Garmin Swim 2 GPS Watch

I’ve been using a Garmin GPS watch for years, but my 2012 Forerunner 305 was seriously on its last legs so I checked to see what DC Rainmaker was recommending as the best watch for open water swimming. He reviewed the Garmin Swim 2 GPS Watch last fall, and summed it up by saying “it’s easily producing the most accurate openwater swim tracks out there, period.” I was convinced, and bought one on Amazon that same day!

I tested it against my Forerunner at Patagonia Lake State Park by doing a one mile loop with the Forerunner in my swim bag and the Swim 2 on my wrist. In the past I would always put the Forerunner in my swim cap in a small zip lock bag (recommended by DC Rainmaker when it first came out), but since I now always swim with a buoy it works as well to put it inside. The results of both devices, shown below, were remarkably similar… and accurate.

There’s a few minutes difference between the two, but I started the Forerunner first and then put it inside my swim buoy, and didn’t stop it until after I got to shore. I started the Swim 2 just before starting to swim. The yardage difference is insignificant.

The Garmin Swim 2 can also record pool swimming, biking, running and cardio, while recording/displaying your heart rate in real-time via the optical HR sensor on the back. It also has all the usual activity/sleep/stress/life tracking stuff you find in other Garmin watches. I’ve been using it for a week, and have been quite impressed. Finally, I can retire the Forerunner 305!

Updated July 29, 2020

Garmin experienced an outage on July 23 that completely disabled the company’s website, the app, and many of its services. The company confirmed that it was a ransomware attack (thought to be the work of ‘Evil Corp’, a group of Russian hackers who demanded that they pay a $10 million ransom). Five days later, Garmin announced that “many of the systems and services affected by the recent outage, including Garmin Connect, are returning to operation” and also added that “no customer data was stolen”. My activities are finally saving to the Connect app and integrating with Strava and MyFitnessPal, but some features like sleep tracking aren’t working yet.

“Though Garmin has not released any information regarding the ransom itself, since its services were not totally restored at once, it is likely that Garmin has attempted to salvage files or use those stored elsewhere, rather than attempting to work with the cyber-attackers.”

Updated December 29, 2020

In general, the Swim 2 has been great to have, but a couple of reoccuring issues are quite frustrating. Several times during a pool swim, the watch stops recording and reverts back to the main interface. I don’t always notice right away, so I can lose a couple hundreds yards or more before I turn recording back on again. Fortunately, the watch does save the initial segment. The other issue is with the Garmin Connect app, which periodically stops syncing with the watch for some unknown reason. The first time it happened, I tried resetting the watch, which was anything but quick and simple. Now I’ve learned that it will eventually start syncing again, although it can be more than 48 hours. I’ve spent too much time already trying to research the problem, and it’s not worth contacting Garmin support. If I’m in a hurry for data for an activity (gotta post on those virtual races!), then I just download the files directly from the watch to my computer.