Swimsense problems

coop6

 Just curious if any other Swimsense users have had problems with their device. I've been using a swimsense for about a year now. Initially the device did everything it was supposed to, and worked like a charm. After downloading two of the software updates, it just stopped working. First it would no longer download workouts,  then it froze in the middle of a workout and died completely. Swimsense customer service was great, and they replaced the watch free of charge within two weeks. The new device initially worked fine and downloaded workouts for two swims. 

Currently, it will occasionally refuse to download. If I try again later, it will usually work. Profanity and threats seem to help. It randomly adds 25 yards to intervals. I'm not doing jumping jacks or anything bizarre at the end of the pool, so I can't understand why it would be doing this. Today, it completely lost a 3200 yard swim workout. I hit reset save as usual, and it was just gone. You have to be fairly intentional about clearing a workout, so I'm quite certain that this was not operator error. I had it record several 'workouts' while sitting on the kitchen counter, and reset/saved them without problem.

Is this just one of those devices that is glitch prone? Or did swimsense send me a dud? I have not contacted customer service yet; I was hoping to get a general sense of whether these are common problems I need to just get used to, or something that could be fixed. 

Thanks!

Tom Glynn

I think you have a dud. I've had mine for about 9 months I think, have done all the firmware updates, and haven't had any download problems. Once in a while it will add 25 yards to the total or think I'm swimming backstroke when I'm really not, but these are occasional in nature only.

I'm not sure what causes the extra 25 yards. I'm not the most elegant flip turn person and have always blamed my poor technique.

All in all, I'm pretty happy with the device.

samritter

 I must have had another dud.  It never worked properly except maybe for the first 2 laps of a workout.   At the start of my ownership, it would record too much distance,  at the end, it was not recording enough.   The last workout I did with it, it recorded 25 yards for a 300 yard effort.

It has since been returned.   

coop6

Thanks for the input. I think I can live with the random extra yardage, but if it keeps dropping entire workouts I'll see what customer service can do for me. I swim tomorrow, so we'll see...

Sam, what do you swim with now that you've returned the swimsense?

samritter

 Sorry for the late reply on this.

I swim with the Garmin 910xt.   It's so much more accurate in the pool.

Paul Hough

I don't have one, but I was talking with a guy at St Croix this weekend who was shopping for a 910. He told me that he had the Swimsense and that it was a piece of crap. So there's another dud datapoint. I had been thinking about it, but threw out that idea after hearing his comments.

MattAaronson

One of my good friends got a Swimsense and it was a piece of crap. Poorly made, frankly. And to add insult to injury, crap customer servicce too. He got a 910xt and loves it. I have a 910xt and love it.

coop6

Customer service was pretty good to me on the first go round, but maybe I was lucky. The second watch they sent me free of charge is every bit as dysfunctional as the first, and I'm tired of messing with it. It's a nice device when it works, but not at all reliable. The 910xt sounds like the best option.