Swimming with the Garmin 910XT

[CoachDavidShen]

I finally got hold of a Garmin 910XT. Running with it is still awesome so I wasn't worried about that. I was wondering about its swimming capabilities, especially compared to the FINIS Swimsense. Here are my observations:

1. The Garmin seems to work pretty well with freestyle. However, I tried some lengths with breaststroke and didn't recognize the different style consistently. Swimsense is better at this.

2. Stroke counting was pretty good but it did seem off by a stroke at times. These were one arm strokes of course - at a wall turn it seemed to get a little confused as to what should have been counted and what should not.

3. Length/lap counting seemed pretty on. It did lose one length during my last few swims so it seems pretty good but capable of losing count occasionally. Swimsense has improved their length/lap counting and I have not seen it lose count in a long time.

4. I took the watch to the open water and was pleasantly surprised that it tracked GPS fairly consistently. When I stopped and my hand hung low in the water, the GPS lost the satellites but soon regained when I began stroking again.

5. Uploading the data to Garmin Connect allowed me to see my outdoor swims on a map which was nice.

Definitely worth a try if you're into OW swimming. The Swimsense seems more reliable for pool swimming but we'll have to see after some firmware updates.

[andyinnorway]

I prefer my 910xt to the swimsense pool mate pro in everyway except that I keep forgetting to take it to the pool as it needs charging, whereas I just used to keep the pool mate on my wrist as a regular watch.

[CoachPaulB]

Can anyone tell me if they've used the distance alarm or the time alarm during an open water swim? I am curious to know if the vibration feature can be felt during the stroke?

[andyinnorway]

Originally Posted by CoachPaulB

Can anyone tell me if they've used the distance alarm or the time alarm during an open water swim? I am curious to know if the vibration feature can be felt during the stroke?

I didn't know about this feature until I was on the start line of my race last week. I quickly set a time alarm for every 5 minutes and it worked perfectly. Its exactly the same vibration you get when you press start or lap. Its just long enough for the brain to register under performance conditions.

Very nice feature, I haven't tried the distance but am sure it would work as well, am lake swimming this weekend so might do so.