There are few things cooler than a HUD that appears in front of your face when you’re doing your exercise, and the Smart Swim 2 from Form are a very impressive realization of the concept. They’re a pair of smart goggles with a built-in AR screen, overlaying performance information while you swim — but there’s loads more to them than just a Heads-up display.
Smart Goggles that read your heart rate from your head
Ok, let’s get this out of the way nice and early — the Smart Swim 2 won’t teach you how to swim. There is an assumed competency of at least being able to stay afloat without aid, and some knowledge of at least one stroke. What they will do, however, is guide your fitness and swimming journey with a premium subscription to the Form app. That will give you training plans, workouts, and more straight to the goggles to help you refine your technique and become a better swimmer.
The app will also give you access to one of the coolest parts of the goggles for outdoor swimmers. Connect them up to your Apple Watch Ultra 2 or Series 9, and you’ll get what Form calls “Swim Straight”, a digital compass that shows you where you’re heading in open water. Open water swimmers were already mad in my book, but this feature will make it easier than ever for them to find where they need to be going. No more getting lost in a lake!
The compass is shown on the Smart Swim 2’s AR screen, which you’ll find in the left goggle lens. There, you’ll find loads of different options for information while you swim, all sorted through by clicking a button on the ‘tech pack’ that hangs off the side of the goggles — a sort of control module for accessing all the onboard features. That tech pack has been shrunk down for the new version as well, with a 15% smaller footprint on your head than the old model had.
The screen shows a number of metrics, including the distance you have swam, time spent swimming, stroke rate, split times for lap swimming, stroke count, distance per stroke, and calories burnt. One of the biggest new features of the goggles in this regard is heart rate monitoring. Where the first model needed you to connect the goggles to a separate monitor to read your heart rate, the Smart Swim 2 has a built-in heart rate monitor that checks your heart rate during a swim and displays it on the HUD. According to Form, the heart rate monitor collects all the information it needs from your temple, for an accurate and reliable reading. That means you only need the goggles, and not one of the best heart rate monitors for iPhone. All of the data read and recorded by the goggles is sent to Apple Fitness+, so that you can track your swimming progress along with the rest of your exercises for a complete picture of your fitness journey.
There are loads of comfortable fit options in the box, which let you change the nose bridge sections and the eye seals. In terms of onboard battery, the goggles will last for 12 hours on a charge, and charge up when you put them back in their charging case. When that battery runs out, you’ve still got a comfy pair of ‘dumb’ goggles as well, if you’re planning on swimming for more than 12 hours. You mad thing.
A subscription to the premium subscription is $15/month, while the goggles themselves are $249 in the US. You get two free months of premium subscription with the purchase of the goggles, but then you have to pay. They’re available to buy now from formswim.com.
