Tech Tuesday: Abundant Wrist Fitness Tracker Options for Lap Swimming
Over the past decade, fitness enthusiasts around the world have benefitted from wearable technology that helps track workouts. We have previously reviewed the FINIS Smart Goggle, which provides instant feedback with swimming-specific information, but an even larger audience has benefitted from fitness trackers worn on the wrist that can help with swimming as well as a wide variety of land exercises and sports.
The first Fitbit debuted in 2014, and the revolutionary Apple Watch followed the next year. Those devices are among the wearables that have become staples for swimmers around the country.
Fitbit Charge 5
The most recent version of the Fitbit continues to help swimmers and land athletes get a sense of what they need in their workouts while helping someone hold a consistent heart rate. The device measures activity vs. inactivity, blood oxygen, calories burned, distance traveled and duration of exercise, and it is water-resistant to 164 feet.
The Fitbit also helps a user connect their workouts to other health-critical measures such as sleep and quality of sleep by providing a Daily Readiness Score, which helps “optimize your workout routine with a score that reveals if you’re ready to exercise or should focus on recovery” and a Stress Management Score, which measures how exercise and sleep help an individual manage stress.
Apple Watch
The Apple Watch, meanwhile, can provide swimming-specific data through the “Workout” app. A user can select “Pool Swim” or “Open Water Swim” while starting, pausing, resuming and stopping their workout with buttons on the device. The Apple Watch automatically locks the screen when a swimming workout begins to avoid any water-related damage, and the app can track strokes and total distance.
New in watchOS9, the device can detect a swimmer using a kickboard, and it can provide a SWOLF score, a popular method of measuring efficiency in swimming. SWOLF, sometimes known as swim golf, is the combination of time plus stroke count for a particular distance, and coaches and swimmers often pay attention to both measures to determine how to improve speed without wasting energy.
Galaxy Watch 5
This product from Samsung provides heart rate data for fitness enthusiasts as well as key feedback about sleep and wellness. The “Advanced Sleep Coaching” mechanism can help users develop better sleep habits by analyzing their patterns of rest over multiple nights, and the Samsung BIA can help track body composition to help individuals create better habits and reach their goals. Samsung advertises superior wellness readings thanks to a curved sensor that sits closer to someone’s wrist.
The Galaxy Watch has been proven water resistant in up to five feet of water for 30 minutes, with the company recommending a user rinse and dry after a swimming workout. Users of this device would pair it with the Galaxy smartphone with Android 8.0 or later while using the Samsung Health app.
Garmin Swim 2
This device also provides heart-rate monitoring from the wrist while also giving providing swimmers tools specific to pool or open water swimming. In the pool, the Garmin Swim 2 can assess stroke, distance, time and other traditional measures, and it can also log specific stroke drills and rest periods. A feature called “Critical Swim Speed” can help a user determine his or her anaerobic threshold pace to help maximize results from a workout or training block.
In open water, a built-in GPS helps swimmers maintain their location while the device also records stroke length, time and efficiency. The device can last for seven days in smartwatch mode and 13 hours with the GPS running, and it can connect to most smartphones to provide additional post-swim analysis.