Re:We're bringing Pebble back
by tomaskafka on Monday January 27, 2025 @07:09PM
(#42847392)
In my experience, Garmin counts pool lengths just fine, with maybe 1 out of 20 being miscounted?
I tried it on 100m, 400m and 1km swims. In each case it miscounted my turns and distance which I kept in my head to verify its accuracy. In one 100m it missed two turns claiming I did 50m and not 100m. That's patently wrong since I know the pool I go to is 25m and I can count to 4. All my turns were flip turns under water with relatively good technique (think advanced amateur who almost made it to swim team in college)
I know that tracking strokes, laps and swim distance is much harder than steps. But it's doable because Apple mostly gets it right. Yet nobody beside Apple seems to have nailed the simple pool lap count algorithm (remember some prefer to flip turn while others prefer to turn above water especially at the shallow end) but the iWatch is so crap in so many other ways that the world really needs a competent swim tracker that doesn't need to be on a charger every 20 minutes.
EDIT: Better yet, make it fully open with access to gyro/accel data so I can develop my own perfect, swimmer's app and maybe make some money as an added benefit.