Finis Swimsense

Their second set of prototypes are headed to manuf soon, and will be floating around the Sept timeframe.  I've talked with the team quite a bit over the past few months, including just this past Friday and got a walk through of their site.  I should have a post with my interview with the team up shortly.

I'm told I'll have the product in hand for poking at sometime in September.

I'm looking forward to it - from everything I've seen thus far - I'm excited.

Edited by dcrainmaker 2010-08-31 3:55 PM

I just got this a couple of weeks ago and am pleased with the product.  It was easy to charge and configure and get going in the pool.  It is a little trickier to download the data and the dashboard is not intuitive.  For two swims it was accurate for freestyle and backstroke, but off for breaststroke and butterfly.

I think it is a great gadget and look forward to getting some more experience with it and also seeing how the data trends over time.  That is difficult for me to do with my training logs which only capture distance & stroke and overall time.  I don't have a history of stroke count and time for various strokes.

I saw it, pretty similar to the swimovate however it looks like they try to get you to drop money for the program that you use for analyzing youor workouts (free the first three months but $9.99/mo thereafter).  Bad strategy for marketing, I imagine that will not last if they want to sell watches.  Swimovate Pro includes that functionality for free so that is my Christmas gift.  Hopefully before too long Training peaks and Raceday will allow that data to be imported as well.  Should be nice to have for us lap counter imparied swimmers. 

Received one yesterday and it looks pretty amazing. We''re looking at interfacing with the Finis website to import swim data directly into the training logs.

I'm planning on testing it out at the pool tomorrow, and I'll give a basic report/review here afterward.

I tried mine for the first time today - in the pool it worked great!  I'm having problems uploading to the website, for some reason the device is never recognized.  I had to create a support ticktet with Finis.

anyone else have the same problem?

i think my problem is that i don't have a Mac - i've tried 3 different windows computers (Win 7 64 bit & Vista) and all of them had problems recognizing the swimsense usb device. 
I haven't had a response from finis yet

I have one and have used it twice. It turned off on its own during my swim this morning (yard 1100 of 2000). The battery was charged so I'm not sure how it turned off. Hopefully it is nothing, or something the latest bug fix will correct. It will be a good tool for me. I am not that good of a swimmer and I focus so much on my technique I forget what lap I am on. You wouldn't think it would be that hard.

Danny 

I'm getting one on 1/21, I can't wait!!

I love this thing. I had a few hiccups at first with the buttons regarding starting, stopping etc.  but this was not unusual or unexpected. I've had the same experience with my cyclocomputers and Forerunners. I didn't experience the problems described by others above. I certainly may in the future, but so far so good.

Pros:

• It accurately tracks distance. No more "Am I 1200 or 1250 yards into this workout?".  Just look at your wrist.
• Stroke count! This is huge.
• Accurate splits.
• It feels well made. I'm not afraid it's going to fall apart.
• It's light. Weighs practically nothing.
• I really like the cradle.  The unit fits snugly into the the cradle but is easy to remove.  I'm a fan of cradles. They give a device a place to be when it's not in use and they keep my desk looking neater.
• It's put out by Finis, a known, respected company with the resources to support it.
• It seems like it will fit on a wide range of wrist sizes.

Cons:

• Some of the button actions aren't intuitive. Having different buttons to start and stop recording a workout took some getting used to.
• You have to install Adobe AIR to upload to their website. I'm not a fan of requiring additional 3rd party software that can do other stuff unrelated to what you initially wanted.
• The log is very basic for now and not exactly feature packed. To give them their due, they've been focusing on the device itself and I'm sure the log will improve. The fundamentals are there and well done.
• The screen is kind of small and hard to read at times. I understand that keeping the unit small so it wasn't cumbersome was a priority but it can still be hard to read.
• Can only save 14 workouts. This is really minor. I can't see why or when you'd need to keep more than that on the device.

The Pros are huge and the cons are mostly quibbling. This is an insanely useful tool.  I've always known that I'm a bad swimmer but now I can find out exactly how bad which is the first step to improving. I'll be able to tell workout to workout when doing something different actually has an effect.

My final word: As of now it's the equivalent of a good cyclocomputer for your swim which is unique and remarkable on it's own, but there are plans to offer additional data analysis services that would make it the equivalent of a power meter which is a total game changer. The Swimsense could be the biggest technological advance in swimming for age group triathletes since the triathlon wesuit. It's an incredibly useful tool for tracking swimming workouts and potentially for improving the finer points of one's swim stroke. The latter will depend on the implementation of the premium swim analysis services to come in the future. I'm very impressed.

The disclaimer: I did not pay for this unit. Finis sent it to me to evaluate for for possibly creating an interface to allow transferring workout data from the Finis swimmers log to the BT training logs. This will most likely happen, we just have to work out the technical details.  I'm really impressed with the device and Finis' commitment to it.   If mine is ever lost, stolen, or destroyed I will not hesitate to buy a replacement with my own money.

I chose to get the swimovate pool mate pro - does lap count, stroke count uploads to PC and both cheaper than the finis and not as bulky - looks more attractive.  It also can log 100 swims before download

It is hopefully waiting for me at home....cannot wait to try it out!

Edited by TriToy 2010-12-30 8:26 PM

I could see these new swim gadgets getting me to the pool more and that would be a very very very good thing!

Man I will definitely be swimming more then!  Thanks for the heads up marmadaddy.

Pulled the trigger, getting it tomorrow, in time for all 2011 workouts!! =)

Look what the mailman delivered !!  Any questions, ask, I'm taking it for a spin tomorrow =)

 

Con: $200

I got the swimovate for much less - if you get the non pro version (I think no cradle and you have to upload data by hand) it is under $100....

and I think better looking but that of course is eye of beholder....will let you know as soon as I play...

I put that my pool is 25 yards but the Finis counts it as 50 yards  Don't know how to fix it.  So I swam 3200 yards and calling it 1600.  Sigh.  And it seems you can't put you're 32, you have to put 30 or 35 (I put 30) and I couldn't put I was 138 lbs, I have to choose between 135 and 140 lbs (I chose 140).  If I could just work out the pool length, I'd be happy.  Oh, and it said I burned 200 calories or so in the 1600 yards (62 minutes).  That had to be a joke ......

I had the same problem initially.  Now I am having the same problem again on the same computer that I got it to work on.  I am pretty sure it has something to do with the dock.  Maybe the leads are dirty.  Tech support was not very helpful.  The first suggestion was that I had the watch on the dock upside down.  Good luck and please reply if you get any good information from tech support.

used the swimovate on sunday for the first time.  setting the pool length and whether meters or yards is simple.  I had not yet read directions so I only did the whole set, so did not read about splitting sets....which I will do next time - but it worked GREAT!  average spl, time....

and looks like a regular watch - there was someone at pool with finis and consensus from everyone (including finis owner) was the swimovate much more attractive.

software was easy, and cradle works with watch via infrared  -

no complaints yet from this user

How about OWS, any luck with it?

These products (from what I have read) do not work for calculating distance for OWS. They can give you time, maybe stroke count, but have no mechanism to measure open water distance. They work by putting length of pool into the device and sensors pick up change in direction. Kind of like cyclometer where you put in tire size and they compute distance by number of rotations.

A couple of posts about the Finis Swimsense by my favorite triathlete blogger, DC Rainmaker: 
http://www.dcrainmaker.com/2010/12/swimsense-fr410-garmin-connect-bing-and.html
 http://www.dcrainmaker.com/2010/12/hands-on-look-at-finis-swimsense.html

Lots of pictures and screen shots.  In-depth review coming soon, he says.  I wonder if I can get him to review the swimovate pro?

DC Rainmaker just posted that he's going to try to get one, and a bit about the non-pro model:  http://www.dcrainmaker.com/2011/01/week-in-reviewjanuary-1st-2011.html