7 Best Open Water Swim Watches- 2021 Expert Guide (Reviews)
Are you looking for a great watch to track your open water swims and provide you with some insightful data that can help you become a better swimmer or triathlete? Well, you’re in luck because in today’s article we’ll be taking a look at the 8 best open water swim watches to monitor your progress in the water.
Nowadays, there are a ton of watches that claim to be suitable for open water swimming, but in reality very few actually provide accurate results.
For the most part, companies have mastered watches that can track your lap swimming accurately, but unlike lap swimming, open water swimming requires a bit more technology and software to provide accurate results, with even a lot of expensive and high end watches failing to do this.
You see, unlike lap swimming, which can use simple monitors and sensors to accurately count your distance, pace, stroke rate, and so on within a set pool range, open water watches need to achieve all of this using a GPS since there is no set pool and swim distance.
Now, that’s not really an issue. The problems start to occur when the watch gets dunked under water every 1-2 seconds as you take a stroke since it’ll lose GPS signal in the period that it’s underwater. The watch then has to quickly reconnect to the gps when your hand exits the water again and use algorithmic software in order to provide accurate results.
And as you can guess- a lot of watches simply don’t have the brain power to do this accurately. Sure, most swim watches can track open water swimming, but few do it really accurately. Don’t worry though, I’ve done the research and have put together a list of swimming watches that’ll be able to provide really accurate results when it comes to tracking your open water swims.
What are the best open water swim watches?
Here are the best watches for open water swimming-
- Garmin Swim 2.
- Apple Watch Series 5.
- Garmin Forerunner 945.
- Polar Vantage V Multisport Watch.
- Garmin Fenix 5 Plus.
- Suunto 9 GPS Sports Watch.
- Coros Pace Multisport.
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Open Water Swim WatchOpen Water Tracking AccuracyOther FeaturesOur RatingView On AmazonGarmin Swim 2 WatchVery accurate; almost perfectTrack running and cycling; notifications; standard tracking metrics10/10>View price.Apple Watch Series 5Very accurateTrack all sports activities; music; standard tracking metrics; use as a phone10/10>View price.Garmin Forerunner 945 WatchGood; small mistake here and thereMulti-sports watch; music; standard tracking metrics; notifications; advanced metrics9/10>View price.Polar Vantage V WatchGood; small mistake here and thereMulti-sports watch; standard tracking; advanced tracking; notifications9/10>View price.Garmin Fenix 5 Plus WatchDecentMulti-sports watch; music; standard tracking; notifications; apps; advanced tracking8/10>View price.Suunto 9 WatchDecentMulti-sports watch; standard- and advanced metrics; notifications; connect apps8/10>View price.Coros Pace WatchDecent; with a few hiccupsMutli-sports watch; advanced dashboard; standard tracking; notifications7/10>View price.1. Garmin Swim 2 Watch- Our top pick for open water swimming.
If you’re looking for supreme accuracy and detailed swimming data that’ll help you become a better swimmer all packed into a sleek frame, then look no further than the Garmin Swim 2.
The Garmin Swim 2 is easily the most accurate open water swimming watch out there. In fact, its tracking is so accurate that it’s almost exactly the same when compared against a tracker swim buoy which is completely accurate for tracking open water swims.
The open water swim mode on the watch utilizes the built-in gps to provide highly accurate results when swimming in lakes, orceans, or rivers. It records your swimming distance, pace, stroke count, stroke rate, stroke distance, heart rate, and SWOLF (this is essentially a measurement of your swimming efficiency, you’ll know more about it if you’re a swim nerd like myself).
That said the Garmin Swim 2 is also a great watch for tracking pool swims with the results also being super-duper accurate. The pool mode on the watch will record your distance, pace, stroke count, stroke type, heart rate, and once again your SWOLF. There are also a couple of other features relevant to pool swimming that are quite useful, but we won’t be covering them in this article.
Once you’re done swimming you can then upload your data to the garmin connect database, if you wish, where you’ll be able to see a lot of data and track your progress over the course of the months to see how you’re progressing and where you can change things to optimize your swim training.
In terms of other features outside of swimming, the Garmin Swim 2 is quite good. It doesn’t track too many other physical activities apart from the usual like steps, calories, stress, sleep, and so on, but it does also offer tracking for both running and cycling.
The Garmin Swim 2 Watch is compatible with both Android and IOS and the battery will last you 7 days when in smartwatch mode, if you have it switched to GPS mode at all times it’ll last you about 13 hours which is still more than enough to get you through your day. The watch also allows for notification alerts from your cell phone so that you can see any texts or other notifications that come through. Obviously, you can turn this off if you’d wish to.
Another huge bonus of the Garmin Swim 2 is the pricing, this watch comes in at a great price considering its well built design, awesome features, and gps capabilities. It’s not cheap, but neither is it expensive.
Overall, this is easily the best watch when it comes to tracking your swimming, whether it be open water or pool swimming. This is great since I know a lot of open water swimmers also regularly train at their local lap or gym pools since going to the lake or ocean isn’t always possible, especially when there is bad weather. This way you can stay up to date no matter what your training environment.
If you’re looking for a more versatile watch in terms of other sports and physical activity tracking then this might not be the watch for you. Keep in mind it does offer quite a lot in those areas, just not as much as some other watches.
Pros
- Extremely accurate open water swimming distance tracking and map creation.
- Can track open water and pool swimming.
- Tracks a wide range of other swimming data like your stroke rate, pace, active heart rate, and so on.
- Can track sleep, stress, steps, 24/7 heart rate monitoring, calories, and so on.
- Compatible with both IOS and Android..
- Battery lasts 7 days in smart watch mode and 13 hours in gps mode
- Rechargable.
- Alerts you about incoming notifications on your phone.
- Rigid and sleek design.
- Excellent price for value.
Cons
- Only tracks running and cycling as additional sports activities.
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