Price: $249.99 - $219.66
(as of Apr 23, 2025 11:48:03 UTC – Details)
Swim anywhere, train everywhere with Garmin swim™ 2, The GPS swimming smartwatch. Use it in the pool or in open water to monitor underwater estimated heart rate at the wrist and track distance, pace, stroke count, stroke type and distance per stroke. Garmin swim 2 includes advanced features for timed sets and logging drills, and a new Auto rest feature makes it ideal for all swim levels. This watch’s slim profile won’t slow you down, and you can wear it all day to to estimate step count, monitor sleep and more. Analyze your activity, track your progress, or create custom workouts with the Garmin connect™ online community.
GPS swimming smartwatch for the pool and open water
o Battery life: up to 7 days in smartwatch mode, 13 hours in GPS and optical heart rate (OHR) mode and 72 hours in pool and OHR mode
Pool swim mode: records distance, pace, stroke count, stroke type and SWOLF (gauges swimming efficiency)
Open-water swim mode: uses built-in GPS for swims in lakes, oceans or rivers; records distance, pace, stroke count, SWOLF, stroke rate and stroke distance
Offers advanced features for staying on pace, logging drills and more
Includes free online analysis, custom workout creation, storage and sharing on Garmin Connect online community
Connected features (paired with a compatible smartphone) include smart notifications and automatic uploads to our Garmin Connect online community
Monitors underwater estimated wrist-based heart rate during swim activities
Customers say
Customers find the smartwatch accurately tracks swim laps and performs well for pool swimming. The watch receives positive feedback for its swimming features, with one customer noting it’s essential for open water swimming. While some customers find it simple to use, others consider it not user-friendly. The battery life receives mixed reviews, with some saying it lasts forever while others find it doesn’t last as long as expected. The GPS accuracy and heart rate tracking also get mixed feedback, with some customers reporting decent tracking while others find it miscalculates swim distances.
AI-generated from the text of customer reviews
Robert A. Weber –
Good, simple GPS/HR watch
This watch replaced a Garmin Venu Square that stopped charging. Since this watch is more expensive I picked up the 3-year warranty on this one.
Pros: Simple to use. Outside rim of the watch protects the bezel nicely. Looks good. Accurate GPS built in. HR monitor matches well with built-in HR in exercise equipment. Looks pretty good for a fitness tracker.
Cons: Only one Cardio option. Pricier than the more flexible Venu Square. Can’t customize display for fitness use. No Walk event tracking.
I have been sticking with Garmin because I need accurate HR monitoring in the water, and most trackers disable their HR on swim functions. These seem to do a good job with that, and if you are an avid swimmer this would be a great watch for you. It has swim tracking and logging functions that I don’t use, so I can’t speak to those.
With this watch being so much more expensive, you don’t need your smartphone for the GPS to function, but I’m a little disappointed that there’s only one, generic Cardio event for tracking. Otherwise there’s Pool Swim, Open Water Swim, Cycling, and Running. I suppose you could use the Running Event to track a walk or hike.
Wish List: Break Cardio event into a variety of events only distinguished by there name, for more easy history analysis in the Garmin Connect app. I would like to customize what’s shown on the display screens during a recording event. For instance, when swimming I want to see distance, elapsed time and HR on the main screen. Instead, all you can see is the interval distance and time, with unused space at the bottom.
So, all that being said, I like this watch. While there are some things I wish it would do, generally speaking it just works. I like not having to mess with a screen protector like I’ve had to with my earlier, raised bezel models. If you don’t mind that, always have your smart phone on you, and need more flexibility, check out the Venu Square, but get the protection plan!
G. Sollner –
Better than the Apple watch for swimming. Better than my old Timex as a watch.
Update 16June2022: I just want to give a shout out for Garmin phone support. I was having trouble getting GPS to find satellites this summer, and it was losing track mid swim. Mary Beth at Gamin support walked me through several paths to finally get the find time down to under a minute. She was patient and seemed genuinely interested in solving my problem — a rare event from support lines these days. I’m still loving my Swim 2 after nearly a year.
——- original review ————–
My earlier Garmin Forerunner 310XT wrist GPS takes forever to achieve satellite lock, and it showed me zipping back and forth while I was open-water swimming, so I needed something new. It’s all in the software, because a watch on your wrist will lose a satellite or two while it’s under water, and the software needs to adjust for this and not think you have zoomed at high speed to the point where it regains satellite lock. Garmin has been working on this issue for some years, (as have others) and I’m very pleased with the results.
I also borrowed an Apple watch for a few open-water swims. Tracking was excellent, but it has a feature that locks out any screen actions while swimming, making it somewhat difficult to control. Also, the Garmin is really built for swimming, so it has many more swimming metrics besides speed that make tracking your progress easier. The other advantage is that the Swim 2 software interface is very smooth on a PC, whereas you have to interact with an Apple watch with an iPad, Mac, etc. (There may be options for the interface that I’m not aware of.)
The real killer for my use of the Apple watch was that it was less reliable reading my pulse while swimming. Both Apple and Garmin use optical pulse measurement, which is a bit dicey in the water (both say to adjust the band tight but comfortable), but often I would finish a swim to find that the Apple watch had not recorded my pulse at all. The Garmin may make some mistakes occasionally, but it keeps doing the best it can.
Controlling the Garmin is not as intuitive as the Apple watch, but once I got used to it I didn’t start activities unintentionally or make similar mistakes too often.
On balance, the Garmin Swim 2 is a keeper and has replaced my Timex Triathlon as my main watch. The alarm, timer, and stopwatch features are more flexible than the old Timex and get a lot of use.
Ellis W. Merschoff –
Great swimming centric smart watch
The GPS tracking, and heart rate monitoring functions work well in all conditions. This watch is optimized for pool and open water swimmers. Triathletes may do better with other options. This is my second Swim 2, the first lasted four years until battery life became a problem for marathon swims.
Great watch, no complaints.
Greg Robinson –
I used the previous Garmin watch for about 10 years and was very nervous about switching to this one as the next step. But Iâm finding that this watch is perfect for me. Its easy to use and very accurate. Good for lap swimming.
Iâm really glad that it works with Garmin Connect so I can continue viewing my swim history online. It syncs easily so I can see my number of strokes number of laps and all the other data. I know that you can see it on the app on the phone but itâs very difficult to see history with watches., but Garmin Connect keeps me coming back to Garmin. And why not? They have great swim watches!
Bárbara –
Poco a poco voy familiarizándome con el reloj, es mi primer smartwatch déjenme decirles, y soy nado por mi cuenta desde hace varios años, y ya era hora de medirme. Es un reloj que sirve para nadar. Tiene algunos detalles que han compartido varios usuarios como el que no te mide cuando usas tabla, y quizás cuando haces mariposa tampoco. Pero hay una forma de al menos agregarle. Estoy buscando información más detallada porque el manual es muy técnico y sà yo necesito que con peras y manzanas me lo expliquen mejor. Yo le encuentro un detalle y es que según en el contenido de la caja venÃa el manual y una banda cardÃaca el cual no vino. Y me gustarÃa que Amazon me diga qué onda, o que al menos quite esa lÃnea para que no pensemos que faltó algo. Si eres nadadora o nadador este es el reloj ideal. Si quieres mejorar tus tiempos y nadas sola o solo este puede ser un buen dispositivo para retarte, al menos eso para mi me está sirviendo. Y sà la baterÃa dura poco si le dice que te mida todo todo el dÃa. Si le quitas lo de tu medidor de sueño, pasos, lo desconectas del bluetooth y asà la baterÃa dura varios dÃas. yo solo lo activo para entrenar, de ahà es mi reloj y me encanta. Pero sà aclárenme lo de la banda cardÃaca, je. Saludos, espero que les sirva.
Sara –
I purchased this swim watch for my brother, and according to him, it’s been functioning great. Waterproof, as advertised, and logging all necessary fitness data. I personally can’t say too much about it, since it’s not my watch, but I recommend it all the same for swimmers.
Vincent Luar –
Product works the way it suppose to. Fast delivery!
tracy –
Well received in a well protected box