Garmin Swim Reviews

By Dick from Blacfoot, Idaho on 2/15/2013

I use the GS watch to record my workouts. I typically swim 3000 yards twice a week (I am 76 years old), and do some competition in Sr. Olympics. It does a good job of keeping track of my laps and I am able to look at the data and judge my progress. So far, I have found that the watch does not recognize the difference between breaststroke and butterfly. I never do breaststroke because I have artificial knees.

By Rangel410 from Illinois on 1/11/2013

So far so good. I have had this watch for 1 week and have about 6000 meters on it. I have no complaints so far!

By Anette Larsen from Denmark on 12/29/2012

Best swim watch ever. Easy to use, let weight, and easy to get an overview then scrolling across the sites

By NYC swimmer from New York, NY on 12/1/2012

It''s a great concept, but needs improvement.  Out of the box, it looks well made and can double as a casual watch.  So far, I''ve swam with my Garmin watch two times. It didn''t accurately register each length swam.  (After completing both swims, the watch showed that I still had a half lap remaining to swim.)  Also, it would be good to have a stop watch function.  If it can show the number of laps on the watch front, the manual doesn''t explain how.  Over all, the manual could get into more depth.

By Mark from Rochester, MN on 11/2/2012

Yardage is easily read while swimming
I use it to swim my morning mile in the lap pool.
I can swim with out having to count my laps.

By Milehighswimmer from Boulder, CO on 10/14/2012

Two weeks and 1200 meters later... Recently moved to a location with a great pool facility, and so have gotten back into swimming after a number of years out of the water. The Garmin Swim is a great training tool; counts strokes and lengths correctly as long as I don''t stop mid lap, and as long as I push off the wall on turns. My open turns and flip turns are tracked correctly, and a pause at the end of a length does not throw off the count. I found "auto pause" to be a nice feature as I was working on building my endurance. The auto feature can be turned on/off and at the end of a workout the Swim displays both elapsed time and swim time. It is great to be able to concentrate on my stroke as I swim instead of counting lengths, and Garmin Connect  provides an easy way for me to monitor my improvement in performance over time. The only questionable feature on the Swim is its calculation of the the stroke type which for me is wrong most of the time, but I didn''t get the watch for that feature and so do not care. I did go to the Garmin site and did a software update upon receiving the watch and am running ver 3.0.0.0. Garmin may have addressed many of the issues reported by reviewers on other sites with this release. DC Rainmaker has an extensive review on his site; worth reading. FWIW I use a Macbook and uploads etc work correctly.

By T Moore from San Diego CA on 9/7/2012

I have had the watch for 2 weeks now and have worn it through several workouts.  It counts the laps flawlessly and has big readable numbers.  The buttons on the watch has tons of interesting menus beneath but the basics of going from ''time'' to ''laps-yards'' are intuitive and non-cranky.  The watch keeps track of ''intervals'' so if doing sets of 200s as I do, it keeps interval swim and rest times which of course can be archived on line, reviewed on the watch or online.  The feel of the watch is quality which is what you would expect from Garmin.  I have other Garmin products and this matches their focus on ease of use and durabilty (so far).  
The watch has a cool feature of blanking the screen when the watch has been at rest for a minute or so.  This saves battery, and never happens during a workout.  A potential downside is the replaceable not rechargeable battery which must be installed by prying off the waterproof seal.  Haven''t done that yet so we will see.  This is the far ahead winner of the two products I know of that count laps (I have the other product also).

By dandrew from Aurora, CO on 8/21/2012

I'e had this watch for a little over two weeks, so far it has accurately counted my laps.  I swim about 2 miles a day.  It does have a very low profile, is easy to read, and the computer transfer is very easy.  I have a slim wrist, so that watch face covers the entire wrist area, but hasn't been a problem. The computer part is nice and shows how consistent or inconsistent your speed and strokes have been.