TESTING THE WATERS
Apple Watch Series 2 tops when it comes to keeping tabs on your aquatic exercise
When it comes to activity trackers, swimmers are shortchanged. Compared to runners and cyclists, who can choose from dozens of models including several that pair with smartphone apps, swimmers have significantly fewer options.
The limiting factor for most activity trackers is their inability to operate in water.
These devices also have trouble measuring distance in a pool, not to mention other stats important to swimmers like identifying individual strokes and stroke count. And then there’s the challenge of accounting for swimming workouts that operate in sets (intervals) instead of the continuous steady state workouts more popular in running and cycling.
One of the leaders in a very small pack of aquatic-oriented activity trackers is the Apple Watch Series 2, which makes it easy for swimmers to count their laps, identify their stroke, monitor their lap times and keep track of calories burned and heart rate.
But it’s not just in the pool where the watch excels. Its ability to track open-water swims makes it a game-changer for swimmers who struggle to track their distance in lakes and oceans. The device works best when swimming the front crawl, as satellites can ping off the watch every time your arm resurfaces.
The end result is real-time stats of your pace and distance, as well as a map of your swim.
Yet, as cool as all those features are, swimmers are still left without a watch that can pause automatically between sets, something most running apps and watches do seamlessly when runners stop to cross an intersection or retie their shoelaces. The device also lacks the ability to count strokes, another stat swimmers often obsess about.
All that is about to change, though, with the debut of watchOS 4, set to be released this fall. The updated software will register every pause at the end of the pool as the end of a set which can be broken down by stroke type, distance, rest time, split time and the number of strokes it takes to complete the set. You also can break down those stats lap by lap if you prefer a more detailed summary of your workout. And since the workout syncs to your phone, you can keep track of all your mileage, sets and average pace.
How easy is it to use? The watch has a quick start button that can be activated in two simple taps.
No scrolling through a ton of options or screens, which makes it easier for eyesight-challenged swimmers who hit the pool without their glasses. On that note, the Apple Watch does have the option to change the size of the text which can allow people to track their stats in real time instead of waiting until they grab their spectacles.
The only drawback to the watch is that the screen locks automatically at the start of a swimming workout, which means if you want any more information than what’s being shown on the watch face, you need to stop and unlock it.
According to Apple, the lock isn’t to protect the watch — the inner workings of which are well sealed — but to stop water from inadvertently activating any of the watch’s other capabilities. Water acts like a finger on the watch’s screen which can make it do things you don’t want it to do.
But even if you do stop and unlock the phone, a wet finger on a wet watch face makes for a bad pairing.
It’s a struggle to get the watch to respond until one or both are dry.
That said, you don’t need to touch the watch once you begin your workout, which is the way it should be. After pressing the Quick Start button, the only thing I did was check my lap count every now and again. Other than that, I let the watch do its thing while I did mine. Once I was out of the water, however, I keenly devoured my swim stats.
As for the open water swim feature, I tried it out during my vacation, finally putting a distance to a swim I’ve been doing for years. The map, which displayed my pace by colour (green for fast, yellow for slow) was bang-on in terms of location and tracing my route.
Add the swimming feature to the other cool things the watch does — including tracking your daily exercise, sedentary behaviour (it urges you to stand up 12 times during the day) and active calorie burn (you set the goal as to how many calories you want to burn daily) — and you’ve got a full-feature activity tracker good for in and out of the pool. Plus, all three of these daily healthy activities are represented by coloured rings, making the daily goal to close your rings (achieving all three goals) a visual pleasure. The watch also gives you a little tap on your wrist as a reminder to stand, move or sweat.
Oh, and it tells the time, too.