I’ve got a Garmin 920XT that I cannot get to work for my indoor pool swims. What I want to do, is set it up such that every time I press the lap button, it increments the “lengths” or “distance” by one length (or lap) of the pool.
Here is what I get… every time I hit the lap button (that’s the back button, right?), it seems to alternate within some sort of drill mode. Like the screen cycles from black to white and the lengths/distance never increases.
I went through all the menus and couldn’t find out how to put it into a normal lap counting mode.
When starting your first interval or sets, hit start. Then when you’re resting at the wall again, hit lap. This puts it into rest mode. then on all subsequent intervals/sets, hit lap to start the set again and lap again when you’re resting.
When you’re not in rest mode, the watch counts laps for you anyway. The laps never increase because they’re measuring your current interval. You only need to push lap when you transition from resting at the wall to swimming and vice versa, the watch takes care of the rest.
So if I’m not doing intervals, I’m just doing a long swim, the watch will count my laps for me automatically? If I don’t hit the lap button, how does it know that I’ve made a lap? Its not doing GPS indoors… does it sense that I’ve turned around?
It sounds like there isn’t a “manual” mode for laps like my old Timex.
As long as you push off the wall with at least moderate force, it has an accelerometer that will detect the change in direction (plus a bunch of other things) to know you’ve done a lap.
When the screen is black it is counting “rest” and you hit the lap button when you want to start swimming again and it turns white and will record your swim metrics, when you finish the swim set you click lap again and it will go black into “rest” mode. Sounds like you want to try to use your 920xt as a simple watch timer like you would for running vice utilizing the swim mode features and no rests between intervals. In this case just turn off the rest screen. Or you could just swim 1000m continuous and view your workout on Garmin Connect afterwards for particular length/lap data.
The Garmin 920xt is far more sophisticated (and more expensive) than the Timex watch that is nothing more than a timer. It doesn’t need a GPS in pool swim mode, it uses an internal accelerometer to detect each time you reach the end of the length of the pool (be sure you have it set for the correct pool length). It uses the same accelerometers to detect strokes and stroke types. In layman terms it’s a “smart” watch and will track your pace, laps, stroke rate, and a plethora of other metrics.
Distance in the pools is calculated by a combination of arm movements and recognising turns at the end of each length. Ordinarily when doing drills it is not possible for distance to be evaluated in any meaningful way. What if you’re just kicking?
The drill option is there so that you can record the time spent doing drills and then add in a distance afterwards. You do have to remember to switch back to the normal sequence after you have finished drills otherwise all sorts of strange things can happen with regards to time and distance.
Spend a few minutes working through the button presses and see what screens come up particularly when you are in rest mode.
I’m just starting with the 820, but had been using the 910. It automatically counts laps. In activity profile settings for pool swim you can state the length of the pool. It will then recognize push off from the wall. Haven’t set any distance alerts or anything with the 920, but had experience on the 910. When you push off and start swimming, about halfway through the length of the pool, it will recognize you did 1 length, then you push and swim about half way and it will recognize the second length and revert to the distance you entered (if a 25 yard pool, you just swam 50 yards). So it’s other immediately from the pushoff. You have to do a few strokes after. 920 does have a rest screen as soon as you press lap (which 910 did not)