Swim smarter

How FORM Smart Swim Goggles are changing navigation and pacing in open water

Sponsored content

Many of us equally relish and fear swimming in unpredictable, uncontrollable open water. In the safety of the pool, there is the black line, lane ropes, timing clocks, clear water and lifeguards. Take it outside, and that structure vanishes. Direction depends on sighting, rhythm is shaped by waves and currents, and pace is harder to judge.

As fun, exciting and beneficial as this can be, it can also be exhausting and sometimes frightening. With its Smart Swim Goggles, FORM aim to reduce that uncertainty by putting key information directly in your line of sight.

Navigating smoothly

Sighting is one of those open water skills you have to learn. Lifting your head, finding a buoy or landmark, then correcting your course is necessary, but it also disrupts your body position and rhythm, especially in choppy water.

“Without FORM, open water navigation relies on frequent sighting, lifting your head to lock onto a landmark or buoy and constantly correcting your direction,” says Dave Kruzeniski, Director of Product at FORM. “Feedback is intermittent and disruptive.”

FORM’s answer is SwimStraight™, a feature designed to provide directional guidance. “It provides continuous directional feedback between sightings, helping you stay on course without constant correction. You still sight for safety, but now you have a real-time ‘digital compass’ in your goggles’ display guiding you between those moments.”

“As a professional open water zig-zagger, when I’m swimming with FORM, I feel like I’m actually on track with my navigation, so I’m not constantly breaking form to figure out which direction I should go,” says Bronwyn Davies, an age-group triathlete and FORM user. “The additional real-time feedback I get, like pace, stroke count, etc., also helps keep my busy brain from focusing on the dark abyss and more on my technique, which helps me swim faster.”

Staying on track

You might relate to Davies’ description of “the dark abyss.” Navigation is more than a technical skill; feeling lost or unsure can cause us to tense up, sight too often, lose rhythm and panic.

“Sighting is essential, but for many swimmers, it’s inconsistent, disruptive, and can lead to anxiety when they feel off course,” says Kruzeniski. “SwimStraight lowers the need to sight every few strokes by giving clear, real-time direction, helping swimmers stay oriented and calm.”

“I see it as my personal navigator that just sits at the edge of my eyeline,” says Davies. “I’ll set a sighting point, then make small adjustments from the information I get from the goggles. It’s more like quick glances to confirm I’m on the right track.”

FORM also addresses pacing. In the pool, fixed lengths, splits and clocks help us manage our effort. In open water, conditions can make that impossible. With a compatible smartwatch, “your watch’s GPS pace is displayed directly in your goggles, so you can monitor effort continuously without breaking your stroke,” says Kruzeniski. There’s also FORM’s Effort Pace, which “reflects how hard you’re working. Like Grade Adjusted Pace in running, it normalises for waves and currents, giving you a true sense of pace in ‘flat water’ terms.”

Pacing your swim

A slower speed in chop or current doesn’t automatically imply poor technique, because the goggles help distinguish between moving slower and working harder. This is especially valuable in distance swimming, where starting too hard or panicking when speed drops can affect the rest of the swim.

“If you’re calm, you swim faster,” says Davies. “The reassurance that I’m going where I need to go and that I’m safe is huge for me.” The gains, she adds, are in “the small things, less head lift, less panic correcting my line means less wasted effort.”

Open water will always be unpredictable. Conditions shift, sighting points disappear, and the fastest route isn’t always obvious. By bringing directional and pacing data into the goggles, FORM puts information right in front of our eyes at the moment it can help us most.

FORM offers three Smart Swim goggles (starting at £129) backed by free or premium membership. SwimStraight™ is a free feature available on all versions, visit: formswim.com