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 tips on how to freestyle swim (regardless that I used to be instantly out of breath) and Fitbit trackers had been nonetheless completely ineffective at swim monitoring.
I’m presently carrying a Pixel Watch and utilizing it to trace my walks, random hikes, and, for the previous couple of weeks, swims. And let me inform you one expertise will not be just like the others. So in case your most popular type of train entails doing back-and-forths within the pool, I wouldn’t suggest you get a Fitbit and I’d warning you in opposition to the Pixel Watch too; there are a lot higher smartwatches for swimming on the market.
Do you monitor your swims with a health tracker or smartwatch?
8 votes
The place are the swim stats, Fitbit?
As you may see within the left screenshot above, after I begin monitoring a stroll or hike, I can see loads of stats on my Pixel Watch‘s display, from the overall distance to the variety of steps, coronary heart charge, 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 correct screenshot reveals, after I begin a swim, all I can see is the elapsed time and, uh, that’s it. Only a stopwatch on the display. No laps, distance, tempo, coronary heart charge, 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 period of my swim!
A $10 digital watch can monitor the period of my swim simply as nicely.
Issues don’t get significantly better after 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 overall distance. These are all the right swimming stats Fitbit deigns to offer me. Any seasoned swimmer will inform you that they don’t want a health tracker for that; we already rely laps in our heads and we will do the mathematics. Multiplying by 50m or 100m isn’t rocket science.
What we want is tempo, common period per pool size, break period, 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). Displaying me whole period and distance is opaque and pointless; it doesn’t permit me to match my stats, comply with my development, or be taught something attention-grabbing about my present swim. Runners, cyclists, and hikers have it so significantly better with Fitbit.
Even after syncing to my telephone, all I get is whole period 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 motive, with a graph that’s mildly attention-grabbing to comply with my basic development and relaxation. One other tab reveals coronary heart charge zones, however I doubt they’re correct as a result of, for some motive, coronary heart charge doesn’t seem like tracked throughout swims. Wait, what?!
The place is the center charge knowledge, Fitbit?
For different train varieties, Fitbit measures and shows my coronary heart charge 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, after I struggled so much, couldn’t breathe correctly, and felt my coronary heart bounce 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 charge a number of occasions.
Coronary heart charge knowledge is totally lacking when monitoring swims.
It appears to me that, as a substitute of counting on measured coronary heart charge knowledge from my smartwatch‘s built-in sensor, Fitbit is making use of some outdated algorithm that appears on the swim’s period and whole distance, then assigns a median coronary heart charge zone to all the 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 nicely, sure. In response to the Apple Watch, I spent over 50 minutes above 149bpm, which ought to qualify because the “cardio” zone on my Pixel Watch. However in line with my Fitbit stats, I used to be chilling within the “fats burn” zone practically all the time. In case you’re questioning, the 2 watches measure the identical coronary heart charge outdoors the pool, so it isn’t a matter of one in every of them being defective.
One other fairly telling proof is that coronary heart charge knowledge throughout the swim is totally lacking from the day’s graph too. Verify the screenshots beneath. I went for a swim round midday on Tuesday, July 25, and Thursday, July 27. Coronary heart charge knowledge is notably lacking throughout these workouts (identified by the pink arrows), so there is no such thing as a means 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 truthful, this isn’t something new. Fitbit’s swim monitoring has been beneath par for years. Even again in 2016, after 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 a lot of the stats you want and appears correct sufficient. However the knowledge doesn’t sync again to Fitbit and combine with the remainder of your workouts, leaving you with one other app to maintain your eye on. (No, Swim.com doesn’t help Google Well being Join.)
That’s why I’d suggest you get one other health tracker should you’re concerned with monitoring your swims and enhancing your tempo. Garmin trackers are wonderful for swimming and even a primary possibility just like the Garmin Forerunner 55 ($199.99 at Amazon) will run swim laps round one of the best Fitbits or the Pixel Watch with excellent information on the display, whilst you swim.
Alternatively, if you’d like 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 eventually, 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 after I was ceaselessly swimming 4 years in the past and, regardless that I disliked the slender area 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 ever might. I nonetheless have it in my backpack so perhaps I’ll take it for a spin on my subsequent swim. I simply want Fitbit on my Pixel Watch might come wherever close to that.