My New Form Goggles are Awesome!
Just got my new goggles. The Form goggles are super cool.[url]https://www.formswim.com/[/url]
Electronic goggles that display two data points on the lens as you swim. Data points change for the swim, turn and rest. No more watch or pool clock.
I did my first swim today and they worked flawlessly. Time and yards were perfect. The goggles look really good; there are only two buttons - scroll and then a stop/start/select button. Very Apple-like design. Once the swim is complete, just sync with the app. Tons of great data and a very polished app.
It's supposed to sync with Garmin, TrainingPeaks, Strava and a few others. My sync didn't work and I'm not sure if it's a user error or a software issue. I sent a note to tech support for help.
The goggles are pretty expensive, but I'm pretty sure you'll forget the price after the first lap or two. I really think these are game-changers for swimming.
Worth checking out!
Comments
my only question on these is how long they will last. I only get a few months out of a pair of goggles before the seals start to go if i am doing 3x per week or more in a pool, the chlorine ultimately breaks em down.. wondering how that would affect these given the price?
@Tom Glynn - congrats on the new toy! You spoke to the data, but not how it helps correct freestyle form. Please come back on in a couple of weeks and tell us how it's working to correct your stroke, roll, catch, etc.
@scott dinhofer yeah, there is a lot of discussion on potential durability for sure. I'm pretty easy on goggles, have them forever until I lose them or give them away. These fit right out of the box (they have a bunch of nose clips to adjust fit if you want). There are directions for care, but it's pretty straight forward. We will know in 3-4 months if there is a big backlash on durability and if there is, what they do about it. (Maybe deep discount on trade ins??)
@Paul Hough I guess I'd look at it a bit differently. As an analogy, I have a $500 watch attached to my wrist when I run. Does it make me faster? No, running makes me faster. But, I look at live data once or twice a minute, the watch kicks out lap splits every mile and I use all this information to adjust my running.
So, for the swim goggles, to me the question is, is there any value to real time data (actually data that lags by 25 yards)? For me, a few things; pacing - you get feedback every lap about how fast you just completed the lap. No need to look at a lap clock or stare/hit buttons on your watch. My pacing is really erratic and I'm hoping this will help. For problems with stroke, roll, catch, etc, I'd get feedback from a coach or video analysis (which I do). Then with the problem identified and possible solution you can head back to the pool, make a correction to your technique and in 25 yards you can know if it made you faster. Today I tried kicking harder for some laps (no extra speed), faster cadence (more speed but tiring), reach more (mixed results).
As to the data, I've always been frustrated by the crappy swim data analytics in TP and WKO. This looks way better.
As pretty much everyone knows, I learned to swim as an adult and have always struggled to get better, so I'm always looking for new ideas. I've actually identified my biggest current weakness and I'm not sure I want to fix it :). I just need to be more aggressive. My last Half IM I swam a 1:35/100 wetsuit legal race, which was pretty decent - not the best, but not my typical back of the back stuff from years gone by. The only problem was that I swam 2300 yards instead of 2100 yards. Everyone else on Strave swam 2100 yards. Any sign of bumping people and I swam wide, went wide around buoys etc.. Swimming down the lane lines is the right answer and would have saved me 3 minutes, but I hate that kind of conflict. I think I need a lesson on swim courage :)
I've only had two swims, but so far, I'm impressed.
Tom
@Tom Glynn do they work in OWS? I'm guessing they dont have GPS so would have to work with a watch if they do work in OWS?
@tim cronk ,
no to gps. Really designed for swimmers and pools. I’ve already sent them a long list of improvement ideas to an already good product :). Customer Support and I had a good laugh, not sure about the product development team 🤣