Open water swimming for Versa/Sense

[DanReyLop]

The Fitbit Ionic looks awesome, but it's only compatible for swimming laps in a pool.

The main competition, the watch with a certain fruit name, can be used in the sea and it will use GPS to map the workout and track distance / calories / speed. Other trackers have GPS, water resistance, but curiously aren't capable of using the GPS while swimming, but can be tricked by choosing a "Running" exercise and just jumping into the water. That makes me believe that the only thing stopping FitBit supporting this feature is just software, as all the hardware sensors and capabilities is already there.

Please consider implementing an "Open water swim" workout that uses GPS to track calories / distance for swimming, instead of laps.

Moderator Edit: Title for Clarity/Added Labels

[jrice3481]

There are many GPS enabled devices on the market (see garmin for example) that also provide tracking for swimming both in the pool and in open water.  Is there a fitbit in the works that also has these capabilities?  I personally love my fitbit but hate having to track swimming manually as i cannot guarantee the accuracy other than the yardage totals.

I also wish there was a way to sort my tracked activities and see how much i have done of 1 activity over a select period of time!  i.e. swimming over the last week, month, year, etc.

[Calbeargirl]

Please please please allow swimmers to log their swims by number of laps or yards. It's a huge pain to have to calculate the mileage and is sometimes off since it only measures by a tenth of a mile. 

[mlindgren]

+1. I think DC Rainmaker (or maybe someone else) said that Fitbit is planning to add this... I certainly hope so! My favorite place to swim is in the lake.

[pandaiolo]

+1

I would say not only GPS, but everything that is needed for proper exercice tracking, including HRM

[PatPepin]

Can we have an open water activity ?  That can also use the GPS !

[Calbeargirl]

Do not get the Fitbit for swimming. It does not work. They admitted there's a tech glitch so even though I bought mine for swimming it doesn't work and it's too late to return for a refund. I am beyond unhappy with Fitbit and how they are handling this.

Sent from my iPhone

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[mlindgren]

@Calbeargirl Can you elaborate? I already bought my Ionic, but I haven't tried swimming with it yet. Definitely something I was looking forward to using it for though.

[Vakman]

This is the one missing feature that's stopping me from picking up this device. I'm only going to shell out $300 for a fitness smartwatch if it tracks all the exercise I do. Triathlon is an increasingly popular sport, having this feature will definitely catch the eye of those that tend towards the 'sports' specific brands like Garmin.

[Swimguy]

The ionic seems to track laps and distances, with some glitch that might have been resolved with the new OS update. On the other hand, if you want to edit your activity, it would be nice to be able to edit actual distance in yards (or laps) and not just have it by one tenth of a mile, which really only works for running or biking.

One question I have: Is it possible to stop tracking swimming with just a tap, or do you have to push a button?

If that is the case, it needs to be added, because I believe that you should not push any button while the watch is wet (which, presumably, is what happens when you stop swimming).

[DanReyLop]

At this point, I'd settle for Fitbit to include even just one of these things for swimming workouts:

• Stroke detection. That can be used to estimate distance / calories, the same way as "steps" are a reasonable estimation outside of water. Also it's pretty much the only metric that matters when swimming in the sea (currents mean that speed is very inconsistent).
• HRM. If they figure out how to keep the HeartRate monitor working underwater, that's a good estimation of calories burned.
• GPS. For what I understand, a device can only get GPS reception above water, and while swimming freestyle that means roughly half of the time. That can affect precision, but if it's accounted for and smoothed out (like the Apple Watch does), then it can provide distance info (which can be used to calculate calories).

It just seems that the "Swimming" workout was an afterthought, something like "oh, we managed to make it waterproof, let's add some feature to show for it". It just counts the number of times the device changes the direction of movement (laps in a pool). There's no excuse for not having at the very least stroke detection on the top-of-the-line device of a fitness-focused company. I get that GPS and HRM can be more challenging, but still. It's cool that the Ionic is waterproof, but underwater it's just a glorified stopwatch.

It also would be nice if FitBit confirmed / denied if they are working on this. Not asking for a date, only for "we're considering it" (a polite NO), or "it's definitely coming, we didn't have time to implement it by launch date".

PS: Absolutely loving my Ionic so far, except for this thing. It just happens to be a big part of my daily exercise routine 🙂

[Rich_Laue]

The swimmimg workout is based on the program in the Flex2 which is like the most of the other swim trackers on the market, count laps and multiply by the dostance of a lap. Fitbit never thought about the open water.

I do like this idea.

OK lets get some ammo on our cause @DanReyLop or somebody. Next open swim use walk or run with the GPS enabled, lets see how GPS performs in a real time swim.

I also suggest adding your vote for the Option to use GPS in workout.

[Sam_Ireland]

It cannot be that hard to add the feature. If GPS is available for other activities why not make it available for Swimming?

The lengths function also needs looking at. Often the number of laps multiplied by the length distance I have set in Iconic does not equal.

I did 50 lengths of a 20m pool this week and it told me I had done 920m. I have gone to edit the distance in the app but it just reverts back to 920m

[Rich_Laue]

I'm wondering how good the GPS works with the tracker going in and out of water durring the strokes. My phone doesn't track well with a heavy cloud cover, or in buildings. Even walking next to a heavy tree line will cause the recorded track tol shift.

Durring swimming the GPS software may need more fine tunning.

[kwaasen]

Oh! Seconded! I would love that too! 

I also wish you could add options for the waves. As swimming in the ocean with waves and currents, I believe, takes more energy than swimming in a pool. 

[Swimguy]

While we are complaining:
Any idea why the calories count is different between entering a swim
manually and having Fitbit detect it automatically, even if the time and
distance are the same?

[DanReyLop]

It cannot be that hard to add the feature. If GPS is available for other activities why not make it available for Swimming?

@Sam_Ireland Because GPS signal doesn't work underwater, and while swimming your wrist is only above water for about 1 second at a time. It's not impossible to implement, but it's not as easy as you seem to think.

OK lets get some ammo on our cause @DanReyLop or somebody. Next open swim use walk or run with the GPS enabled, lets see how GPS performs in a real time swim.

 @Rich_Laue I've went swimming today for the first time with the Ionic. I used the "swim" workout. Since it's practically impossible to swim in a straight line in the ocean, after 1 hour it registered 34 laps (3,4km, I configured pool length of 100m). It seems to compute the calories just based on distance. Since sometimes I would change direction quickly, it seemed to think I did an insane interval training. So, confirmed, the Ionic is basically a stopwatch for open water swimming. No HRM, no GPS, no stroke detection (come on!), nothing.

I noticed that, when swimming, the watch slides to my wristbone, so heart rate may be impossible unless you tighten the watch A LOT.

I'll try tomorrow using a "walking" workout, but we shouldn't be the ones trying to come with a workaround. This is the highest-end fitness tracker of a company focused on exercise, swimming stroke detection should be the bare minimum even in the other water-proof tracker (Flex?).

[Rich_Laue]

Im not asking you to come up with a work around @DanReyLop I'm. Simply asking for someone to give GPS a try and see if any sensable path gets recorded. Of course we could sit back and we know nothing will change if we can bring it to fitbits attention that it does somewhat work, then maybe they will do tests and some updates making gps more reliable for swimming. 

I would but it is close to winter the water and air is to cold. 

[PatPepin]

But why is it working for the Apple watch? 

A  GPS is a GPS no?

Apple watch has open water swimming... Fitbit will have to come up with something good... 

If not... Then they simply say that the apple watch is a better sport tracker than the ionic...

[Rich_Laue]

GPS is just one very small part of the ionic. 

But no GPS is not GPS just like FM radio is FM radio. You have receiver quality, antenna leangth, and the supporting firmware. The radio refrained just hands over points. 

Just because Fitbit hasn't enabled GPS for swimming does not mean it will not work. You won't know until you try! 

[PatPepin]

So I am the one who has to try? 

Isn't it Fitbit the one that has to try, test and prove themselves? 

[kwaasen]

GPS issue aside. The simple Flex-2 has much better auto recognition than the Ionic. Including swimming. When I used Flex-2 I got a good idea of the distance I swam.

I am really disappointed that the expensive option is less usable than the cheap one. 

[Rich_Laue]

No I never said you are the one to try. 

I simply said we can wait for Fitbit to do nothing or somebody can do a simple test.. I assume that most people in this thread swim in open water at least once a week.

There is at least 10 people in this thread. The thread is almost 5 weeks old.. It really would not be much of an inconvenience for someone to use the run mode instead of the swim mode. 

With my local water close to 40°F I'm not going to try until next summer 

[PatPepin]

I am really disappointed in Fitbit. Hiding and doing nothing. 

A  response, an answer or just a simple word about open water swimming would be appreciated.

Something about why it is impossible or just to tell us they are working on that option... 

[Rich_Laue]

I'm not surprised, this is not the area for troubleshooting, or to get a response from the developers, but where Fitbit users present their case as to why a suggestion would be good to adopt. 

My suggestion is to do some testing them present your findings to Fitbit to show that it is indeed possible. 

[tribri]

My first suggestion to Fitbit is fix your technical support. They are a bunch of liars. I have an open ticket for the Ionic failure to correctly record an openwater linear point to point swim (sorry for redundancy, just want to be clear in this point). Instead of a reply this is a known issue and they are aware it does not work (as I am reading in these posts for several months now) they jack me a round and keep asking for data. Like an idiot I keep sending data. Apparently this is a rouse to string me along for weeks now.

As with the previous suggestions for swimming in open water environment the Ionic needs to have a linear setting of some sort to track distance with time primarily. GPS data would be desirable.

I tried the running feature and no no luck. Will try again since I saw someone here had good results.