Inspire swim tracking

[csmelt]

How does Inspire track swimming - is it the same as Flex2?

[MattFitbit · Accepted solution]

@csmelt Great question! 

Yes, Inspire automatically tracks swims using automatic exercise recognition. Inspire HR has the same feature but also includes an Exercise App that tracks specific exercises—such as run, bike, swim, or weights.

Hope this helps! Let me know if you have additional questions. 

[Emsieb]

Hi,

Can you please tell me if the Inspire will track distance of swimming or just how long you have been swimming for?

TIA

[csmelt]

I have a flex2 just waiting for it to conk out - as it will. I believe the inspire will track swimming as flex2 does. It’s very rudimentary only does pools you have to set the length. No Open water tracking which is rather silly.

[csmelt]

I’ve been swimming for 13 years with Fitbit flex 2 since 2016 or so

[Emsieb]

Great thanks....so if I set it to say 25m lengths it will tell me how many I’ve done, which will be just what I need, as tend to loose count! I don’t do any open water swimming so that’s not an issue 

[csmelt]

Yup it measures each length but it can’t measure kick. Even doing drills is kinda sketchy. Only the 4 strokes Back Breast Fly and Free. Did 10K last year and it measured it as 10,025m ... whatever. You get what you pay for - it’s a cheap tracker!

[Ang1t]

At the moment, I'd say stick with your flex 2.  I bought the Inspire HR on launch day and it is very inaccurate when recording number of lengths.  I have it set at 25m pool and regularly swim 2600km which is 104 lengths.  Yesterday it only registered as 84 and today, 2100km (84 lengths) as 71.  The Flex 2 was much more accurate only 1 or 2 lengths out.  It's very frustrating.

[csmelt]

yup that's too bad...my flex2 will eventually die as all fitbits do (planned obsolescence - already on my 2nd one and have burned through 2 Surges and 2 Ionics - they just give up!) ... my kids and wife have the same experience with various iterations of flex1/2, charges, altas etc. Ya get what ya pay for!!

Was hoping the Inspire would be a direct replacement too bad...what worried me was the absence of a swimmer in the Inspire promo video! hehe.

[H.W]

Sorry if I appear dumb, I cannot find any info about Inspire swim on my dashboard.

I therefore thought I might need an Inspire HR to track swimming.

Are you saying I can use my Inspire in the swimming pool.

I have only had the device a few days and have been so afraid it will not work in water I have even been taking it off to shower.

[Fatpie]

As I understand it both the inspire and the inspire HR will track swims and show up in exercise bit of dashboard.

[TenaMM]

Now it makes sense that every swim workout is in the negative by about 500yd.... my kicking sets. 

[Ang1t]

I used to have the flex 2 and this was much more accurate.  Used to miss one or two lengths.  Would often record an odd number of lengths which was wrong as I always get in and out at the same end of the pool.  But the HR Inspire is out by around 20 lengths.  I don't kick off the side that much!!

[Ang1t]

It does track the swim just not accurately enough.  It is recording around 20 less lengths than I am actually swimming which is very frustrating.

[H.W]

I thought the Inspire did not allow you to enter the swimming pool length. Perhaps that is the reason you are not getting accurate readings .Just a thought!

[Philadopolis]

Agreed. No Fitbit is great at swim tracking, but my Flex 2 at least came close to the distances I actually swam (usually around 4,000 meters). I've had the Inspire HR for about a week, and it not only seems to be worse at recognizing swimming than the Flex 2, but it's consistently off on the distances. I dropped the time to recognize swimming to the minimum (10 minutes) and I've been paring down the other types of exercises it automatically recognizes, hoping that will simplify things for the algorithms, but I came here looking for tips.

Today's 75-minute workout was 4,100 meters. Here's how my Inspire HR did:

• It did not recognize the first 14 minutes. About 200 meters of that was kick. My hypothesis is that I hadn't been swimming for ten minutes yet, so that 200 kick reset the "time to recognize" to zero.
• It recognized 900 meters in 37 minutes.
• The last 24 minutes of my swim workout was determined to be "Sport." I edited it to "Swim" and it determined that I had covered 1,000 meters.

So, for my 4,100 meters in 75 minutes, I got "credit" for 1,900 meters in 61 minutes.

Is there a pool length setting? I know the Flex 2 had one, but all I can find on the Inspire HR is a meters vs. yards setting. Today's swim was in a 50-meter pool.

[Philadopolis]

Okay. It looks like I can manually start a swim session by swiping down, tapping "Exercise," then "Swim," then the triangle. I'll try that next time and see if that improves things.

[csmelt]

I guess swimming was not much of a consideration when designing the new inspire - let’s face it most people want the step counting. Still you would have thunk they would have kept the flex2 basic swim programming...

[Trakkah]

I have just bought an inspire HR

I have only used it twice. The first time it recorded 10 lengths short and the second day it recorded about 20 lengths short.

Those were using the exercise tracker. I dread to even try the auto recognise!

I used to have a flex 2 which was fairly accurate (within a couple of lengths) but it wasnt a watch and I wanted to be able to see not guess how long I had been swimming for.

I have tried virtually every swim tracker on the market and whereas the choice has undoubtedly improved in terms of what they can "allegedly" do, They are not there yet!

[RossInGA]

It "attempts" to track laps. When you pause at the wall to turn around if the pause is fairly consistent it can do a fairly good job tracking. Don't get your hopes up for a 100% accurate count. My wife was the equivalent of a "professional" swimmer (full ride scholarship for college and started at age seven) and since she does flip turns it never counts her laps very well. I, however, attempt to not drown while doing laps so I always pause to gasp for breath at the wall so it gets about 90% to 95% accuracy (always an undercount). Hope this helps you.