Asking for help on getting my next fitbit device as a daily swimmer

[charlieLee]

Hello fellow fitbit users, happy thanksgiving folks 😄

So I have my versa2 for ~3years and I have to say I've loved almost everything about it..except the lap swimming counting. 

As many have mentioned and complained, the versa line doesn't offer real-time lap counting when it comes to swimming. My swimming buddies are mostly on an apple watch but I do love the fitbit platform plus I'm an android user so I think I'll keep my device hunting in the fitbit community.

I did my little research here and there and it seems that Sense (not the 2nd gen though, and sure I don't know why) is among the few fitbit devices which provide such functionality. It's currently on sale for ~$140 and I'm pondering on getting it. However, given it's the Black Friday and maybe everything is somewhat on sale so I believe it'd be for the best if I can ask for some advice on the purchase. Essentially: does Sense satisfy your need if you are a swimmer? is there other better option other than Sense regarding lap counting? I'm not particularly interested in the 'wristband' type, so a 'full smartwatch' would be what I'm after.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

[Guy_]

Hi @charlieLee - there are issues with watches after the Versa 2, the main ones are inaccurate heart rate during movement, erroneous floor count but this may have been a firmware bug, but the worst are poor vibration and major charging issues. As your watch has none of those problems are you sure swim laps are so important as to switch.

As you are familiar with a good battery life between charges anything else [non Fitbit] is going to be rather a disappointment.

One other option I believe there may be a Charge or an Inspire that has good swimming measurements which you could wear just for swimming. @t.parker  may be able to give more information on that.

[t.parker · Accepted solution]

@charlieLee frankly, I wouldn't recommend Fitbit to any swimmer. There are several reasons why but currently I see strange direction Fitbit is taking when it comes to implementing swimming in the new models. From what we had before on Ionic and Versa the feature is gradually degraded. First we lost ability of seeing laps on the watch and now I see we can't even see any details in the app (or at the end of swimming on the watch). Latest models dumbed down swimming to the level of being rather useless. When swimming with Sense 2, I get only lap count but can't see any details in the app and device doesn't recognize stroke type. Here's what you gonna get if you go for recently released Sense 2 and Versa 4 (or Pixel Watch):

One thing that that laps count is wrong but if you look at the details Fitbit gives you it's almost nothing. Moreover, it's probably one of not very many devices that has no option to enable HR monitoring during swimming.

I don't know whether older models give more details right now or the new app is simplified for all existing models. I can check that on Thursday with my old Sense. Old Sense is the last device that counts laps on screen and detects stroke type (as far as I know) and gives limited laps breakdown on end screen and details in the app (it used to). Now, I'm not sure it it's still true.

If you want Fitbit then Sense may be the best choice for swim tracking but there is a reason why your friends use different watches to track their swim. In other thread I compared Galaxy Watch 5 which is also rather a smartwatch than sports watch but at least it takes swimming and other activities seriously. Just to give you a better picture what you're going to be missing as a swimmer if you go with Fitbit (example from Galaxy Watch 5, finally I managed to convince my wife to enter the pool with the watch on her wrist):

And on Garmin, there's even more options and output data (there's a drill log, automatic rest timer and more). Why would one use Fitbit for swimming?

Answering your question, if you want Fitbit probably go with original Sense and DO NOT go with Sense 2 or Versa 4. Otherwise, there are many watches doing much better job.