Punny swimming app

Still no luck getting the Swim.com app to work on my Pebble.  I have done 6 swims with it, and out of that, only one functioned as promised.  I started out optimistic since it worked the first time, but all five of my subsequent attempts to use it failed.  The app was never again able to upload a workout, and only one other time did it track all of my laps (although that time it credited me with 3 laps I did not do).

So I am abandoning the swim.com app for now.  The online tracking would have been nice, but honestly it was a bit of overkill for a non-competitive swimmer.

Next up - SwimIO's swimming app "Kevin Pacey."  This app does not use accelerometers to figure out your laps, instead you enter a pace speed per lap.  So, for example, after telling it that my pool is 25 yards, I enter 40 lengths for distance, and 30 seconds per length as the pace I want to swim at.  Then the watch displays what lap you are on and vibrates when you should be at the wall turning.  So it is all about the pace at which you swim, hence the name.  I first thought that perhaps Kevin Pacey was a well known swim coach or something, but instead it is a play on Kevin Spacey.

Anyway, after using the app twice now, I can say that it does the job.  30 seconds for 25 yards was a little ambitious for me, so I upped it to 35 seconds which worked out better.  You can also press a button to pause the pace if you need a rest.  In the image above, you can see that the swimmer is about 2/3 through length 1 - the screen goes from black to white as you swim).

SwimIO is supposedly also working on a more robust offering called Swim Recorder, but I have not seen any recent updates on that project.  But for now I am happy with using Kevin Pacey.  It does not do any fancy tracking outside the app, but it is better than having to actually press a button on the watch every lap, and so far it seems pretty reliable.

Now that I think of it, Kevin Spacey does know a thing or two about exercise.  Not only did he use a rowing machine on House of Cards, he also enjoyed a good workout in American Beauty.  :)