Goggles from the future

Rowan Clarke finds out how innovative goggles fit the face of future swimming

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Glasses that relay data for your eyes only – it’s the stuff of childhood futuristic dreams. So, imagine having goggles that do just that, making us feel like Bond got an upgrade from Iron Man and solving a whole heap of practical issues with reading training plans, counting laps and swimming in a straight line.

The technology behind FORM Smart Swim goggles is state-of-the-art. Anyone used to waiting for workout stats to upload to your phone will appreciate FORM goggles’ real-time metrics that appear in front of your eyes as you swim – your heart rate, stroke rate, the next step in your workout plan, tips to improve your technique.

“Based on the sensors in the goggles, HeadCoach™ can tell you how to improve your technique,” explains FORM’s founder, Dan Eisenhardt. “Most people find it difficult to be properly streamlined in water. So, you might be strong and fit, but because water is 830 times denser than air, hydrodynamics means that if your head comes up, you almost come to a stop. That’s where we can help – delivering real-time tracking, workout guidance and technique tips based on realtime sensor data personalised to you.”

No more zig-zags

Take it outdoors and these goggles can help you train for distance and speed in open water. Connect a compatible smartwatch and they also keep track of your time, distance, pace – even your line.

“Probably the most requested feature from our customers was for something that makes them swim in a straight line between the buoys,” says Dan. “You don’t need to connect to a watch to enjoy that feature – it’s a digital compass inside the goggles. We used machine learning to filter out all the noise that comes from breathing and sighting to get the accuracy right.”

A former competitive swimmer, Dan started his sports technology career on land. He developed the world’s first smart eyewear for skiing, and then for cycling and running. But it would be years before he worked out how to bring this technology to the water.

Teaming up with experts in sports eyewear design, activity-tracking algorithms and augmented reality optics, Dan went about solving the problem of being able to see a display clearly while still being able to see your underwater surroundings, keeping the form factor small, the profile low and the price point affordable.

By examining all the challenges around swimming goggles, from face fit and fogging to coping with chlorine and salt water, to fitting in computer technology while minimising drag, Dan and his team also considered how goggles fit into our swimming kit.

“Traditional goggles are almost throwaway,” he says. “You often throw your goggles around, they’re in the bottom of your bag and they may be wet for days, and so the durability, the size, the user interface and of course, being able to show the display underwater, turned out to be the biggest hurdle.”

The FORM team looked at how we use technology to track our swims. For most of us, that was always by wearing a smartwatch. But, if you enjoy analysing your swim data, you’ll know you have to sync your watch with an app to view your stats post-swim.

“We wanted to be able to accurately track and show your metrics in real-time, which your watch doesn’t have to do because you see it afterwards,” says Dan. “On the server side, you could do all kinds of stuff, but we had to do it in the moment and be accurate and that was very difficult.”

Swimmers’ advantage

Being able to get accurate metrics as you swim is fascinating. But how can that feedback augment your swimming experience?

One of the benefits of swimming is that it turns off your brain’s noise. That’s wonderful if you’re looking for an escape where you can switch off and enter a meditative state. But, if you’re trying to concentrate on your technique, look where you’re going and think about pace, it can be really tricky. If you’ve ever had a coached session where you’ve listened to instructions and then set off and instantly forgotten them, you’ll understand how this feels.

“I grew up in Denmark in a family of swimmers and engineers, so I started swimming very young,” says Dan. “I was a distance swimmer, so I spent a lot of time in the pool thinking about pace and trying to follow the pool clock and the coach’s instructions. And of course, as soon as you push off from the wall, it’s like a black void, you get nothing.”

But, having eventually developed the technology that gives swimmers the information they need while they swim, Dan found further benefits such as helping outdoor swimmers follow a straighter line and reducing swimmer anxiety, especially in open water.

“What we’ve heard from our community, even before launching SwimStraight, is that having something to look at that’s familiar because you swim with it every day is reassuring,” explains Dan. “It takes your focus away from some of the other things that you could be scared of in the water, like looking into the darkness. And then, because you’re not wasting energy zigzagging and becoming frustrated by that, you feel you’re in control and that will also lower your anxiety.”

Is creating advantages for swimmers cheating? Well, firstly, FORM goggles are completely legal according to all swimming and triathlon governing bodies, meaning that they’re allowed in competitive events as well as in training. But, more importantly, if they reduce swimmer anxiety and help us swim in a straighter line, then they add an element of safety. Plus, we use tech in pretty much every other sport, so why not swimming too?

“Swimming has been completely deprived of technology,” says Dan. “If you think about it, there hasn’t been much innovation in swimming at all. So finally, there’s something that can both keep you safer and take away some of that anxiety.”

Your new goggles

So, what’s it like to wear a pair of FORM goggles? If you’re used to watching the seabed or staring into nothingness, having a display must feel pretty weird. “Anytime you change goggles it takes getting used to, even without technology. With the display, you’re going from darkness to light,” says Dan. “For me, as somebody who’s been swimming since I was five, it was such a big moment to see information while swimming that I’d always had to imagine or go by gut feeling.”

Pretty quickly, FORM’s users find the goggles essential – to the point that they’ll drive any distance home if they’ve forgotten them. Dan points out that they alleviate the boredom of training for hours and make you work harder. Finally, with a technology that’s constantly evolving, each software update will apply to every model of goggles so that they last you.

And that’s the wonderful thing about technology – it evolves in response to the changing ways in which we enjoy swimming, working with us as swimmers, helping us to get more enjoyment from the sport we love.

“I think there is a longevity wave happening because swimming is such an efficient way to stay fit. There are so many mental health benefits that have been documented as well because it’s like meditation,” says Dan. “So, I’m expecting to see a continued growth in swimming. And I think whatever reason you have to participate in a sport, if there are tools out there that can help you enjoy it more, become more efficient and reach your goals, then that’s great for humanity.”

FORM’s Holiday Sales are now live with pricing for Smart Swim 1 £159.00 for just £119.00, and Smart Swim 2 for £229.00 for £179.00. 

For more information visit formswim.com