Speedo and Misfit have teamed up again for the Speedo Shine 2 fitness tracker, aimed at those who love working out in the pool.
Like the original Speedo Shine, it's essentially a Misfit Shine 2 fitness tracker laden with extra swimming orientated algorithms developed by the apparel giant. The Speedo Shine 2 has the ability to track lengths and laps in the pool, offering more post swim metrics than many of its competitors.
Essential reading: Best fitness tracker
The Speedo Shine 2 borrows the design of the standard Misfit Shine 2, but leverages the coloured LEDs to enable users to use the tracker as a session timer. The LEDs will show your progress towards your time goal, and you'll get a vibration alarm at the end.
Other features include the use of the vibration motor for alerts and feedback, text and call notifications, silent alarm and Misfit Link compatibility for IFTTT recipes, but these are simply features from Misfit Shine 2 brought over to Speedo Shine 2.
The biggest news, however, is Misfit's decision to enable Speedo's algorithms on any Misfit Ray or Misfit Shine 2 device for a $9.99 in-app purchase. That's something that was dearly lacking from the first Speedo Shine release, where despite the two devices being physically identical.
"Whether you're training competitively or swimming for fitness, you want your focus to be on speed and form – not tracking laps. With the Speedo Shine 2, you can concentrate on your efforts in the pool without distractions," said Team Speedo USA athlete Cullen Jones.
That's a slightly odd comment given that Speedo Shine 2 only tracks laps, not speed or form, but he continued:
"Speedo Shine 2 is an ideal aid for athletes and fitness enthusiasts to maximize their time in the water while keeping track of their overall fitness and sleep."
So how does the Speedo Shine stack up as a swim tracker? We're still waiting to get the new version in the pool, but we tested the first Speedo Shine in our big swimming tracker group test, and it achieved a respectable third place. We found it was superbly accurate in tracking laps, although the lack of data on strokes and efficiency put it some distance behind rivals such as the Garmin Vivoactive and TomTom Spark for hardcore swimmers.
The Speedo Shine 2 costs and is available from misfit.com and speedo.com now.
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James is the co-founder of Wareable, and he has been a technology journalist for 15 years.
He started his career at Future Publishing, James became the features editor of T3 Magazine and T3.com and was a regular contributor to TechRadar – before leaving Future Publishing to found Wareable in 2014.
James has been at the helm of Wareable since 2014 and has become one of the leading experts in wearable technologies globally. He has reviewed, tested, and covered pretty much every wearable on the market, and is passionate about the evolving industry, and wearables helping people achieve healthier and happier lives.