What is the Best Open Water Swimming GPS Watch?
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Over recent years there has been a massive growth in open water swimming and now many of the Garmin GPS units now have a swim feature on. So what is the best Open Water Swimming GPS watch and what are the main features you need to look at.
Before you head off you can plan your ‘course’ on your computer and then follow it if you wish. As you veer from this course the GPS will vibrate so you can swim and let your GPS watch do the navigational job for you. A great navigational experience when swimming.
All the Garmin Instinct 2 and Garmin Fenix 8 GPS Watches (now have an open water mode and with these running it will run an open water swim algorithm, possibly making these the best open water swimming GPS watches.
When your arm is under the water you will lose satellite signal so this algorithm smooths this out and gives you both the navigational experience and swim recording experience you are looking for.
As well as navigating when the GPS records you open water swim you get all the stats you would be expecting plus several swimming specific ones such as the average stroke rate as well as the temperature and heart rate which when pulled together with the other stats give you a great overview of your open water swim.
Garmin Fenix 8 options -
1. Fenix 8 - 43 mm - AMOLED
2. Fenix 8 - 47 mm - AMOLED
3. Fenix 8 - 51 mm - AMOLED
4. Fenix 8 - 47 mm - Solar Sapphire
5. Fenix 8 - 51 mm - Solar Sapphire
Further Reading and Useful Information;
We have teamed up with GPS Training to put together a online training resource for the Garmin GPS Watches. They take you through all the steps from turning on the Garmin GPS Watch and getting it paired to the Garmin Connect App too putting routes on your Garmin Watch to use for your chosen activity.
You can achieve access to this through the GPS Training Website – https://gpsonlinecourse.co.uk/