first swim, first thoughts

jrsharp70

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So I've had the S, s2 sport, s2 classic, s3 classic and s3 frontier. This one (the galaxy watch, 42mm) is the first I ever bought new. So I've had some experience with the Samsung watches.

This watch really is all about 3 things... Tizen 4.0, battery life, and swim capability. If also so some minor build quality improvements in the rotating bezel.

It's is a shame that Samsung just doesn't software features from new devices to old ones. It's been a fault of theirs since the beginning (I've had a few of their phones and tablets too...) tizen 4.0 has some minor feature improvements, the drop down screen is better, some graphics are improved, but mostly that's it. I think the performance improvements come from the hardware, and maybe my gear s3 just couldn't support the updated OS.

Battery. An hour of working out without GPS took 6% off the battery. Holy crap that's good. We'll see how it goes with a GPS run when my knees are better.

Finally, I did a lap swimming workout. I was eager to start a swimming routine anyway, but unlike running, I have no real lifelong metric to compare my performance to. I don't know what is fast or a good pace, good number of strokes, etc. Here are some screenshots of the data collected. There is one erroneous lap from me stopping ecause of a cramp that registered as me turning around I guess.
What was interesting is that I didn't even know what data to track. Apparently there is something called a "swolf", which is short for swim golf... Which is some composite score of stokes an time.
What was really awesome is that the watch actually measure what type of stroke I took for each lap, I switched between breast stroke and freestyle.

So far, no big surprises. I like this watch because I liked the gear s3. I don't like the styling as much, but that is subjective. I liked the classic most. I am super impressed with the swim function, and glad to have tizen 4.0. I would say if you have a gear s3, keep it. If you have an s2, upgrade if you have the cash. Truthfully, the s2 was a great device, and still is worth having if you don't care about swimming or your altitude (I never cared about altitude).

Oh, and while the Hr data is there, I don't think it is super accurate I'm not a great swimmer, and it was mostly blank while I was under water. It did pick up ok when I took brief breaks, and I had it quite snug against my wrist. Also the 11 second lap is clearly an error. I wish there was a way to delete data for an accurate composite.
 

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arunma

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Wow, nice! I haven't gotten around to going for a swim yet. No idea you can get these kinds of statistics. Looking forward to trying it out myself.
 

Jimmy Bernstein

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Thanks--that's a helpful report.
Could you give a sense of what data the watch gives you during the swim and what alarms are available? (E.g., could you set it to give a vibration alert every 10 laps?)
 

jrsharp70

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You choose the metrics you want to display (laps, hr, time, etc) during the workout. The watch can vibrate at time or lap intervals.
 

arunma

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Random question. Does it automatically turn on the water lock when you start swimming, or do you still have to do this manually?
 

Jimmy Bernstein

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You choose the metrics you want to display (laps, hr, time, etc) during the workout. The watch can vibrate at time or lap intervals.

Just to confirm--you can do countdown repeat now? (This didn't seem to be available in the Timer app). Or lap repeat? E.g., give a vibration every 10 laps and then keep going until you stop?
 

jrsharp70

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Just to confirm--you can do countdown repeat now? (This didn't seem to be available in the Timer app). Or lap repeat? E.g., give a vibration every 10 laps and then keep going until you stop?

Not sure what you mean by countdown repeat. It vibrates every new lap, and if you set time goal rather than lap goal, it let's you know when you are halfway finished. If your goal is 20 laps and you swim past that, it counts them all.

You do need to swim consistently; stopping briefly mid-lap will create a new lap. The data is still good, since it is obvious when that happens. So far I've loved using it.
 

jrsharp70

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Not sure what you mean by countdown repeat. It vibrates at whatever lap interval you choose, and if you set time goal rather than lap goal, it vibrates at whatever time interval you choose. If your goal is 20 laps and you swim past that, it counts them all.

You do need to swim consistently; stopping briefly mid-lap will create a new lap. The data is still good, since it is obvious when that happens. So far I've loved using it.
 

Jimmy Bernstein

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Thanks.
I just mean can you set it to vibrate at regular intervals rather than one single goal. So, I swim in 10 lap sets and just would want a reminder after I finish each set of 10. Can it do that?
 
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I went for a swim and it was spot on. Did 30 lengths and was completly accurate. However when I finished the swim, and went in the jacuzzi and sauna, the timer kept going and it thought I did 2 more lenghts whilst in the jacuzzi! Instead of the swim being 20 minutes it was 40 minutes. I couldn't find a way to stop the workout as the water lock was on. I didn't want to take the water lock off as it was still wet and I was still in the pool/jacuzzi. Any ideas how to stop the workout?
 

jrsharp70

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So it still thinks you are swimming? It has to have stopped by now...

Tap top button to stop a workout. Tap it again to resume.
Hold bottom button to end water mode.