Greetings! I’m new to the tri world, and have signed up for a half-iron this summer for my first race (I know it’s long, but I’m a masochist at heart!) Being from a running background I have a Garmin 610, and love it to bits. I’m not sure if I’m going to race again in a tri, so I’d rather not buy a multisport specific watch. My question is this; even though the 610 is only IPX6 waterproof certified (as opposed to the 310XT/910XT being IPX7) will it still survive the 1.2 mile swim? I contacted Garmin and they gave me the standard line for IPX6 of “30 minutes at 1 meter” but wouldn’t go further. I do run in the rain quite a bit (I live in the rainiest town in the lower 48 states), but wasn’t sure about the increased pressures from submersion.
Has anyone done a half-iron with this watch, or maybe swam a similar distance?
Swimming:
Despite the very protective looking metallic design, the Garmin Forerunner 610 is actually only waterproofed to IPX7 standards. This means that it can be submerged in up to 1 meter of water for up to 30 minutes. It also means that it’s not designed for active swimming on your wrist with constant pounding against the water. The Garmin manual on page 39 warns against explicitly this task:
I’ve previously killed IPX7 Garmin Forerunner watches due to wearing them on my wrist during an indoor swim (in less than 20 minutes). If you’re looking for a fully waterproofed solution you’ll want to aim towards the FR310XTinstead, which offers complete waterproofing down to 50 meters.
Now, just because it’s IPX7 doesn’t mean it can’t go out and play in the rain. In fact, it’s more than fine in both the rain and casual water submersion (as you saw earlier with the shower video). For example, I plunked it down in my bathtub for just under 10 minutes – and it came out just fine and dandy:
If you’re looking to use the watch in a triathlon to measure the swim, you should leverage the swim cap method in order to gather accurate distance without killing the watch in the process. Also, for more fun with IPX7 bathtub immersion of expensive gadgets, see this post.
