I want to buy an Apple Watch to track my heart rate and number of laps as I swim, and that’s it. The reason I’m choosing the Apple Watch as a fitness tracker is that looking at the graphs on the youtube channel The Quantified Scientist, it looks like it is a lot more accurate than any other wrist-worn device, and a few percentage points off can give a very wrong heart rate reading. My primary phone isn’t even an iPhone, I just have one lying around to activate it with. I haven’t found any other comparisons that are this in-depth. But it’s difficult to understand the software without having one, so I just want to make sure I can swim and look at my wrist and see both my heart rate and number of laps in a 15 yard pool. Also, it looks like every Apple Watch in the last several years has the exact same heart rate sensors so I can just go with the cheapest SE or whatever. Is this correct? Thanks.
Yes you can do this.
I swim pool laps five times per week with my Apple Watch Series 8, previously with a Series 4. The lap counts are accurate. To ensure the accuracy of the heart rate I always tighten my watch band before entering the pool.
On the watch I’ve configured my Pool Swim Workout Metrics to show the following: Time elapsed, Current heart rate, Maximum heart rate, # of laps, Total yards
However without an iPhone you’ll not be able to access all the additional metrics in the Fitness app on the phone.
Thanks. I do have an iPhone, I just won’t have it with me at the gym.
No need to have your iPhone at the gym. The watch will sync up to the phone when you get home. Good luck!
with the stock app, yes. with a third party app like Workoutdoors, you can have a much larger range of metrics to choose from and display.
i would keep in mind, though, that optical heart-rate sensors do struggle with getting readings while swimming in water and Apple notes that you may not get HR readings for swimming workouts.
Sure I swim with it, only at water lock you can do nothing at the screen.
But you can still see the screen and what it’s tracking right?
Correct.
Doesn’t make sense to not have an iPhone and purchasing an apple watch. Seriously.
Apple warns that it may not be able to read your head rate due to water interfering, but it often works and it will even identify the stroke type for you! I’m not sure if you can even activate an Apple Watch without an iPhone. As the setup is usually carried out via the iPhone. Trying to type account details on the watch it just terrible to be honest
Sadly, no. I‘ve been swimming with my Apple watch and also doing some cardio sessions in the pool. The HR Sensors don‘t work underwater. It will track the laps in the pool: With every pool workout you can set the length of each pool lane. For HR-Tracking you need an external HR-Tracker with Bluetooth functionality. I personally am using the Polar Connect A7
I really just want it to work when I stop and look at the watch, when my hand will be above the water but still wet. Does it work then?