB!
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It can take a few minutes to find a signal, so turn it on when you start getting undressed. It's better than hopping around at the waters edge in the freezing cold waiting for the LED to go green.
I would recommend it.
Finis doesn't really have good build quality, I ditched my swimsense for a garmin swim when it broke and have been very happy (and very much like having all my data in one place since I was already using Garmin for GPS).
http://notdrowningswimming.com - open water adventures of a very ordinary swimmer
My sense is that the distance tracking is more accurate when it is under your cap. I've not done any studies to confirm that though.
http://notdrowningswimming.com - open water adventures of a very ordinary swimmer
I rarely use it in the pool - pretty much only when I'm in a 25y pool without an easily readable clock and I'm planning to swim something longish (i.e. where I'm at risk of losing the lap count in my head). I find it will occasionally miss a lap, but that's easy to spot when looking at the activity later. The stroke identification leaves something to be desired. It gets freestyle right, but almost always thinks my butterfly is freestyle, and sometimes confuses breaststroke and backstroke. This could be due to poor form on my part, although I'm confident my strokes are at the very least legal. But Stroke ID is more of a gee-whiz feature to me. I know what stroke I did and will get it right when I enter my workout in my spreadsheet.
I was wondering if there's a watch that can do all or most of the following:
- count laps (25 and 50 meters) reliably
- stopwatch with automatic restart at set intervals ( for sets of 50s, 100s, etc.), preferably with a start beep
- measure water temperature
- allow GPS tracking / measure distance swum in open water
- measure heart rate (preferably without a chest band, but from the pulse in one's wrist ( not even sure this exists?))
- measure (average) stroke rate
Is there a watch doing all or most of these things?
I'd be grateful for your recommendations, advice, experiences, links, etc. so I can tell Santa!
Milko
(I know swim watches have been discussed on the MSF in bits and pieces in various threads, but I haven't found the info I am looking for, so launch a new discussion. But ok if Administrators prefer to add my question onto an existing thread.)
Milko
http://mvgchannelswim.blogspot.com
The new polar triathlon watch supposedly will do those things when they release a firmware update for it.
There are several other options that work indoors only.
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Milko
http://mvgchannelswim.blogspot.com
I am torn between the Garmin Fenix 2 and the Suunto Ambit 3, but leaning towards the Fenix, since my daily watch and indoor swimming companion is the Garmin Swim, which I really love since it has had some serious software upgrades.
Follow me on [b]"The Great Big 10k Marathon Swimming Adventure"[/b] (yes, I know, but getting to 10k is a big marathon for me!) at http://www.wimmerblog.com
But I have managed to reduce the options to just a few, and would appreciate further advice and your experiences with these. Best to post below for the benefit of others, but you can pm me if you prefer.
Suunto Ambit3 looks fantastic and has all the functionality I need and then some, but has still no Android connectivity, only IOS. I'd like to use it with a Samsung smartphone. They have been promising an Android App since October last year but seem to keep procrastinating, to the dismay of a lot of Android-using Suunto customers, who are even petitioning Suunto on forums and Fb to hurry up on the Android front.
Garmin FR 920XT also has phenomenal functionality, with full Android and IOS connectivity but with its (black and blue plastic look I would hesitate to wear it in a more formal office environment and I don't like changing watches all the time.
Thankfully Garmin will soon (this month) release the Fenix 3 which combines the functionality of the 920XT with much more pleasing aesthetics. Only one worry there: Garmin's heart rate sensor, designed more for runners, seems clunkier than Suunto's and looks not very suitable for swimming?
So: happy to hear about experiences with Suunto Ambit3 and Garmin 920XT (or 910XT), including the HR sensor issue.
Thanks all!
Milko
http://mvgchannelswim.blogspot.com
Can you tell if you're in your target heart rate range while swimming with any of the above? If so, do you have to look at the watch or do any have a vibrating alarm? I haven't seen many positive reviews of the Finis AquaPulse, but it will audibly tell you your heart rate. I'd prefer to just get an alarm if I'm above or below target, which is the way most dry land HRMs operate, but I haven't found one that can do this for swimming.
Thanks for the knowledge.
The finis is the only thing out there right now that can conceivably alert you if your heart rate is out of your intended zone one way or the other on the fly, and do it dependably - if you're a man.
The problem is a combination of heart rate straps and of information conduction. On a man, you just won't be able to get the strap to stay on when doing turns in the pool, whether open or flip variety, though you might be able to do it in open water. The strap slips down. For ladies who can put it under their suit, it will work fine.
This is halfway solved with a couple of different diode-based straps which shine a light into your skin and can see the heartbeat from the difference in amount of light reflected back from your blood with each beat. Some of these go on your arm, your leg and so forth.
HOWEVER, all of these diode-based straps currently produced use a 2.4 GHz transmission frequency which doesn't travel through water. So they can't alert you in real time if your hr is too high for example, thoguh some of them have a memory and you can review your heart rate later.
Hopefully in the near future we'll have a watch with the diode based heart rate sensor built into it. Probably the next big upgrade for garmin in 2 or so years I reckon.
In a strange twist of fate, the tomtom cardio sport already HAS the sensor in it, AND measures swimming but the heart rate is turned off when swimming mode is active.
@Kevin_in_MD, couldn't you wear a rash guard over the strap? If it's tight enough, that could help keep the strap in place over the heart.
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Even if you can keep a strap in place, and the signal could travel through water, how would you be alerted when you go out of your intended range? You're not going to hear a beep on your watch while swimming. I won't anyway. I can barely hear my ironman when running. Finis might be the only solution, but it's not ideal for running (I think I read in a review that someone attached it to a hat), and I don't want to constantly know my rate, just if I go above or below my target. It's kind of surprising that no has produced this yet with all the products marketed for triathletes.
@GarbageBarge, I can hear my repeat timer on my Casio.
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@IronMike, I think I'm losing my high frequency hearing. Regardless, the Casio would have to be pretty loud to hear while swimming. I may need to check it out. I've bought a few Speedo vibrating alarm clocks so I could monitor my pace in longer sets, but the band breaks without fail after a year, and you can't replace it. It's molded around the watch face.
The Mio Fuse says it works in water and it has a vibrating alarm, and no chest strap. I just can't find a review of someone who has actually used it while swimming to stay in a zone. All the reviewers seem to care about is being able to store their data. Anybody familiar with the Fuse?
Isn't that Mio the watch that some of our colleagues here developed? I thought I remembered reading smthg here about it.
Edit: Nope, that's not it. I'll search for it and post here when I find it.
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The BIA! Dammit, that was killing me.
www.bia-sport.com, although the URL is not working for me. It looks like they got the funding from their Kickstarter campaign, so maybe it's just me. @sylmarino?
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Bia went out of business a year or so ago.
I tried a Mio Fuse in the pool this morning. It basically worked for what I wanted it to do. I was able to set a zone and it would vibrate if I was out of the zone. I could see the led light on it to tell if I was above or below zone. I was mostly below . When I ran with it earlier in the week, I kept going over. I may need to lower the floor rate for swimming. I set a range based on 180 - my age to 180 - (my age + 10). In my case that's from 122-132 beats per minute. That seems pretty narrow for any exercise, but I'm new to heart rate training. I tried a kick set with the heart rate on. I never got up into the range and the display kept cycling through all the data, even though I had turned off most of the data like calories and distance with the app. The app can be clunky from other reviews that I've read.
for what it's worth I have previously read somewhere that your heart rate while swimming is reduced (vs say running at same effort) so you may need to adjust your heart rate targets for swimming vs running for the same target zone.
http://notdrowningswimming.com - open water adventures of a very ordinary swimmer
I just bought the fenix 3, love the watch, very intuitive -especially considering this is my first smart watch. I'm not really concerned with heart rate while swimming so that is not an issue. What is strange is in open water mode while swimming in an open water way ( 320 meter loops, not within lane lines, in out door pool) it measures distance at about 40% of actual. Not sure if it's because I'm in a pool. True test is a 10 Mile point to point race this weekend.