Swimovate Pool-Mate Pro Review

Nwm2

Being a gadget-freak/numbers-guy I already had a Garmin to tell me how slow a runner I am, a Powertap to tell me how weak a cyclist I am, so I thought why not get something to quantify how terrible a swimmer I am?


From the website: "Containing accurate motion sensors and our unique software algorithms, the Pool-Mate automatically recognises each swim stroke and change of lap so you don't have to count anymore. The Pool-Mate will display Lap count, Time, Average Strokes per lap, Speed, Distance, Calories and Efficiency, all completely automatically and store details in a large memory for recall at your leisure.
As well as the statistics for the overall session it will record the same data for up to 99 individual sets per session so you can see how your data changes through a swim. A major leap forward from existing manual lap counters, our watches bring swimming into the 21st Century at last. "

I got the Pool-Mate Pro which includes USB upload to the PC.


There are two or three big failings with the watch (and some small ones):

1.It does not track changes in speed and stroke rate through a swim. It's not like your Garmin. So, for a 1500m swim all you are really getting is two key data points at the end: the total time and the average number of strokes. Therefore, you can't tell if, for example, you started well but struggled for the last 500m (slower lengths, more strokes). This is the data I really wanted - I'd like to see if there was a point where my stroke fell apart or whether it was a gradual decline. One way around this is to break the long swim into separate intervals (eg 200m). But this requires you to count the laps in your head, stop, pause and unpause the watch, then start again. Pain in the a**. I complained to Swimovate about this and they said it was a limitation of the watch's memory, which is ridiculous if true. They should implement an option to set an automatic interval like Garmin does.

2. The display is small and you can't quickly and easily see your elapsed time and lap count without stopping for a few secs, and maybe lifting your goggles.

3. I think the stroke count software/hardware is suspect. If I swim 25m and stop I get a lowish stroke count. If I swim 50m I get a much higher one. It looks like it is too sensitive to arm motions when you turn.

4. When counting strokes, it counts only strokes for the arm the watch is on. So for front crawl, the stroke count is half what it really is. So the 'efficiency' number (lap time plus stroke count) is not your normal swim golf number.

5. The software isn't great - I rarely use it (I go directly into the CSV file that uploads from the watch and use Excel instead). If you forget to turn the watch off after a session (as opposed to pausing it), it thinks you've done a very long session which then fails to load into software - requiring you to manually correct the CSV file).


On the plus side, I finally have at least some quantitative data that I can refer to and track improvements.

How do I use the watch? Typically, I will do (in different sessions):

1. 250-500m warm up swim
2. Drills
3. A long swim
4. Some 50-100-200-300m fast swims


For everything except the drills, I will use the watch to track time and efficiency and see how they change over the weeks. I put this into Excel.



Overall: Worth €160? I don't think so, but even with the failings there's no equally convenient alternative.

EC1000

I got one of these from the OH at Christmas and I think you've identified pretty much all of the issues I had noticed over the last couple of months.

Its a pity that a long rep such as 1500m cannot be broken down to identify changes in pace over time. However, I like being able to look back over a session of say 10 x 100m and seeing any drop off in pace between reps that way. It could be said that it is not necessary to have such an expensive piece of kit to do this but I like being able to upload and store the info for future reference.

Manone

Great review, was considering buying this piece of kit and thankfully you've probably saved me a few bob.

Another failing which I think exists (correct me if wrong), but it doesn't give an audible alarm when you've reached a preset distance or number of laps. This I think is more beneficial as this allows you to completely focus on your stroke, technique, effort etc. without having to check lap count.

Might wait until Swimovate have come up with providing that information within the unit, along with the potentially rejigged software of course.

billy.fish

Finis one might be the line to look at, its HUGE though