Tracking open water swim

[Emma13]

Hi i also bought the fitbit sense for open water swimming only to realise it doesn’t record it.

Which setting have people found works the best under the circumstances i really want distance and time .

Does anyone know if you can send it back for this reason within 14 days if not as not much use to me without it

[t.parker]

No Fitbit device supports open water swimming. I think you can send it back for any reason as long as you are still within your return window.

[Emma13]

thanks such a pity live the watch other than that surely would be easy for them to sort

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[t.parker]

@Emma13 open-water swimming is actually hard to implement if you want to get it right. The GPS signal is gone when the watch is submerged and there is very limited use of an accelerometer and gyroscope when it comes to tracking the OW swimming. Other manufacturers support OW swimming but with particular limitations. The swimming watch must have really good GPS and the ability to reconnect instantly after resurfacing. Then, to figure out the route certain approximations are taken into account and sometimes you may get a map looking nothing like you've been just swimming. Most manufacturers recommend placing the watch in a waterproof pouch/bag and just attach it to yourself (so the watch floats) or under a swimming cap (never tried that :D). You can do the same with Fitbit and track your swimming as any GPS workout (AFAIK only Charge 4 has "Outdoor Workout" which could be good enough in such case). I believe adding OW Swim mode is easy but getting it done right so customers won't come back with complaints may be tricky. Hence, Fitbit chose not to implement it at all.

[Emma13]

hi have tried swimming with watch on my swim float but didn’t register anything maybe will try on run on my swim float .
with everyone wild swimming these days you think someone would get it right

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[t.parker]

In this case you can't rely on autodetection as for OW swimming you need GPS. You need to start tracking any GPS activity manually using Exercise app on your watch. Considering no "Outdoor Workout" the closest to give you best approximation would be Bike exercise (not using steps for distance calculation). I know it sounds far from perfect but not much else really can be done. Fitbit isn't really keen to provide OW Swimming activity so workarounds are the only option for users.

[Emma13]

thanks hadn’t thought to use bike will try that on my toe float next time

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