SPOTs -- wearable?
Sara_Wolf
Member
I know that most often, SPOT trackers are placed on the boat/kayak/escort vessel with a swimmer. However, if an escort vessel isn't being used in a race...and that race also prohibits watches....and if the swimmer were to want a record of the path they swam.....
Would SPOTs work if they were tucked under the swim cap? Or, do they have to have direct line of sight to the satellite?
I know that my garmin watch will still record tracking if it's in my cap, as long as it's pointing "up".
Comments
Seems to me that a SPOT is too large to comfortably wear under a cap for a long swim. Also not waterproof.
If you just want to record a track, you don't need a SPOT - any GPS watch will suffice, and tucks nicely in a cap. SPOT is only necessary if you need live public tracking out of cell network range.
Is this event's prohibition of watches specific only to wrists?
It said "wrist watches" were prohibited.
so, I guess that does mean that I could tuck my garmin in my cap.....
but it also said no heart rate monitors as well as "any other artificial aids."
So, do you think a GPS in my cap would count as an artificial aid if it's just recording?
Of course, if a kayaker is with me, putting the watch/spot on the kayak is the best thing, right?
Passively recording GPS data provides no performance benefit obviously, but many watches these days have additional capabilities which could be construed as assistive (e.g., haptic metronome), and it's not realistic for an event director to check the specific models of every watch and know which functions the swimmer is using.
Yes.
Does putting the watch under the cap actually work? Especially wondering in the case of people with a lot of hair. Is it uncomfortable. I am loving tracking my longer training swims but for anything longer than about 4 hours, the watch starts to really bug me...
I've done it before..... but, at the time, I didn't have a lot of hair. I suppose "a lot of hair" is going to be a relative term, though (unique to each person). Also, I think the comfort will depend on the cap that you're wearing. If you have a cap that's large enough, there will be some extra room in the top for a watch. I found that the best way to do it was to lay the watch along my head, with the band stretch out. But, it was also only for a test swim, not a super long swim. I think that as with most things..... your mileage may vary.
Thanks! I think I might try it, though I will probably take the watch band off...
That's a good idea. I'm not confident enough that I'd be able to get it back on to do it myself.
I wonder if you could strap the watch to the back of your suit, in the middle of your back? It should be easy for a female suit though it might irritate your skin over time. I think I remember seeing light sticks tucked up in there for long swims with no problem, so maybe it would work.
I thought about that too but I think it would be more annoying than on the wrist. I have done the glow stick thing and it is annoying. I will try the cap and see...
My fenix has a quick release... played with it last night and it came off and on easily.
So I tried wearing my Fenix under my cap this morning. Took the straps off and it felt very secure (as long as my cap stays on). I was expecting that maybe it would undercount distance this way, but instead my normally 6600m morning logged as 7600m. No major deviations in track.
Any thoughts as to why this might be?
I've attached mine to both goggle straps on the back of my head on occasion. Works great as long as you remember to switch it on.
Before Garmin added Open Water Swim mode to their watches (which was basically correcting for the fact that the watch was under water most of the time), the only way to get any kind of track was to either attach the garmin to your google strap or under the cap. A lot of the early garmin's weren't rated for swimming at all and folk would bag them up and then put them under the cap and get decent results without ruining their watch.
I started with the goggle strap method with a Garmin 310XT but switched to the under the cap method because I would burn through goggles so fast and I got sick of changing the device to a new pair all the time (this was pre using swedes).
The under cap method works great, and if you read any of DCRainmakers reviews he will often compare the track of a watch he is reviewing with a reference watch that is either under his cap or in a swim buoy as they will typically get a more accurate track.
As @evmo mentions above though, you can still get haptic feed back when the watch is under your cap. I used to have mine set to vibrate every half mile which was useful when training (e.g. when I was doing a swim down the coast with a lack of good landmarks to use as a turn point) but is technically a no-no from a "real" swim perspective. The vibration was much harder to miss when it was on your head than your wrist in my experience, but that may depend on how much hair you have buffering it.
http://notdrowningswimming.com - open water adventures of a very ordinary swimmer