Several swim issues and questions

Lpjr4240

Hello, I have now had my Race S for a couple of weeks. I bought the watch for looks, size, plotting walks and swimming. The latter I am very disappointed in. I
am getting on, so I am quite relaxed about wayward stats. However, I did have some basic expectations for swimming that have been covered in this discussion. I am just surprised they have not been addressed by Suunto.

All I wanted from a swim watch was a function that counts laps whilst swimming with the display that only shows the lap number in a colour that stands out in the swimming pool. Very surprised this function is not there.

In relation to lap counting the gyro in the watch should be able to recognise a turn. I follow the advise by having a consistent stroke and a good glide on the turn. On today’s swim, from a 70 lap swim (short pool) it missed 10 laps. When doing sets of two laps with an interval it failed to register a set that I did.

I can live with inaccurate times but missing whole laps is pretty poor. Missing 10 out of 70 laps makes the pool swim function pretty redundant.

In the app my breaststroke is always recognised. My front crawl tends to be registered as back stroke. As I never swim back stroke not too concerned about this.

Where the watch fails to recognise a turn, this cannot be corrected in the app. Even more annoying than this is the App measures laps in average time per 100m. I just want to see how many seconds the lap took. I admit I am pretty rubbish on Apps, but I cannot see an option to change the displayed stats.

I almost bought the Garmin Swim, but indifferent reviews and no mapping meant I splashed out on this watch. Kind of wished I did not bother. I hope future software updates address these expected basic functions.

Lpjr4240

I have worked out how to show lap times on the App. Numpty moment by myself.

Devis

Hi,
the firmware 2.39.44 underestimates the distance when changing swimming style.

See here:
https://forum.suunto.com/post/163836

add 23/03/2025: and see here:
https://forum.suunto.com/post/164078

I really hope Suunto fixes this soon
Thanks.

Devis

Pat Fennell

@Lpjr4240 try use intervals , not laps. Customise the display. I swim 12k a week 5, 6 sessions average with the S and Peak Pro before that and always use intervals. I never pause or hit any button. say whem I swim 10 x 100 and the watch detects a stop and a couple of secinds later itdisplay time.for that 100 interval , or if its 200m intervals then time for the 200m, but I have it display the 100m.pace for that 200 as well. Then you can see all your intervals in.the lap table.screen on the watch during your sessions, although my eldwrly eyesight isn’t good enough for this or.in the app later on.your phone

Pat Fennell

@Pat-Fennell said in Several swim issues and questions:

@Lpjr4240 try use intervals , not laps. Customise the display. I swim 12k a week 5, 6 sessions average with the S and Peak Pro before that and always use intervals. I never pause or hit any button. say whem I swim 10 x 100 and the watch detects a stop and a couple of secinds later itdisplay time.for that 100 interval , or if its 200m intervals then time for the 200m, but I have it display the 100m.pace for that 200 as well. Then you can see all your intervals in.the lap table.screen on the watch during your sessions, although my eldwrly eyesight isn’t good enough for this or.in the app later on.your phone

Over a 2500m session the watch may ocassionally dropr or add 25m

omar_as58

Hello @Inge-Nallsson, does the “lap duration” change for you during the swim?

It’s constantly set at zero for me and whenever I press the lap button manually I get a zero split…

Inge Nallsson

@omar_as58 I don’t really know the exact behaviour of manual laps (by pressing lower button) since I only use it for marking Kickboard sessions. Otherwise I let the watch do automatic interval counting.

At Jan 14, my second reply to Cinzia, I talk about having tried the “Lap number” display which counted upwards with each button press (this being on the previous firmware version), but I did not pay any attention to time. In the below screenshot from that experiment we can see me first pushing the button after 850 metres - don’t remember if by mistake or not - and at the end doing 2x50 with the Kickboard (I never do less than 50 with the board) in a 25 metres pool. I push the button once at poolside pushoff and once at arrival of the full distance. The Suunto App does not show any times for the Kickboard laps and, naturally, no distances:

This Tuesday (on current, the newest, FW version) I ended the session with 4x50 Kickboard and likewise can see no times for the button pushes. But perhaps this is because there is no registered movement between the pushes… I will experiment a bit more tonight:

omar_as58

@Inge-Nallsson Thanks for the insight!

I rely on automatic interval count as well for the most part however I do NEED to be able use the manual lapping during speed & interval work where I need full accuracy to my splits - as I found the automatic lapping on the suunto itself to have a delay or inaccuracy to the splits while the manual lapping is all over the place

Also, for the “lap duration” that I have added through the custom sports mode, the timing doesn’t seem to change while looking at my watch - as opposed to how it is working for the run for example.

Inge Nallsson

@omar_as58 said in Several swim issues and questions:

Also, for the “lap duration” that I have added through the custom sports mode, the timing doesn’t seem to change while looking at my watch - as opposed to how it is working for the run for example.

Well, it does change, but not in any particularly useful fashion. Prior to last night’s swimming session I set up a data page crammed with every ‘distance’ and ‘duration’ field available. Then I spent more time standing at the pool wall trying to understand what that data page was showing, than I did actually swimming…

“Previous activity duration” was dashed out (showed nothing) the whole time. I had a vague hope that it could mean ‘Last Lap Time’ but, alas:

Starting the swim session by pressing the Crown, “Lap number” went to 1. The “Lap duration” and “Lap distance” then started to accumulate numbers in accordance with the ‘Interval’ totality (with “Lap distance” using fractions, e.g. 25 metres showing as 0.03 and 50 as 0.05). The “Lap duration” is not a free-running timer (between button presses) but a summary of the moving times from the completed intervals.

Pressing the lower button threw up a temporary ‘lap’ screen showing the accumulated numbers. Then “Lap number” went to 2 and the “Lap”[distance/duration] were reset to zero. All clear so far.

But doing some short 50 metres laps and pressing the lap button both at push-off and arrival, things quickly became real confusing. In the two screenshots below (“Manual” and “Interval” views) I show the 200 metres warm-up (no button presses) and 4x50 metres using button press before and after each. The “Interval” view has the first two 50s unfolded to show that the 25 metres times are exactly the same as in the “Manual” view.

In total I did 8 button presses for the 4x50, then 100 metres breaststroke and 2x50 free without button presses.

The confusing fact, standing at the pool wall, was that the “Lap”[distance/duration] showed up as a 25 metres entry every time in spite of doing 50s! And the duration seemed untethered as well.

But, dissecting the procedure afterwards it becomes a bit clearer. At least this is what I think happened:

[After 200m warm-up]

Button press (ends Lap 1). Confusing “Lap” screen is shown.
Push-off.
After 25 metres swimming I flip turn and the watch internally registers the time (and one 25m instance done) to put into the automatic interval counting.
Stopping at 50m.
Button press (ends Lap 2). Confusing “Lap” screen is shown.
“Lap”[distance/duration] shows the first 25m data as picked from the interval counting.
Internally the interval counting now has registered another 25m instance and time, and summarised it as one total 50m interval - since i rested there.
Button press (ends Lap 3). Confusing “Lap” screen is shown.
“Lap”[distance/duration] shows the second 25m data from the first 50m as picked from the interval counting.
Push-off (and so on, and so forth)

Whether pushing the ‘lap’ button actually influences the registered times I have no idea. One would need a person standing at the poolside with a stopwatch observing the swimmer’s watch button presses and then comparing with the watch registered lap times…

P.S. During this experiment I also did a couple of double button presses (waiting a bit between) and they showed up as zero metres with zero time - as I previously had seen with Kickboard marking.

Ars Vitae

Admittedly, I use a Suunto Vertical, but I can see that the problems associated with swimming are common. A while ago I commented on another post on the topic, link here: https://forum.suunto.com/post/164078
I wrote there, among other things, that swim monitoring is the absolute weakest point in Suunto watches. This is my personal experience, but reading others, I have no doubt that I share the opinion of other swimming users. Almost everything works badly here, and the most important: counting the swum lengths of the pool, recognizing styles, completely ignoring other exercises in the water. So there is no point in complaining, because there are only two ways out in such a situation. Hope that Suunto will finally do something about it, or buy a watch that better monitors swimmers’ workouts. I write this with all new Suunto watch users in mind, because I remember my own frustration about two years ago.