Will Charge 5 track swimming in Open Water?

[Hatbush]

Any news on open water swimming.

Moderator Edit: Clarified subject

[t.parker]

I really doubt that's gonna happen.

[Hatbush]

Yep I suspect that you are right.

[datalore]

I'd settle for them getting pool swimming right. 😂

[Hatbush]

Haha, exactly!

[Ziga]

As far as I know nothing has changed regarding waterproofing from charge 3. You can go swimming since its 50m waterproof. Someone correct me If I'm wrong. I've been swimming with my charge 3 alot and always shower with it on and never gad a problem. And I even went 5-6m underwater un multiple occasions.

[Rich_Laue]

I'm not sure how reliable GPS will be in water. GPS is a line of sight technology,

I really can not see how the GPS signal will work with the tracker on the water, more than out of the water. Is there really enough time between strokes to get a lock on a minimum of 3 satallites. Has anyone tested this with a charge 4? 

I've noticed when walking next to a tree line, my path shifts because the trees affect the time that the signal takes to arrive ate the tracker. 

[t.parker]

@Rich_Laue yes, it is enough time to reconnect if needed. In most of cases, the time under water isn't long enough to break connection. This plus gyroscope and accelerometer sensors are being used to fix the position during open water swimming. That's why it works for Garmin, Suunto and Polar watches. Of course, it won't work for diving but for regular open water swimming it works quite well. Additionally, some swimmers just attach watch placing it in the floating bag so it floats and keeps connection on. I would be scared to lose it 🤣 but never had much of an issue with OW swimming and GPS signal.

[Rich_Laue]

I only asked, because I have never read a report in the community where anyone ever tried to use a gps mode during a swim. 

My question still has not been answered. Has anyone actually tried using the GPS with a fitbit during an open water swim? 

I also have noticed that on very cloudy days, my phone, with its much larger antenna still has problems acquiring a GPS lock. 

So yes, I've read several articles that explain how to get a better gps lock with Garmin watches. This tells me that even Garmin has issues. 

[t.parker]

@Rich_Laue a long time ago I tried to use Ionic with GPS (Bike mode) and didn't work too well in the water. There were several issues:

- No water lock so sometimes random things were happening

- GPS couldn't reconnect fast enough and it was lost almost instantly

Open water swimming would require a bit of work on the Fitbit side (hardware and software) but it isn't impossible. It works for competitors quite well. I've been using Suunto and Garmin and it's not only about GPS but algorithms used to estimate the position when the GPS is lost until the signal is back on. During most swim strokes, the time underwater is not enough to lose the GPS connection completely, hence recovery is instant. The key however is algorithms that can figure out the position not only from GPS but from data coming from other sensors. Are you telling me, this technology is beyond Fitbit's abilities? 🙂 Too bad for Fitbit then.

[SunsetRunner]

I think I have, I took my iphone in a waterproof bag and swam in the sea, wearing my fitbit charge 4. Didn't like how my swim turned out in the map afterwards - massive difference when using strava between cycling and swimming. I may have to upgrade to a Garmin as they specifically incorporate open water swimming into their default modes.

[BlueWatter]

I went swimming in my pool with charge 5 and got watter damage. I can see droplets inside, so definitely not watter resistant