27 January 2015

TOMTOM MULTISPORT WATCH - SWIM FIRST IMPRESSIONS


Last week I posted a first impressions review of my debut experience with the TomTom Multi-Sport watch. I talked about my experience of the initial set up and also how my first run with the device went. Yesterday morning I took it for it's first proper trial swim and thought I'd let you know my thoughts.

One of the main reasons I decided on a multi-sport watch was for a swim feature. During longer training sessions I find it sometimes quite difficult to keep track of my lengths midway through, as I begin to focus more on my breathing. It's handy being able to have something I can use to track my swim, whilst I focus on the swimming itself. On the feature you can have goals, set intervals and set laps. These are features I haven't yet tried out but will be looking at in the future.

I suppose the main question here is - is this accurate? As I've only tried it once so far I don't think it would be far to say it's completely inaccurate. I'm going to be doing a larger review in a couple of weeks time - so I'll update you more on it then. But for now it's something I can deal with. I counted my swims on this first go and the results were only a one length difference. I performed 70 and the watch picked up 69. I can deal with a one length difference, but mainly because I knew the actual number of lengths. If I was just using this without counting myself then I may worry slightly more about it's accuracy. As I can get a rough answer
that I know is fairly accurate, it's very handy at this moment to have something which works out my pace. I've been wanting to work on my pace for a while so having something that can work this out means I'm able to see improvements through training. If this inaccuracy continues, I can imagine it becoming increasingly frustrating if there are mistakes being make with the recording of my swims.

One thing I wish you could do is edit the training session post swim. It would super handy to be able to change the amount of lengths afterwards. This may help with the accuracy of recording whilst in the pool but also with the result of pace. As the recording is fairy similar to the actual effort there wouldn't be too much difference with changing this. It means that it will also be easier to keep track of training swims and an accurate account of mileage covered in the pool.

So there are my thoughts on it for now. Overall, it's a good start. Like I said, as I've only used it the once I don't want to give a definitive answer just yet. Accuracy could definitely be improved but I'm going to wait and see over the next couple of weeks if there are a whole lot of major differences between what the watch says and the swim session itself. 

If you've tried this out on the swim feature then please do let me know! Tweet me @afloralcrown.

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