Water Sports or Water Fitness Workout For When Swimming Laps in WatchOS9?

[DigitalAR]

I feel like I saw during a keynote or on Apple's site that the type of stroke when swimming laps is automatically detected like using a kicking board or something.

Im wondering which workout on my watch I should choose; Water Fitness or Water Sports?

Ive done both but the only stats im getting in the Fitness App are like heart rate zones and calories burned.

I was hoping to see how many laps im doing and ideally the time stats on those laps.

 

[DigitalAR]

I’m starting to get the feeling nobody truly knows.

 

[Monkswhiskers]

You need to select 'Swimming' (pool/open water) as the activity to detect strokes. Water fitness/sports would be water aerobics/polo/water skiing etc. so it's not looking for swim strokes. Been using since the AW3 and very good at stroke detection. Kickboard is the new addition with WOS9, I haven't tried that yet.
For pool, set the size and it will count the laps, as long as you pronounce the turn it is spot on. O/W uses GPS so only works with front crawl/backstroke effectively.

 

[Foilguy]

My SE1 works great for pool laps and open water swims using the AW swimming options. I haven’t tried the kickboard option in OS9 either, but really glad they added it. Never used to get credit for it. Garmin at least allowed a manual logging option

Not surprised that there are very few responses to any swimming related AW questions. Very few workout swimmers around compared to dry land activities

 

[AsherN]

For pool, set the size and it will count the laps, as long as you pronounce the turn it is spot on. O/W uses GPS so only works with front crawl/backstroke effectively.

That's the weird one. I don't do competition turns anymore. it's still fairly accurate, but misses a lap sometimes. The distance is always accurate. You would think that a simple math would fix that. I told you it's a 25m pool. You recorded a single lap at 50m. WTF?

 

[Foilguy]

I did finally try some very short combination laps in a 25m pool

100m kick/100mm freestyle (2)
200m kick/200mm freestyle

I do the kick on my back with kick fins (no board but no arm movement either), roll before the wall, flip turn at the wall, come out either kicking again on my back, or freestyle

Seems to miss one 25m length of kick pretty consistently, but always gets the freestyle right. I’m actually happy it’s recording combination laps like this at all. Figure that they will get this new algorithm tweaked over time.

 

[AsherN]

I'm surprised it picks up the kickboard at all.

 

[Foilguy]

I'm surprised it picks up the kickboard at all.

I am too. There are different variations on how you perform a stroke (ie kicking on your stomach using a
kick board or kicking on your back [arms over head] without a kick board. Are you flip turning off a wall as a competitive freestyle swimmer might do, or just pushing off with your arm. I am naively assuming the accelerometer is the key sensor feeding the algorithm that is determining lap count and stroke type. I don’t swim butterfly or back stroke, but I would like to add some breast stroke and see what happens. Guess I should also start paying attention to my “swolf“ scores (stroke count + time to complete one pool length if I’m not mistaken).

 

[Agile55]

I am too. There are different variations on how you perform a stroke (ie kicking on your stomach using a
kick board or kicking on your back [arms over head] without a kick board. Are you flip turning off a wall as a competitive freestyle swimmer might do, or just pushing off with your arm. I am naively assuming the accelerometer is the key sensor feeding the algorithm that is determining lap count and stroke type. I don’t swim butterfly or back stroke, but I would like to add some breast stroke and see what happens. Guess I should also start paying attention to my “swolf“ scores (stroke count + time to complete one pool length if I’m not mistaken).

Re. detecting breast strokes I've had zero issues w/ my Ultra recording my breast stroke's (2-3x's a week) since last Oct. when I received it.

 

[Foilguy]

Re. detecting breast strokes I've had zero issues w/ my Ultra recording my breast stroke's (2-3x's a week) since last Oct. when I received it.

Good to know😀

 

[AsherN]

Re. detecting breast strokes I've had zero issues w/ my Ultra recording my breast stroke's (2-3x's a week) since last Oct. when I received it.

I have a Series 6 and it has no issue detecting breast stroke.

 

[Agile55]

I have a Series 6 and it has no issue detecting breast stroke.

Agreed as I recall zero issues recording breast or some back strokes before the Ultra arrived when using my AW7.

 

[Foilguy]

So I did another kick/freestyle combo workout (a bit over a mile) and as before it lopped off exactly 25m of each kick portion of the swim, so hoping Apple spots this and tweaks the algorithm. Still very happy with result considering it never recorded any kick routine before.

I guess the 32 and 34 are my “swolf” scores(?), but not positive about that. They seem decent but I’m cheating with kick fins

 

[GumaRodak]

I do regular swimming on AW7 and latest released watchos and it is automaticaly detecting strokes and swimming types