Form's Gen 2 goggles will set swimmers' hearts racing
Form's Smart Swim 2 goggles may not be quite as revelatory as the originals, but the addition of accurate built-in heart rate tracking - however sensitive it can sometimes prove - does ensure this is a healthy update worth considering for serious swimmers. There are other minor grumbles - such as the reduced battery life - but Form's ever-improving platform, integrations and subscription package mean it's difficult to imagine a competitor blowing it out of the water any time soon.
Pros
- Excellent swim tracking accuracy
- SwimStraight is a useful addition
- Engaging HeadCoach workouts
Cons
- Big price jump over the original
- Fussy heart rate monitoring
- Weaker battery life
When we first jumped into the water with the first-generation Form smart swimming goggles five years ago, we called them one of the best swimming wearables we’d ever tested. Since then, it’s no exaggeration to say that no other smart swimming goggles have come close to what Form has achieved.
While the company has been busy bolstering its app platform for the first-generation Swim, it’s also been building its follow-up pair of goggles – the Form Smart Swim 2.
These aren’t replacing the original, though, and will instead sit above them as the more advanced, premier version of the industry’s long-standing king of AR swim goggles.
As a result, they do cost a fair chunk more, but, for that extra outlay, you can expect a novel built-in heart rate sensor, redesigned eye seals, and a slightly reduced footprint to the sensor pod. An open-water tool to help wearers swim straight also headlines here, though this has now also rolled back in a software update to the original goggles.
We’ve spent the last few months testing whether the Form Smart Swim 2 pushes the concept forward, or an update that simply keeps the startup treading water. Let’s dive in.
Price and competition
As mentioned, the first generation goggles are sticking around and will be priced at $179/£159, while the Form Smart Swim 2 are pricier at $249/£229. That’s quite a jump up in price.
Other smart swimming goggles with built-in displays have appeared on the scene in the time since Form launched its Gen 1 product, too, most notably the Finis Smart Goggles. They’re priced at $199/£199, and, having tested them, we can safely say they’re not in the same bracket as the Form goggles.
Another thing you have to factor in here, though, is the access granted by the companion app. The free version will allow you to see real-time stats and analysis and use the goggles in the pool, open water, and swim spa modes.
If you pay either £13/$15 a month (or £84/$99 annually), you’ll also get access to plenty more. There’s the seemingly endless library of Form’s workouts, the new Headcoach in-goggle training, the SwimStraight open water compass, and the ability to import workouts from TrainingPeaks.
Design, comfort and display
The goal with the Form Smart Swim 2 is to make it feel like you’re wearing a standard set of swimming goggles. Does it pull it off? Not entirely, but Form does continue to do a very good job of hiding away the onboard smarts.
Those mainly lie on the side of the goggles on a black box that houses key tracking sensors, and the battery now takes up much less room compared to the first generation of the Smart Swim. The physical buttons remain, too, and are still used to switch on the goggles and scroll through menus, while the AR display lies in your choice of eye.
That AR display technology is exactly the same as the one used on the first goggles. It uses waveguide optics, which is a technique similar to what we’d associate with smart glasses like Google Glass where a light wave is guided to your eye, using surfaces to generate the display and blend in with your environment.
The experience of using it is still great, indoors and outdoors, and is something that Form has really nailed from a visibility perspective. Everything is always super-clear, and it’s not an intrusive display to look at while trying to focus on your swim.
You’re still getting five sets of nose bridges that are easy to remove and replace for those seeking an improved fit. And, as mentioned, the seals on the goggles have also been tweaked to increase suction and decrease leakage.
We’d definitely say that those seals hold a little tighter against your face this time around, while other elements, like tinkering with the strap port to restrict movement, feel like a move more geared towards ensuring the new heart rate sensor stays in the optimal position.
That new optical heart rate sensor sits just behind the motion sensors, an evolution of the setup Form previously offered where you could pair its goggles with Polar’s Verity Sense heart rate monitor and measure from the temple.
Along with a change in strap color, Form also decided to change the carrying case, which is now a wider one designed to be more ventilated. We’ve had no issues on this front, and, while wider, it’s still more than compact enough to throw into your swim bag.
Features and swimming metrics
At its core, the Swim 2 seeks to deliver the same swimming metrics you would otherwise glean from a swim-tracking smartwatch or sports watch.
It uses the same motion sensors as before to log your swims – an accelerometer and gyroscope sensors to track movements – and it’s bringing the built-in digital compass to life for its new SwimStraight feature.
This is designed to keep you swimming in a straight line during open-water swims only. The original Swim has that compass capacity, too, and therefore has access to the SwimStraight mode via Form’s premium subscription we detailed above.
When in the pool, you can see real-time metrics including pace, stroke rate, stroke count, split times, distance, and, now built-in, heart rate. When you swap the pool for the open water, you lose metrics like stroke count and split times, but you still have the option to pair the goggles with compatible Apple Watches and Garmin watches to add in GPS data that’s otherwise lacking.
You can also customize and cycle through the dashboards that appear in front of your eye, meaning you can easily shift focus between the likes of pace and technique for different sets.
Beyond real-time metrics, there’s plenty else to get your training teeth into.
First up is HeadCoach – a series of personalized workouts that can be followed on the goggles in real-time to help you work on elements like swimming technique, power, and building your endurance in the water.
You can also build your own workouts, follow pre-built workouts, or follow plans designed by professional coaches. These features, again, require paying for the premium Form subscription.
Alongside viewing your stats in the Form app, data can also be automatically synced with Strava, TriDot, FinalSurge, Apple Health, and Garmin Connect – all with the option of that TrainingPeaks integration mentioned earlier, too.
Experience and accuracy
As long-term users of the original Smart Swim, what you get here is a very familiar experience – and that’s mostly good news. We’ve been testing it against the swim tracking available on a range of Garmin, Polar, and Coros watches, and, for core metrics like distance, pacing, stroke counts, and laps, the Smart Swim 2 has been excellent on the accuracy front. It remains one of the best swim trackers we’ve used in the pool.
While there are no changes on the screen front, it’s still expertly integrated into the goggles, and this ensures it doesn’t take long to get accustomed to having a screen in your eyeline that displays stats and workout instructions.
The big new addition is, of course, the heart rate tracking.
Adding heart rate to your swimming stats isn’t new. As we detailed already, Form has moved over the last few years to ensure its goggles link up with Polar’s Verity Sense HRM. But now, that fiddling around is (mostly) removed from the equation.
Ensuring the sensor is sat against the skin is still paramount for accuracy, so it can take some initial playing around with when wearing a swim cap – or, in some cases, some waterproof swimming headphones, as well.
The goggles will check it’s picking up a reliable measurement before you get swimming, and keeping that locked in place for a session will mean you have to refrain from adjusting too much between sets.
We’ve tested it against a couple of different heart rate monitor chest straps over the last few months, and also compared the data with that tracked on plenty of sports watches. The data has generally been pretty consistent, but it’s also not perfect – the odd data drop-out or incorrect-seeming estimation does occur from time to time.
When we compared in real-time during pool sessions, the heart rate data almost always fell in line with the watches. The heart rate graphs for both average and max heart rate readings presented in the post-swim were similar, too.
In the open water, though, one swim showed a 10 beats-per-minute difference in the average readings, but similar maximum heart rate readings to a Garmin HRM-Pro+ chest strap worn underneath a wetsuit.
Based on our testing, we do feel you can get some accurate, meaningful data here, but a chest strap might still be the way to go for supreme accuracy.
The other big feature here is SwimStraight.
In the water, you need to perform a short calibration to get started, and this involves looking ahead to the point you’re choosing to swim to, then tucking your head into your chest, moving your right ear to your right shoulder, and doing the same on the other side. That’s finished off with doing a full 360 turn on the spot.
You’re prompted on the goggles to do this slowly, but, even still, it took us a few attempts to get it working – and doing so obviously felt slightly silly in public.
Once you’ve nailed that and have begun swimming, you’ll see a series of numbers and bearings like you would on a compass, though this is instead just presented in a straight line.
The idea is to keep your focus on the number at the center of the screen. Without a built-in GPS, it provides a surprisingly effective way to keep you on course. It isn’t designed to entirely replace the need to survey surroundings – just to help you swim straighter. So, to that end, it does do what it promises to do.
One thing to note, though, is that you will need to recalibrate if you’re not going from point A to point B. So, for example, if you’re doing laps and taking a different route back, you’ll need to calibrate it again at your turnaround point.
It obviously makes sense as to why this is required, but it is a fiddly reality, nonetheless.
Lastly, there’s HeadCoach, which was a mode added after the first Form goggles launched.
These personalized workouts are built around your ‘Form Score’, which is taken from swimming speed, height, pool length, and distance per stroke.
These Form scores influence the recommended workouts, which you can turn off or on during swims. While we had concerns about the idea of Form adding more to view on the dinky screen, the simplistic approach of the workouts – like improving head roll, for example – works quite nicely on the goggles.
Post-swim, we could see that we needed to work on our head pitch and pacing, and the app nicely serves up some workouts to help you get to work on those aspects.
The Form app
When the Form goggles first launched, the companion smartphone app was focused on showing you your stats, letting you see other user’s latest swims, and letting you adjust goggle settings.
Since then, it’s bolstered third-party app integration to include Final Surge and TriDot support and added training plans and workouts that you can follow on the goggles. So, there’s a lot more going on here, and, crucially, it doesn’t feel like a busier place because of those added features.
The goggles also still do all the key things well, like syncing swim stats, which is done quickly after you’ve jumped out of the pool (providing your phone is in range). Post-swim stats are nicely presented and don’t feel overly complicated to review, either – even if you’re new to lots of swimming lingo.
Paying for the premium subscription here will, of course, dictate how much of the app you’re actually going to be able to put to good use.
But while we’re not typically fans of subscription fees for products that already cost a fair chunk, there’s a healthy amount to access here whether you choose to subscribe or not. And the strength of those added features also means it’s justified, in our eyes.
This doesn’t feel like plenty of other subscriptions out there, which arbitrarily add a paid tier for the sake of capturing some extra short-term dough from users.
It’s expensive, yes, but, when you consider the extra features, it’s absolutely worth it for regular swimmers who want a tool to refine their technique.
Battery life
There’s some good and not-so-good news on the battery front.
The not-so-good news is that the battery numbers have dropped from the first-generation Form goggles. You can now expect up to 12 hours, as opposed to 16 hours. The good news, though, is that there doesn’t seem to be a considerable difference in the battery drain between the two generations.
We still found that if you’re using the Swim 2 for up to an hour 3-4 times a week, you’re still going to find that the battery holds up and won’t have you charging too frequently.
The goggles also display the battery status and will let you know when you’re running low, but you’ll need to go into the Form app to see that status in a percentage to get a better sense of what you have left to play with.
There’s perhaps only been one occasion where we’ve been short on battery, but, generally, the experience has felt similar to the first Form goggles. And that means the drop in overall hours isn’t perhaps as dramatic in reality as it sounds on paper.
It uses the same charging cable as the original goggle, as well, which isn’t our favorite proprietary charging cable and isn’t super secure, though the flat nature of the cable makes it easier to distinguish among any other cables that are on charging duty.
