FINIS Swimsense Performance Monitor

I must have been one of the first buyers of this item and it shows. The idea is great, the design is good but needs some improvement. On one side there are minor glitches that will keep improving via the upgradable firmware. Glitches such as getting pacing data in feet/second despite having chosen meters/second in the setup, not being able to choose the correct age or weight but in multiples of 5, not being able to export or correct training data from the web app, etc.

Then there are the major issues. Battery will last for two one hour swimming sessions at the max. What is surprising is the rete of battery consumption in watch mode, which should be equivalent to a regular watch, so the best option is to turn it off when not in use. The other major glitch is not having heart rate measurment.

I don't want to look negative, this is a good piece of equipment and would buy it again, but it shows that swimming computers are a new breed of training computers and there is still a lot of room for improvement.

This devise does not work correctly way too often. I did not believe some of the reviews but they were correct it misses a lot of laps (or sometimes splits the lap into two) thus making the usage close to impossible. I tried to use it for my training sessions (like 4*50 with 15 sec rest) and it added 25 yards to 2 out of 4 repetitions. The idea is interesting, interface is good and web site is nice but the fact that it is so inaccurate breaks everything for me. I sent mine back to Amazon for a refund.

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I've bought the Swimsense watch immediately after it was available in Europe. Since then I swam a few hundred kilometers wearing it. Basically unless I forgot to take it with me I used it.

I had some problems at the beginning with stroke type recognition but as the firmware was updated these problems disappeared almost completely. I also had some problems with the watch itself, but excellent support solved it quickly by sending me a new unit. I don't really like the web application which is the official way to manage your workouts right now, but since you can export your swims to a CSV file I created my own site that lets me see exactly what I want so I'm happy. Coming back to the watch itself, it is really important to have a strong push off and not to take pauses as you swim. While nobody does that intentionally you don't always have your own lane and then it becomes a problem. I think setting your minimum time per 25/50m would solve half of these automatically as now I sometimes end up with a 25m breast swam in 10 seconds which is something I will never achieve in real life :)

Pros:

It does what it's supposed to do and it does it pretty well (counting laps + recognizing stroke type)

You can get a decent idea if you are improving or not.

It lets you export your workouts to CSV for further analysis using your own software!

Battery life is really good

Cons:

It does not let you count laps made doing drills, not even a simple push-counter.

As a result of that some people are discouraged from drills and they are so important!

New features which were promised a long time ago still haven't been delivered :/

Online application needs a facelift and a lot of features!

Summary:

If you are looking for something that will keep you motivated, let you analyze more less how efficient you are this is what you are looking for. On the other hand it is definitely not a timing device. It will give you a decent idea on your lap times, but I'd say it's +/1 second precise. This device has a lot of room for improvement and hopefully the dev team will work on it, although for this price I'm absolutely satisfied with this watch. Looking forward to the next generation if/when it comes :)

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I've had my device for many months. The 1st one stopped mid swim for no apparent reason. It was replaced. The lap counting and distance can be either marginally off or wildly off.

I use my Timex Ironman with stopwatch to keep track of my laps when i use Swimsense to make sure I am getting an accurate count. My own calculation for laps is almost always different than the Swimsense. I still have no confidence on getting accurate readings. I've just complained to support and so far none of their suggestions are worthwhile...

In short, I really want this watch to work, but it just doesn't!!!

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The watch isn't perfect. It doesn't always pick up my stroke correctly. But it is very easy to use, smaller than I expected it would be, and great for recording intervals/rest time. The software (online) bundle is good for analyzing your swim, but it doesn't yet allow user edits (BIG minus) nor does it download to Sporttracks (small minus for now . . . they're planning to develop this capability). Overall, I'm very happy with the purchase. I'm hopeful that updates will resolve my issues.

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