Experience swimming with Ionic

[EPFB]

Took my Ionic for first swim today and thought I would post my experience for others.  I just swam at the local Y with 25 yard pool. My general feedback from my first swim is the Ionic is very accurate for freestyle but was mixed so far if doing other stroke (small sample size so far) and not good for doing any kick activities.

I ended up swimming a total of 1,200 yards and the final yardage that the Ionic recorded was 775 yards.  My swim consistent of the following:

700 yards freestyle - 28/28 lengths recorded

400 yards of kicking (200 yards with kickboard, 200 yards without, streamline arms)  - 0/16 lengths recorded 

50 yards backstroke - 1/2 lengths recorded

50 yards breaststroke - 2/2 lengths recorded

Total 31/48 lengths recorded. 

Figured I would post this to see if others are having the same experience or not.  If anybody else did some kick only sets and had them record, I would be interested to know.

Thanks, 

[MarreFitbit]

It's nice to see you here @EPFB!  Thanks for sharing your experience with the Ionic and your swimming workouts. 

In addition to completing only a handful of laps or stopping to rest often, inconsistencies in your swim data may be caused by any of the following:

• Stopping to rest midway across the pool
• Resting for longer than 60 seconds after completing a pool length
• Changing stroke type midway across the pool
• Swimming with a kickboard or not using your hands
• Swimming less than the minimum duration set to be auto-recognized
• The units for the pool length setting don't match the units you use for your Fitbit settings. For example if you measure length in feet and inches, and specify a pool length in meters.

Keep in mind the pool length you enter remains the default length until you change it. If you swim in the same pool often, you don’t need to input the length each time.

While you can choose to swim using any of the four most common strokes (freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke, and butterfly), we recommend swimming freestyle for the best results.

I'll be around!

[EPFB]

Thanks for the feedback!  I have had my Ionic for over a month now and swim 4 times a week  (~2,500 yards each time).  I have to say I have been very impressed with the accuracy of the Ionic for counting laps across all the different strokes.  For kick sets, I just use Workout to capture that part as a separate exercise. 

I would add some additional comments that however the calories and/or heartrate is being calculated to summarize the Swim exercise is noticeably low.  On my summaries in the Fitbit app, it will say my average bpm is in the 80s for my swim.   When I do my kick sets, which is less intense than my swim sets, I'll average around 115 bpm.  In the Workout mode and kicking, it will show my heartrate which from manually checking my pulse during it, is pretty accurate to what I am seeing.  I would guess during my swim sets, my average heartrate is in the 130s. With the heartrate recording turned off (or ignored?) during the Swim, it must be using some generic figures to estimate my effort. To me, the heartrate feedback, while in the pool, seems pretty reliable that it would nice if Swim exercise would use it or at least make it something the user can choose to be on or not.

Thanks!

[kpschleich]

Hi Marre, could you be so kind and clarify, if the Ionic has an always on mode for the screen during swimming? Thank you. There was some reports here on the community, that this feature does not work anymore after the last fw update.