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No. 15 · 16 Nov 2024 · 6 min

SwimTech

Can technology make you a better swimmer?

When you’re talking about swimming, it doesn't reflect that something exciting when you have a conversation about sports. That’s not true.

Let me try to explain you.

My favorite TV channel in childhood was Eurosport. I came back after school, had my lunch, and had a one-hour break before my canoe sprint training session. What I have done? Right, I turned on Eurosport and watched everything I could without any thought that it might be the main direction of my professional career.

That’s the point how I found out about:

  • Tennis

  • Swimming

  • Track and Field

  • Biathlon

  • Table Tennis

…and many others. I found something that catches my attention in each of them all the time.

Why swimming?

  • It’s spectacular

  • Different disciplines

  • Fast races

  • Intrigue all the time

  • Beyond human limits

That’s how I can describe it.

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Market Overview 📈

The global swimming fitness tracking market size was USD 5.71 billion in 2024 and is projected to touch USD 12.66 billion by 2032, at a CAGR of 8.3% during the forecast period. (Business Research Insights)

Swimming takes the TOP-5 at least for major European Countries by popularity in the Summer Olympics. (YouGov)

We don’t need too many numbers, because the industry is big and swimming is one of the most watched sports worldwide.

How can swimming startups help you swim faster, safer, and smarter? 🏊‍♂️

Let’s show you.

SwimBETTER (eo lab)

Wearable swimming devices to help improve your swimming and your technique.

Why do I like this type of device? The target audience is amateur athletes and professional swimmers. Value equal for both categories. Best coaches and athletes want to use the latest technologies, and data, to improve their time, breaking new records and techniques. Amateur athletes are aiming for the same. This device is another piece of the whole sports ecosystem where you can train, work with the data, and learn from your experience. That’s the journey I love about products.

I’m still thinking, that replacing a good coach isn’t that easy. I know the training effect when you’re working individually and when you’re working alone. It’s still a huge difference. If you want to learn more about your swim, this device is something you should look at.

What do you need to know about swimBetter?

  • The starting price is 699€.

  • Six months free on a single membership.

  • Your data is available anytime on either the eo SwimBETTER app or platform.

  • Data recordings up to 90 minutes.

Features:

  • Stroke force & total force per stroke

  • Force field

  • Stroke path & hand velocity

  • Consistency

  • Stroke phases

  • Forces vs Time

  • Sync data to video

  • Dashboard

The list is solid. The only one question as always…

How to read this data if you’re a beginner? 🤔

You should definitely invest some time into it, but what they did well, was prepare a video guide with the main question explaining how to work the the dashboard and read data.

What they can improve for sure is a UX part of their website. The whole experience wasn’t good for me and with this kind of product, you should navigate without any issues or any additional questions about the information. That’s the part where I would definitely spend some time. Pretty sure it will increase the conversion at some point as well.

What’s next? 👇

FORM Smart Swim

FORM is a swimming glass with a built-in display to track your distance, drills, and heart rate. Open water and swimming pool mode. Application to track and analyze data, and also improve your training experience within, exercises and training programs.

Some important information you should know:

  • The price starts at 179€.

  • 14-hour battery life.

  • The display can be worn on the left or right eye.

  • Built-in optical heart rate sensor (this is an interesting point and I’m wondering about accuracy)

  • Automatic stroke/rest detection and tracking, no buttons to push.

  • Post swim data.

What I can say is that both products have an interesting business model.

Get even more from your goggles with FORM’s premium subscription, from €8.25/mo.
1 month free with your first goggles purchase.

If you want to have all the benefits like:

  • HeadCoach™

    Instant technique feedback and analysis

  • SwimStraight™

    The first in-goggle compass

  • Workouts

    1500+ pre-built workouts or build your own

  • Integrations

    Import workouts and see instructions in your goggles.

The good thing, it’s not mandatory, and Core Features don’t require a subscription.

Some words about this.

When you’re purchasing a product for this amount of money, I don’t expect to pay an additional fee for the subscription. From this perspective, my user experience will go down, but of course, I understand that to keep this working you should have additional money flow, and SaaS solution in this situation looks like a smart move.

Moving forward. 🏊‍♂️

Phlex

Phlex is personalized data that brings your swimming to the next level. Phlex is here to bring the sport of swimming into the 21st century.

The company is saying about themselves the following.

Bringing innovative products to the swimming world with hardware, software, and artificial intelligence solutions.

What did they do?

Phlex partnered with Polar and is using Polar Verity Sense for their product.

They’re using existing technology by Polar but developed their application.

What do you need to know?

  • You have different purchase options: Polar Verity + Subscription types

  • Price starts at 99$ (3 months membership included).

  • You can purchase only the app for $8.99/month (actually not sure how it’s gonna work in this case. On the website available information about Apple Watch, so maybe it’s an option if you want to purchase only a subscription)

Some features:

  • Calories

  • Max Heart Rate

  • Average Heart Rate

  • Split

  • Training Zones

  • Technique Progress

  • Stroke Efficiency

  • Training effect

  • Stroke Recognition

  • Distance Per Stroke

  • Stroke Rate

  • Stroke Index

You can find the full list on the website.

What else did I find in this category? 🚀

Holoswim it seems that the alternative for FORM and the second version was released about 1 week ago mainly for the Australian market for now.

TheMAGIC5 - you can map the contours of your face to guarantee a perfect fit for swimming goggles.

TritonWear - another powerful coaching tool to help you guide athlete improvement, using their own data, based on their unique goals. I would say it’s a competitor to Phlex.

Of course, if you’re looking for training plans, the most popular app for now is MySwimPro. This makes sense if you want to stay consistent and have some goals in swimming. I’m pretty sure that the application will help you achieve these goals. I’ve proved this for myself with running. 🙂

Wrapping up 🍣

I’ve noticed, that in this industry only a few big names are currently in the market. If we are thinking about swimming, some product categories that could help you to improve.

  • Technique improvements

  • Training plans

  • Additional wearable for a better training experience

  • Nutrition

All products that we had above, almost cover this. I don’t include swimming gear or clothes, because it’s another thing for me. The industry is going to grow and I think that we are going to see more interesting products in the upcoming future.

P.S. Do you have anything you can add to the list? I would love to hear more.

Thanks for reading Sportflow 🏊‍♂️! Subscribe and don’t miss out latest updates from the sports startup industry.

Cheers,
Taras