Form Smart Swim 2 LT Goggles Assessment – Triathlete

Who knew that my “time to neutral” measurement was excellent once I was respiratory to the left, however horrible once I was respiratory to the fitting? Not me, nor my swim coach, till I dove into the impressively granular information captured by Form’s new Smart Swim 2 LT goggles.

More on this metric in a second. First, just a little background.

In late 2024, Triathlete printed an exhaustive evaluation of Form’s earlier mannequin launch, the Smart Swim 2, saying the goggles are “literally game-changing when it comes to real-time and post-workout swimming data. Nothing else does what it does, and it does these things very, very well.”

Testers praised the heads-up OLED show, which seems in the fitting lens; the spectacular efficiency suggestions you may view whereas swimming; and the app’s tutorial library. They have been much less enthusiastic concerning the value ($249 plus subscription) and the necessity to pair the goggles with a smartwatch to unlock their full open-water performance.

That evaluation supplies in-depth descriptions of each characteristic and metric, and because the new 2 LT carries all of them over – with one exception – I gained’t repeat each element and spec right here. But I’ll echo the evaluation’s enthusiastic endorsement after my very own sequence of pool and open-water assessments.

Over the years, I’ve employed coaches, gone to swim college, attended USAT’s bootcamp on the Olympic Training Center, and examined a slew of goggles and devices, all in an effort to optimize my type. And the two LT has produced among the most concrete and fast enhancements. At $149, I imagine it’s a worthwhile funding for anybody in search of enhancements.

Here’s a fast abstract of the two LT’s key features together with my testing observations. Note that among the options are free, whereas others require a subscription to Form’s Premium plan ($119/yr or $15/month).

Key options of the Smart Swim 2 LT goggles

Real-time efficiency information (free)

For pool swims, you may choose any of the next eight metrics to customise what you see on the show: tempo, distance, time, stroke price, stroke depend, distance per stroke, break up instances, and energy burned. After making an attempt totally different mixtures, I settled on tempo/stroke price/break up instances, discovering that this troika improved the consistency of my type and pace from size to size and set to set.

In open water, your selections are restricted to time and stroke price till you pair the goggles with a GPS-enabled Garmin or Apple watch. This enables you to see distance, pace, DPS, coronary heart price, and calorie information; it additionally allows the SwimStraight characteristic.

Real-time navigation (free)

The SwimStraight digital compass is a godsend in open water. My twice-weekly daybreak swims on the Boulder Reservoir at all times embody nearly 1,000 yards straight into the rising solar. With buoys spaced 500 yards aside, sighting is a guessing recreation that may add dozens of zigzagging yards to a loop.

With the SwimStraight, I used to be in a position to keep on target by following the compass bearing displayed on the lens. On this morning’s course, for instance, I bobbed for a number of seconds after turning east, bought a bearing of 100 levels, and stored the digital dial proper on that quantity. By monitoring straighter – and never having to sight as typically – I’ve seen my tempo in blinding situations enhance by no less than 5 seconds per 100 yards.

Real-time method suggestions (paid)

Subscribing to the premium plan unlocks a useful suite of options that will be onerous to seize every other means. One is the time-to-neutral (TTN) measurement, which Form defines as “the proportion of your breathing stroke duration that it takes to return your head from a breath back down to a neutral, face-down position.”

Until I noticed my TTN rating within the app for the primary time, I had no concept that my time was a lot slower when respiratory to the fitting, a flaw that was nearly actually creating drag and misalignment in my stroke. After noticing this, I turned on the HeadCoach perform, which reveals up on the lens as a horizontal bar with a goal line within the center. With every breath, the bar fills up from left to proper, exhibiting how rapidly your face has returned to impartial. The visible reference – plus the checkmark that seems when you beat your prior common – are each very efficient as a coaching device.

In addition to TTN measurements, HeadCoach tracks head pitch, peak head roll, and interval pacing; it additionally produces an total effectivity rating for each swim.

One of my favourite stats, which is new since Triathlete’s final evaluation, is the Effort Pace perform, which is especially helpful in uneven water and powerful currents. It makes use of my pacing historical past to estimate how onerous I’m working. If I’m exerting a ton of effort to keep up my common pace, this readout will sign me to ease up.

Post-workout evaluation (free & paid)

In the app, you may evaluation efficiency metrics and not using a subscription, in addition to see developments and examine historic stats. Subscribing to Premium enables you to dig into extra superior evaluation, specifically a number of charts evaluating your proficiency on the strategies described above. I’ve gleaned good learnings from finding out these charts, akin to when my TTN tends to degrade and the way pace units have an effect on my head roll.

Training sources (paid) 

Form’s suggestions loop and content material library is overwhelming at first, however in the end the mix helps justify the subscription value. If you improve to premium, HeadCoach will serve up related ideas and focused drills after every swim, which I discovered useful in staying targeted on one flaw at a time. You also can watch tutorial movies, observe guided exercises designed round particular strategies, select from 1,500 coaching plans, import Triathlete exercises, create your personal coaching plans, and sync to TrainingPeaks and TriDot. It’ll take months to grasp all of it, however it’s extremely useful when you ever prepare alone.

The one characteristic that Form dropped from the Smart Swim 2 is that unit’s heart-rate sensor, which in my view makes the Smart Swim 2 LT your best option within the line of goggles for many athletes. The change made the two LT cheaper, and it diminished drag by eradicating the temple-mounted sensor. (There’s nonetheless some drag as a result of additional bulk of the opposite electronics, however not sufficient to complain about.) And since each triathlete I do know wears a smartwatch whereas swimming, there’s no must get coronary heart price out of your goggles. That information is already accessible out of your watch – supplied you personal a appropriate mannequin.

What’s lacking within the Swim Smart 2 LT goggles

There aren’t any deal-killer drawbacks with these goggles, however I’d like to see Form deal with a number of tweaks with the following launch.

Expanded smartwatch compatibility

These goggles solely pair with choose Garmin and Apple fashions, which deprives different smartwatch house owners of probably the most helpful open-water options.

Better antifog answer 

Like most goggles available on the market, the two LT is handled with an antifog chemical, the efficacy of which is able to finally degrade. During testing, I started to expertise mild fogging on the outset of open-water swims, which isn’t uncommon. The mist finally cleared, however fogging is extra problematic right here for 2 causes.

One is that it obscures the show, particularly in robust morning glare. Another is that Form tells customers to not apply antifog spray, which our testing has proven can prolong the helpful lifetime of your goggles. I’ll be curious to see how the lenses maintain up after one other 6-12 months of testing as a result of Form’s two-year guarantee solely covers manufacturing defects, and the deterioration of antifog chemical compounds would often be thought-about regular wear-and-tear. Triathlete editors sometimes retire goggles after a yr of regular use resulting from fogging, and that will be an costly proposition if the identical lifespan applies to the two LT.

Improved peripheral imaginative and prescient 

The layer of optics in the fitting lens creates a bifocal-like impact that – together with the mini-computer subsequent to that lens – reduces your field of regard. It’s not catastrophic, however I needed to carry my head extra to identify swimmers in entrance of me, which is able to scale back effectivity in a crowded race discipline.

More inventive subscription mannequin

Triathlon gear is dear, however how about apps these days?! You’ll pay $15/month for Form’s premium membership, $20 for Training Peaks, $20 for Zwift, $12 for Strava, $7 for Garmin Connect, $39 for TriDot, and $7.50 for Outside+. That’s nearly $1,500/yr for a full endurance suite. Why can’t a number of of those firms get collectively to supply a extra inexpensive bundle of complementary instruments? Haven’t they heard concerning the affordability disaster?

The backside line

My rants about fog and value however, the Smart Swim 2 LT is greater than an information geek’s moist dream: It’s a uniquely highly effective device that gives invaluable real-time suggestions on swim type together with focused coaching sources and groundbreaking open-water capabilities.