Swim Tracking Very Inaccurate

[AlmondMac]

I bought the Charge 3 yesterday on launch day primarily because of the swim tracking feature. I like to swim but I don't like having to keep count of my laps while swimming, so I thought the Charge 3 would be good.

After buying the Charge 3 yesterday, I took it to the gym to try it out. I set the pool length setting to 25 yards, started a swim exercise session with a goal of 20 minutes, and started swimming. It vibrated to alert me after 20 minutes, at which point I stopped. I synced the Charge 3 with my phone. The session was logged correctly at just over 20 minutes, but it only showed me completing 5 lengths for 125 yards. I'm not the fastest swimmer but I'm sure I actually did around 30 lengths.

I contacted customer support yesterday and their only suggestion was to have me restart the Charge 3 and try again. So I restarted it and took it swimming again today. I did the same thing, manual swim session with 20 minute goal. This time it logged 3 lengths, for 75 yards.

I read the Help article here:

https://help.fitbit.com/articles/en_US/Help_article/2087/?q=swim&l=en_US&fs=Search&pn=1

and I am not doing any of the things listed that might cause incorrect swim data. I swim freestyle and I swam continuously from start to finish. I do a flip turn between lengths.

Has anyone had similar (or good) results swimming with the Charge 3? If this is normal then I may have to return it. 

[Rjgits]

Does the Versa show you a lap count as you swim?

Sent from my iPhone

[KimmieLynn]

I am having the exact same issue with mine.

[ChongSK]

Same problem with my new charge 3. After swimming for 800 m in a pool length of 50 m but tracking distance showed more than 2 km!

[Pinkypirate]

That is crazy! I have taken to counting my lengths as I always have just to
be sure!
I like a heart reading as well but the monitor turns off if tracking a swim
so I now deliberately track on a 'workout' so that at least I have a heart
reading and then enter my swim manually which will incorp the hr.
Incidently fitbit's calorie count is useless for swimming as well so I
recalculate that also in the manual log!
I then delete the 'workout' once I have logged the swim manually!
So the main adv seem to b Charge 3 is waterproof, you can time the swim &
get a heart rate in a round about way but accurate distance and energy used
is not reliable!

[ChongSK]

Its very disappointed that charge 3 can give such incorrect swimming tracking.

I bought this charge 3 recently thinking that it has improved its software and can track swimming decently because my Samsung gear s3 can't wear for swimming.

[hasteff]

I’ve had my Fitbit for a week and tracked my freestyle at a 50m local pool three different days. Each time I swam 40 laps. Twice it registered as having done 45 Laps and today it tracked me as only doing 35. Feeling your pain and no idea what the issue is.... I bought the charge purely for its swimming tracker!!!

[KyGuy22]

If you set your pool length to 25m, then every 25m it picks up it going to be 1 length.  So if you do 75m, then that would be 3 lengths.  I length is one lap or one length of your pool.  The Fitbit it tracking your swim correctly.

[hasteff]

Thanks.
I set mine at 50m for a 50m pool and do 40 laps. It give me a different lap
count each time. I did read from another post that if you don’t have a few
seconds break at the end of the pool it doesn’t recognise the end of the
lap??? I haven’t tested this theory yet.

[LThdwYm4]

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@AlmondMac wrote:

Has anyone had similar (or good) results swimming with the Charge 3? If this is normal then I may have to return it. 

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I just completed a swim.  It was quite accurate (not perfect), especially compared to the useless "floors" feature which never is and the steps that count driving, bus rides, bike rides, etc.  It gave me exactly 32 laps for a 15 minute swim and I know my usual pace is just under 30 seconds.  I know it was not perfectly accurate though because the 15 minutes ended about half way through one lap.

[LThdwYm4]

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@AlmondMac wrote:

I've been communicating with Fitbit customer service on this issue as well. Here is their latest response:

"We’re now aware of the issue, but may not be able to provide a fix in the immediate future. We'll continue to monitor the situation, and keep our team informed of the impact to you and other customers. We understand that this isn't the resolution you're hoping for, but rest assured we're always working to improve our products."

So, they're not going to be fixing this anytime soon. If you were planning to buy the Charge 3 because of its advertised water resistance and swim tracking ability, I would be wary.

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All they need to do is make it editable much like the inaccurate step counts and even worse floor counts but for unknown reasons they simply refuse to do this despite overwhelming user feedback that this is necessary.  The floor count is so bad it's basically entirely useless.  Using an altimeter (alone) is an idiotic way to count "floors" since it will obviously count floors for escalators, elevators, driving a car up a hill or anything else that changes your physical elevation besides climbing stairs.  It could probably be fixed if they just required the person actually be moving rather than stationary during an elevation change.  Other devices such as iPhones detect this far more accurately.  The counts on everything are frequently inaccurate and there is no reasonable way to correct them.

"I've also had the screen default to some unexpected screen while swimming. I assumed it was because the water was messing with the touch screen or touch button somehow."

As for this I don't know why they don't simply disable the "raise wrist to wake" or whatever this "feature" is while you're swimming and possibly other activities. 

Here's a request for the no heart rate tracking issue: https://community.fitbit.com/t5/Feature-Suggestions/Track-heart-rate-while-swimming-and-any-other-ex...

[KyGuy22]

Yes, I have never tested your theory, but the swim track mode doesn’t seem to be 100% accurate.

Sent from my iPhone

[ChongSK]

My pool length is 50m and i set 50m. After swimming 10 laps, it should be
500m. But it shows 3 to 4 times more!

[hasteff]

Clearly from all the messages on this thread Fitbit needs to do something
or stop advertising the Charge3 for its swimming features.

[LThdwYm4]

And stop advertising "24/7 heart rate monitoring" since it inexplicably disables the heart rate monitor when you manually start a swim.

[ted2xusz]

I am quite happy with Charge 3 and swimming. I only use the swim workout from the device with time goal and it works quite good. My account is set to meters but I swim now in a 25 yards pool and I can choose it on the device -good. In the app it is then translated to meters and works good. The laps counter is quite good, on average I have 2-4 lenghts wrong and I usually swim around 70-80 laps. So far so good. I do not have the heart rate - I wish I had. I do understand it can be tricky to register it correctly during swim but anyway it would be nice to see it. Perhaps do not link it with any sort of calories calculation as it might get wrong. Anyway, what I do not understand is why I cannot have other features in Charge 3 as they are in other Fitbit devices. I read somewhere that Flex 2  can tell you your swim style - so why I cannot have the same in Charge 3?? Also, I read that Versa shows the laps on the device- why not in Charge 3??  I guess the technology is there so why cannot I have it in Charge 3? Looks like Fitbit wants me to buy other devices for other features and I thought Charge 3 is the best device for everything. The lap counter visible on the Charge 3 would be just a perfect feature, not to mention some more stats when you pause the swim workout. The swim style in the app- if Flex 2 has it, why not Charge 3. I really hope those will be available in the near future. I do know about the website to vote for future suggestions but I really think the mentioned features should be available from the Fitbit Company, not only because users vote for this. 

[LThdwYm4]

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@ted2xusz wrote:

I am quite happy with Charge 3 and swimming. I only use the swim workout from the device with time goal and it works quite good. My account is set to meters but I swim now in a 25 yards pool and I can choose it on the device -good. In the app it is then translated to meters and works good. The laps counter is quite good, on average I have 2-4 lenghts wrong and I usually swim around 70-80 laps. So far so good. I do not have the heart rate - I wish I had. I do understand it can be tricky to register it correctly during swim but anyway it would be nice to see it. 

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This is the only thing that works well for me.  They are not disabling the heart rate because of some technical constraint about not being able to detect it when swimming because when you allow it to auto detect your swim, it does record the heart rate.  This "feature" makes no sense.

[Pinkypirate]

I did not realise that there was a heart rate recorded when using auto-detect while swimming. I thought I had tried that and not had a heart right rate reading? So I have taken to tracking on another exercise format to get a heart rate while swimming which I think provides a reasonable indication of what my heart rate is while swimming! But if I can get a heart rate on auto track then I think I might try that again to see if it is useful?

[LThdwYm4]

It worked for me. Try it.  You have to enable the auto detection in settings and set the minimum length of the exercise to detect.

[Pinkypirate]

Thanks, Tried the auto detect for swim yest and it did work and it was only 2 laps off my distance. The heartrate showed and was good until it dropped out for 10 mins and the calorie count was half what it should be. So it wasn't bad but also not good enough to avoid logging it manually!

[Cwiens]

My first swim seemed okay, but I didn’t actually count. My second swim shows no laps until the last third of a thirty minute swim -10 lengths. I’m not a great swimmer but I swam for 30 minutes without stopping, and as slow as I am, I definitely swam more than 10 lengths.