Wrong swim length count-Charge 5

[BillyDB]

I've been swimming in a 25 yard pool. App is set for the same. Device count is consistently low. For example: I swam 90 lengths or 2,250 yards yesterday. Device recorded 81 lengths  or 2,025 yards, 10% short. Is this something I'm doing or is the device intrinsically inaccurate?

Moderator edit: updated subject for clarity

[EdsonFitbit]

Thank you for visiting the Fitbit Community, @BillyDB.

I’m sorry to hear about the difficulties you experienced with your Fitbit Charge 5. Thank you for the information provided.

We recommend swimming using any of the 4 most common strokes (freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke, and butterfly). For best results, we recommend swimming freestyle.

There are some factors that can affect your swim data. For detailed information, please visit this article and open the menu "Why does my Fitbit swim data seem wrong?".

In addition, please restart your Tracker by following these steps.

Hope this helps.

[Regina3000]

Yes, it's not extremely accurate. This happens to me all the time.

[DPinOz]

1. Check the device has not set itself to Metres rather than Yards. (This happens because of accidental presses especially in showers, or when you are reviewing sessions on the watch, or when changing goals.)

2. Note which of your hand pulls through first for the lap. Set this as dominant hand. (Or try setting it as non-domminant, see which is better for you)

3. If you tumble turn, watch out for excessive hand movements.

4. Try gliding off the wall after push off longer, before stroke and first breath. 

5. If you switch strokes midway through a lap, it will mess up the count.

Remember it's detecting the pause in a regular arm motion to determine laps, and using number of laps to determine distance (not GPS). GPS is only used in open water swim modes.

Also the watch cannot count kick sets, as you don't move your arms, so you need to keep count manually.

Other manual methods for counting laps, try sets of laps to break your swim, 2 laps swim, 1 lap pull (no legs), etc.

All of the above should improve your swimming even if count is still slightly off. Try to lower total time for a consistent set, once a week.

Good work on swimming it's a great exercise. For the price the charge 5 is pretty good. All swim watches I have tried or watched others try over the years have quirks.

Just keep swimming.

Best of luck,

David.

[EdsonFitbit]

Thanks for visiting the Fitbit Community, @Regina3000 @DPinOz.

I would like to clarify, the GPS is not active during a swimming session even in open water. Our team is constantly working to improve our products and services but currently doesn't have plans to implement this feature as explained in this feature suggestion.

If you followed the instructions shared above without luck, the best way to get help for this problem is to chat with us online or give us a call. Please click here to get connected.

Have a nice day.

[BillyDB]

Thanks to everyone for their replies and sorry for my late response! They have helped me learn a few things but a clear and comprehensive explanation of how the Charge 5 measures swimming would help fill in the gaps. Otherwise, I'm left to assume it has something to do with arm swings and turns but it's a bit murky.

Here is what I found from reading responses below along with a few more specific questions:

• I do kick laps, don't many swimmers? Now I know they are not counted.
• My pool length settings are still good.
• I don't see the dominant hand setting on the Charge 5. Could someone direct me to it? Wasn't aware I had a dominant hand when swimming but something to think about.
• I must admit, sometimes I likely rest more than 60 secs between sets. I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing. What does this do to the stats?
• I anticipate more drills. Many require change ups mid lap. Looks like this will screw up the data.
• Besides kicks and drills been sticking to the 4 strokes. Haven't done side stroke in awhile. Are there others to be aware of?
• I don't think I have excessive hand movement on my flip turns but I can pay more attention.
• Seems like a good idea to get more glide off the turn before stroking and breathing for more reason than this. Gotta work on that dolphin kick.
• If you want detailed tracking of your swims and/or training, you would do better to find a dedicated swim app. I thought Swim.com was mentioned but I don't see it here anymore. Anyway, a web search will result in a collection of these. Some interface with wearable devices. Please correct me if I'm wrong but, to the best of my knowledge, Charge 5 does not support this but it would be nice if it did.  

Given all these issues, it would help to know what measurements can and can not be relied on to be accurate? My assumptions, please correct me where I'm wrong:

Not Accurate (if conditions for accurate measurements are not met):

• Distance / Laps
• Pace

Unclear (Please clarify):

• Heart Rate
• Zone Minutes
• Calories
• Others?

Recommendation:

One seemingly simple recommendation I could make to fitbit developers is that, given all the problems with counting and measuring distance, it would help if we had the ability to edit the stats manually in the app. Hopefully, this would result in a better measurement of distance and pace. Would it?

[Surfista]

There is an entire thread about the issues with swimming lap counts.

• It is under feature suggestions:  Show swim laps, times and lengths on Charge 5

[t.parker]

@BillyDB why don't you get a watch that does all you need? This year I started preparing for triathlon and increased swimming volume (my weakest discipline) so I swam with Sense 2. Eventually, I stopped taking it into the pool as it was pointless. Wrong distance/lengths count, no any useful metrics, no heart rate. Nothing. What's the point to risk a water damage if swim tracking that Fitbit offers is a joke. Even standalone HR monitor like Polar Verity Sense is more accurate and provides lot more data. I would change recommendation to: get rid of a toy and get real sports watch.

[BillyDB]

I've been avoiding a full blown smart watch over concerns of possible health implications of keeping all that power on my body 24/7. I therefore opted for the Charge 5, fitbit's most capable bluetooth tracker as I understand it to be, which places the processing on my phone. The Charge 5 sensors tells me a lot about my health that I find helpful but, unfortunately don't work well for swimming. I suppose I could look into a dedicated device just for this purpose and wear it only when swimming. Alternatively, I'm fine with counting laps manually and using my phone at pool side for training plans. Of course, it would be better to have all that on my wrist and swim tracking accuracy would be nice but not a deal breaker. Still would be nice to know which stats are reliable and which bogus. I'll see if I can find @Surfista's thread for more info. 

[t.parker]

@BillyDB I'm not quite sure what do you mean by "health implications". Those watches have no any impact on your health. There is not much "power" in wearables to cause any health issues. But that's your choice anyway. I prefer not only accuracy but also training features (like training plan on the watch, no need to take phone to the pool), I can log drills when watch may not be able to detect the laps/stroke, I can tap intervals manually as well as automatically (switch between swim/rest, my preference is to do it manually including 3sec countdown), I have heart rate (even two! One from wrist during swimming and then it's overriden by 100% accurate data from my chest strap). In laps breakdown I can see style (including drills), times, pace, swolf, HR etc. In real-time, I see number of metrics for my intervals (not just useless time) and with structured workout my watch guides me through my workout. There are no any other implications but one major - the watch helps me becoming a better swimmer 🤷‍ it's also good to count lengths in head, good to train memory although during swim workout training memory of laps probably shouldn't be a main focus 😉

[BillyDB]

@t.parkerImpressive! So, what device/app are you using, the Polar Verity Sense? and What is your goal - competition (what level)? I mean what kind of data one needs is related to what one's objectives are. Do you mind sharing what systems you looked at and why you chose the one you wound up with?

[t.parker]

@BillyDB I mostly use Garmin Fenix 7 (this one is quite expensive but cheaper watches can do similar things, for swimmers anything will be better than Fitbit). I use Polar Verity Sense for non-training sessions (I don't want to wear a chest strap when I don't have to). Verity Sense is attached to a side of my goggles and measures HR and motion from a temple. Garmin gives me structured workouts so I can upload my training either from TrainingPeaks or MySwimPro (I use both). My goal is a triathlon and since I'm not a great swimmer, there is a lot of work to be done to become competitive (running and cycling are my primary disciplines). With my time constraints, I want to avoid swimming "empty miles", and put work into proper training. I swim 4-5 times a week, one session weekly with PT, and one additional leisure session (in my gym, on Sundays the lanes are removed and the pool is made as a free-for-all, large playground - I find that refreshing and it's a way of building more confidence in water environment when I don't focus on my intervals, plus it's nice to hear from own wife "wow, you can actually swim!" 🤣). Interesting thing was that my watch used to detect my freestyle stroke as a breaststroke and only fine-tuning the technique made it show the correct stroke type (which was a good thing). Fitbit used to be showing swimming style in the past but that feature seems to be gone. For HR, most of the watches allow optical HR to be enabled (my wife's Galaxy Watch 5 also tracks HR, and is so much better at swim tracking that any Fitbit). On my Fenix 7 however, that consumes lots of battery (harder to measure HR in the water, so the LEDs get brighter). I use a hybrid HR. Basically, I use wrist and chest straps at the same time. The way it works is that when the BT connection with the chest strap is gone then wrist HR is in effect when the connection is back, the strap updates the HR to the more accurate and shows an average and max for the last interval. When I finish the session, the watch downloads HR from the strap and replaces it so I end up with an accurate heart rate. The HR came in quite handy when I tried to sort out my breathing as HR and respiratory rate are connected. Now, I use HR mostly in order to judge my rest times between intervals. Another useful feature I use is a metronome (watch buzzes and beeps in the water). Since stroke rate isn't as high as running cadence (I find the in-watch metronome useless when running) the in-watch metronome is ideal in the water (this prevents me from over-pacing at the beginning of the session during my warmup and easy sets).

Using a watch to record swimming is one thing. With Fitbit, I don't even track it using Swim but (on Sense 2) I turn on night mode (screen disabled) and track it as a workout. Most of the time, water won't wake up the screen so at least I have captured some HR (far from perfect, but better than nothing). Using a watch for training is a different story. Fitbit isn't made for that.

I plan to use Verity Sense with FINS smart goggles but that is something I'm gonna get once I go under 1:50/100m  (as a reward 🙂 ).

[BillyDB]

@t.parker Thanks for the detailed explanation of how you collect and use data to improve your performance! Very interesting! Your tech is impressive, however, more technical than I want to go at present. I've swam for many years but currently just using it intermittently for cross training. Besides the general health stats from the Charge 5, am mainly interested in an interesting training plan for swimming without a lot of desk work on my part and, since I am in the water, drills for technique improvement. I'm not competing in swimming but like to challenge myself some. I've looked at MySwimPro and find it attractive but I think my casual level of commitment to swimming may make it a bit of a reach. Just started using the free version of Swim Coach thinking it may be a better match.

Good luck with your training! Have fun, and keep healthy!