Swimmers are a varied bunch, which means there isn’t one best swimming watch that suits everyone—the right one for you will depend on what you want to monitor and why, as well as how much you want to spend. At the simplest level, a cheap waterproof fitness tracker should be able to count laps and maybe even recognize your stroke so you can log your time in the pool.
If you’re looking to improve your technique, a SWOLF score can indicate if you’re becoming a more efficient swimmer. And if you take swimming seriously the best swimming watches will help you follow the steps of your workout in the pool. Triathletes will also appreciate being able to connect an external heart rate monitor so they can keep an eye on their training load.
Many of the best fitness trackers and best fitness smartwatches offer swim tracking, and we’ve tested almost all of them in the pool. These are the ones that impressed us.
The Best Swimming Watches
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If you’re looking for the cheapest Garmin watch that can track both pool and open-water swimming, as well as set up workouts and drills to follow, it’s the Swim 2 you want.
The Swim 2 records core stats like distance, lengths and pace, counts your strokes and detects the stroke type, works out your SWOLF and will let you set up alerts based on time, distance and pace.
Data lives in Garmin’s Connect app and sessions can be easily exported to apps like Strava. There’s full access to Garmin’s Connect IQ storefront to add more apps and data fields to the watch, and it still offers features like run and cycling tracking and 24/7 fitness tracking to make it useful out of the pool too.
Read more in our Garmin Swim 2 review
Yes, the Apple Watch Series 9 is out now, but little has changed in terms of the swim-tracking support so, if swimming is all that matters to you, shop around for a deal on the Series 8 from a third-party retailer.
As with most smartwatches and sports watches the Series 8 relies on the onboard accelerometer motion sensors in the pool but, unlike others, Apple can record when you’re using a kickboard for swimming drills. It can recognise six different strokes, including butterfly and will also monitor when you take rests in between sets and provide stats like SWOLF to better gauge your stroke efficiency in the water. One advantage Apple has over rival smartwatches is that it works with third-party swimming apps, such as MySwimPro and Swim.com, just like certain Garmin and Suunto devices, so you can send planned swimming workouts to your watch to follow in the water.
Read more in our Apple Watch Series 8 review
For shallow-water swimmers on a tight budget, the Xiaomi Smart Band 7 ticks a lot of boxes. The 5ATM water-resistance rating allows the band to be submerged in water down to 50 meters, making it ideal for pool swimming, snorkeling or other shallow-water activities. There’s no built-in GPS but the band reliably tracks pool lengths, distance, calories, strokes and average stroke rate, while automatically recognizing and logging your main swimming style.
Lift your wrist to wake the 1.62in AMOLED high-resolution display for at-a-glance updates in the pool, or check out the full list of stats in the Mi Fitness app. We found the screen was sometimes unresponsive when the band got wet but, on the whole, it performed well considering the price.
Read more in our Xiaomi Smart Band 7 review
While our headline promised swimming watches, we had to make an exception for this one-of-a-kind swim tracker which keeps your wrists free. Its built-in accelerometer keeps tabs on all of the length and stroke stats you’d expect, then uses smart display technology to show the stats on one of the lenses, putting your real-time numbers in your eyeline.
You can choose to view up to three metrics and there are plenty to pick from, including number of lengths, distance, split time and pace. It can automatically track rests and be paired with Polar’s OH1 heart rate monitor for a hit of accurate heart rate data too. If you’re heading outdoors, the goggles can also sync with high-end Garmin devices and the Apple Watch, using the GPS tracking of the watches to display live distance and pace information in the goggles.
Data is stored in Form’s own app where you’ll find a much more detailed breakdown of swim time. That data can also be sent over to apps like Strava, Garmin Connect and TrainingPeaks.
Form also has a useful library of structured workouts and training plans and lead you through the workouts in the water using the built-in display. It’s perfect if you struggle to know what to do in the pool.
Whether you track by laps or build interval workouts, these goggles do it accurately and give you 16 hours of battery life—plenty of tracking time before they need charging again.
Read more in our Form Smart Swim Goggles review
The Garmin Forerunner 965 essentially takes the features from Garmin’s Fenix watch and puts it into a smaller, more compact design. You’re getting the best of Garmin’s swim tracking—the same as on the Swim 2—on an AMOLED touchscreen.
The display is easy to read in the water, with multiple data screens to swipe through where you can view real-time stats, including lengths, distance covered, stroke count, SWOLF and critical swim speed. That last metric is Garmin’s attempt to work out the speed you can maintain before you tire. You can also choose to set up auto or manual rests, depending on how closely you monitor your breaks, with drill log support available for pool swims to record kick sets and one-handed swims.
Garmin lets you create and sync over workouts via its Connect app and gives you access to the Connect IQ Store via a separate app to download additional swimming apps built by Garmin and other developers to offer an even more comprehensive swim tracking experience.
You can get identical similar swim features for less money, however, with the Garmin Forerunner 265 and Garmin Forerunner 955 offering the same swim features and multisport modes. You lose out on other features and battery life, which you can explore in Coach’s Garmin Forerunner 965 vs Garmin Forerunner 955 and Garmin Forerunner 965 vs Garmin Forerunner 265 comparisons.
Read more in our Garmin Forerunner 965 review
Polar calls the Ignite 3 a fitness watch, but it does a good imitation of a sports watch and can track pool swims and open-water swims. Unlike the Ignite 2, it now has a nicer AMOLED display to view your stats on as well. When you’re in the pool, it can identify swimming strokes and capture metrics including pace, distance, stroke rate and rest times.
Away from the pool, it will capture pace and distance, and use the onboard GPS to map your swim routes. You can customize data screens in Polar’s Flow app to make sure you’re glancing down at the stats you care about. While it will track heart rate in the water I’m not convinced of its reliability, but Polar also make external heart rate monitors for swimming which will sync and match easily to the data recorded on your watch in the Polar app. Vibrant screen aside, it’s a sleek-looking sports watch that also offers features like recommended workouts and rich sleep monitoring to make sure you’re picking the right days to tackle a tough session in the water.
Read more in our Polar Ignite 3 review
Amazfit has an extensive collection of smartwatches but the T-Rex 2 is the one that’s impressed me the most in the water. It offers pool and open-water swimming modes, and tracks stroke type, average pace, laps, calories burned and your SWOLF score. As with other Amazfit watches, it can be linked to share data with Strava.
The T-Rex 2 is built in the mold of outdoor adventure watches like the Garmin Fenix and matches up to the Fenix line’s water-resistance rating. Its sharp and colorful AMOLED screen is also a bit of tech rarely seen at this price.
Read more in our Amazfit T-Rex 2 review
Most of Fitbit’s devices track your time in the pool, and if you’re looking for the one that offers the best experience, it’s the Versa 4. In large part that’s because Fitbit has brought back the physical button that was missing on the Versa 3, making it easier to interact with. In the pool it automatically captures swimming distance, number of lengths and pace.
Fitbit doesn’t provide much in the way of analysis of your performance, focusing instead on how your swimming has contributed to how active you’ve been during the day, so look elsewhere if you’re a stats junkie. Fitbit has also removed a lot of apps from its storefront, including Strava’s, and Fitbit will no longer sync a non-GPS activity like swims to Strava.
Read more in our Fitbit Versa 4 review
The Suunto Vertical is Suunto’s best multisports watch in a long time. That’s down to accurate dual-band GPS and stellar battery life, but it also does a decent job in the pool. It captures pace, distance, laps and it will record SWOLF scores. While the watch software isn’t as slick as some other sports watches, it offers a transflective display that’s easy to read in the water. The Suunto app includes more details and the device plays nice with apps like Strava, TrainingPeaks and Swim.com.
Read more in our Suunto Vertical review
Swimming Watch Buying Advice
The best swimming watches capture what you do in the pool and most will let you see data during your swim, including the distance you’ve covered, as well as being able to recognize when you’ve switched from freestyle to breaststroke.
All the devices mentioned above do a fine job of delivering reliable data, but they also offer various other features that can make them better suited to different swimming scenarios and conditions.
Here are the key things to consider when buying a waterproof fitness tracker.
Waterproof rating: Arguably the most important thing to look at is what level of waterproofing the fitness tracker offers. Ideally, you want to see something with a 5ATM rating, which means it can be safely submerged in water up to 50 meters. That should cover most swimming scenarios indoors and outdoors. Some trackers offer 10ATM ratings, letting you plunge it up to 100 meters in depth—it’s overkill for normal swimming but useful if you want to wear it during high-speed water sports.
Pool or open-water swimming (or both): Don’t spend more than you need if you only plan to use the tracker in your local pool. Often you’ll spend more for open-water swimming support, though this is starting to appear on cheaper options. Pool swim modes use accelerometer motion sensors and some fancy algorithms to estimate the distance you cover. Heading outdoors requires GPS and an even fancier algorithm to track your location since your watch won’t be able to maintain a satellite signal when it’s underwater—it has to rely on a fleeting connection when you raise your wrist out of the water.
Screen type: Trying to see a screen in bright outdoor light is one thing, but being able to quickly review real-time stats in the water is a challenge that some trackers manage better than others. Some trackers will let you invert colors to improve visibility or crank up screen brightness if you’re struggling to take in the data while you’re on the move.
Syncing to other apps: All trackers have dedicated apps where your data will be sent after your swim. Many also offer the option to link the tracker to other swim training apps and platforms where you can tap into additional training features and they can often make it easier to analyze your sessions too.
Battery life: It’s unlikely you’ll be able to outlast a full battery in the pool, but if you’re going to spend a lot of time swimming outdoors where you’ll need to use the GPS, a longer life may be valuable.
Underwater heart rate: Heart rate is a good measure of effort but while all swimming watches will read your pulse, don’t expect especially accurate data. That’s down to the technological limitations of wrist-based heart rate monitors. If you care about heart rate, choose a tracker that can connect to a waterproof chest strap heart rate monitor.
More Swimming Gear
- Kit yourself out with the best swimming goggles.
- Looking for a waterproof chest strap? You’ll find one in our round-up of the best heart rate monitors.
- Swim to a soundtrack by buying one of the best swimming headphones.
