Best swimming watches 2024
Track your training and recovery, with GPS for measuring open water distances and metrics to help you monitor and improve your performance: we review the best swimming watches for 2024
COROS Pace 3
£219
They say: Improving on its legendary predecessor in every way, COROS Pace 3 packs an even more powerful punch. Track your training and recovery with a watch that’s lightweight and comfortable, with advanced technology, outstanding data accuracy, and backed by the industry-leading COROS training software system. The COROS PACE 3 paves the way to discover your potential. For multi-sport athletes who train hard and move fast, featuring a lightweight and low-profile for all-day and night comfort; 15 days of regular use or 38 hours of full GPS; dual-frequency GPS for pinpoint distance calculation; built-in audio.
We say: The lightest sports smartwatch on the market, the COROS Pace 3 is designed for distraction-free comfort. With a supple silicone strap, we soon forgot we were wearing it. Straight out of the box, a four-step guide and QR codes made it easy to set up, and with only two buttons it felt intuitive to use: simply press the activity button and rotate the dial to access a host of sports, another click to start recording. Once saved, open the COROS app for metrics such as distance, pace, calories, heart rate, stroke rate, water temperature and stroke type. Pool swimmers will appreciate updated features such as ‘Drill Mode’, allowing you to keep track of kick sets and single-arm drills, and ‘Interval Mode’ (which you can set up ahead of time), where you can choose a stroke, target distance, rest time and number of repeats, then let the watch guide you through a session. In open water, it uses GPS to measure distance, and its slim profile fits well with a wetsuit. A highly recommended entry-level sports watch, offering far more than its price point would suggest.
SUUNTO Race S
£325
They say: Suunto Race S comes with the all the training features and support for outdoor activities, familiar from Suunto Race. Improve your performance by balancing training and recovery, and navigate with free offline maps. Suunto Race S – the performance watch, just smaller. Suunto Race S is perfect for outdoors: follow peak power on rides, automatic interval recognition when swimming, or your route when trail running. With +95 sports modes to choose from.
We say: With a 45mm diameter face, The Suunto Race S is the smaller, less expensive cousin to the 49mm Suunto Race. With up to seven days battery life (40 hours on GPS mode), it gives access to over 95 sports modes, including pool, open water and triathlon. We found its many functions easy to navigate thanks to a combination of touchscreen and three buttons (one a rotating digital dial). Recording a session in the pool felt intuitive and the bright AMOLED touchscreen was easy to read in the pool and outdoors. A beautifully crafted pro-level sports watch, the Race S comes with a host of extras including offline mapping (with 16GB storage on the stainless steel version, 32GB on the titanium). Although it doesn’t have onboard music storage, you can control music on your smartphone remotely. An abundance of swimming metrics await in the app. It also measures heart rate variability – the variation in time between each heartbeat – an indicator of how prepared, rested or stressed you are ahead of an activity. While robust and easy to keep clean, we didn’t love the strap design and at 12mm thick the watch face felt bulkier than others when worn with a wetsuit.
POLAR Vantage M3
£349
They say: Polar Vantage M3 is a smart multi-sport watch combining the rugged form of Polar’s outdoor series with the functional performance of our high-end sports range. This compact device is packed with personal training and coaching tools for countless sports at day and intuitive automatic sleep and recovery tracking at night. Dual-frequency GPS shows your precise location on full-color topographic maps with turn-by-turn route guidance and advanced outdoor training metrics.
We say: With its lightweight stainless steel bezel and minimal silicone strap, this is a seriously smart looking watch. Elegant, not at all bulky; you might not even realise it’s a sports watch. Its AMOLED touchscreen display, protected by Gorilla Glass, is bright even in the sun’s glare and it has a relatively long battery life (up to seven days, or 30 hours in training). A pro-level sports watch, it has built-in maps and route guidance and state-of-the-art biosensing technology including wrist-ECG readings, nightly skin temperature and blood oxygen saturation measurements. Within the Polar Flow app, you can view a wide range of metrics including exercise performance, daily activity levels, calorie consumption, sleep and long-term recovery trends. In terms of recording a pool or open water session, it offers insights into duration, distance, heart rate, pace, cadence and swimming styles. Continuous monitoring provides a holistic view of the overall body’s condition, fitness and recovery, but what’s more impressive is the training load metrics that offer insights into the strain of training sessions and whether it might be a good idea to pull back on training or increase the effort.
GARMIN Forerunner 265
£429.99
They say: What if your next race was the performance of a lifetime? And Garmin coach training plans helped you do something you’ve never done? With the Forerunner 265 smartwatch, you’ll see every insight lit up on a colourful AMOLED touchscreen display. Get ready to be better for it. Featuring a morning report, Garmin Coach training plans for runners, daily suggested workouts.
We say: Primarily designed for runners, the Garmin Forerunner 265 has a lot to offer swimmers and triathletes. It looks rugged and functional, the supple silicone strap providing a forgot you’re wearing it comfort, while the battery life offers up to 15 days (20hrs GPS). Setting up the watch and pairing it my smartphone was straightforward but while it was quick and easy to record and save a pool session, we admit we found the five buttons and touchscreen a little trickier to get used to. Once you’ve saved an activity, the Garmin Connect app provided a wealth of insights including heart rate (max and at rest), training readiness, stress, calories, sleep score, pulse oximeter reading, heart rate variability status, among others. If it’s too much, you can hide fields to stop it feeling overwhelming. Plus, most of the data you can see from the watch itself. The watch face is customisable, too, allowing you to pick and choose what metrics you see and can scroll through, while you can set up shortcuts with the buttons. We particularly liked the stress score (using HRV) and the “body battery” (calculated by HRV, activity and sleep), which helps you understand when it’s time to pull back and take a break; it even buzzed to remind us to relax whenever we got stressed.
Find all the gear you need for open water swimming, from adventure bags and swimming togs to tow floats and changing robes, at the Outdoor Swimming Shop. Read more gear reviews. If you buy a product through a link on this page we may receive a commission.
Jo Tinsley
Jo is the Gear Editor for Outdoor Swimmer and also writes news and features for the website. A keen open water swimmer and long-distance walker, she loves seeking out lakes and lidos close to her home in the Mendip Hills, Somerset. She is the author of The Slow Traveller, editor and founder of independent magazine, Ernest, and has previously tested outdoor clothing and kit for BBC Countryfile Magazine, BBC Focus and Ernest Journal.
