Importing and Exporting Data from Your Swim.com Swim Feed

We recognize that swimmers have lots of apps and devices to choose from to capture their swims. Understanding how all this works can sometimes get confusing so in this post we’ll discuss go deep and review a bunch of scenarios on getting your swims uploaded to Swim.com.

UPLOADING SWIMS TO SWIM.COM

The most straight-forward way to get your swim data uploaded to Swim.com is to swim with a device that supports our Swim.com app. Today, there are three choices:

The Apple Watch
Samsung Devices
Any WearOS (and swim) compatible device
*devices must be water-resistance rated at least 5ATM/50m to safely be used for lap-swimming

For users with a smartwatch running the Swim.com watch app, data will transfer from the watch to Swim.com (automatically) either over a WiFi connection or a Bluetooth link with a mobile phone. Nice and simple.

For users using other lap swim tracking smartwatch apps, like Apple’s Workout app or a Garmin device, swim data is sent to Swim.com using an API that links your Swim.com account with these other services.

There is also an option to manually enter data your swims or upload a .fit file into your Swim.com account. We’ll break this down in more details below.

SWIM.COM WATCH APPS

Using the the Swim.com app on your Apple Watch, WearOS or Samsung device gives you access to our proprietary swim tracking algorithms, drill mode, pace mode and other features and streamlines the upload experience. Depending on which device you swim with, the data is transferred over WIFI to Swim.com or over Bluetooth (using your Phone) to Swim.com.

Apple Watch

For the Apple Watch , the mobile phone app and watch app run as a parent app/companion app tandem. This means the Swim.com app must be present on the phone in order to get the app on the watch. In this case, the two apps are always communicating with one another. When a Bluetooth connection between your phone and watch is present, Apple iOS and watchOS will default file transfer to the Bluetooth method because it is uses less energy (battery). We are unable to alter how Apple watch and iPhone choose to communicate to one another when both WiFi and Bluetooth are enabled at the same time. If you wish to utilize WiFi to send your swim data to Swim.com from your Apple Watch, turn off the Bluetooth connection on your iPhone before you begin your swim and do not turn it back on until the file has uploaded (over WiFi) after you complete the workout. This is not necessary but for those who help us collect “raw” data for research purposes, this can be more efficient.

WearOS

WearOS apps are “standalone” apps which means it can be installed on the watch and operate without the parent (in this case, Swim.com) app being on the connected phone. However, you would want the app installed on the phone as well to ensure you are able to use all features of the app. WearOS users need to sign into their account following the instructions on the watch app under the “Account” section of the menu. Touching the “sign in or join” button will launch the web browser on the phone connected to your watch where you can then sign into Swim.com. This completes the link between your Swim.com app on your WearOS device to your Swim.com account.

Samsung

Samsung devices are similar to WearOS devices in that the Swim.com app is again a standalone app. To pair the Swim.com app on the wearable with your Swim.com account, you need to use a unique pairing code provided on the watch app. This pairing code can either be entered on the Swim.com watch app in the device manager or at https://www.swim.com/devices/samsung.

UPLOADS THROUGH THIRD PARTY INTEGRATIONS

If you are using another device or app not running Swim.com, you can still get your swims uploaded so you can compete on leaderboards, track your personal records and more.

APPLE HEALTH KIT

Swim.com is able to read (and write) swim data to the Apple Activity app on your phone by integrating with the Apple HealthKit. This allows for users to swim with the Apple Workout app and share the results of their swim with Swim.com. To enable this, ensure that you give the Swim.com app read permission within the Activity app.

To set up data sharing between Apple Activity and Swim.com, open the Apple Health App on your iOS device and select the “Sources” tab at the bottom of the screen. Swim.com should be in the list of apps that you can source data from (if the Swim.com app is installed on your iPhone). Select Swim.com and then you can choose which data you’d like to share between the apps. The metrics under the “read” section are what control data flow from Apple Health to Swim.com. It’s also worth noting that the metrics under the “write” section send data from your Swim.com log to your Apple Activity log – enable this so you can close those rings!

If you are experiencing issues with data transfer to or from Apple Health, please make sure that all of your software versions are up to date (iOS, watchOS, and Swim.com app), then try again. If issues persist, open the Apple Health app, go to Sources>Swim.com and turn all of the categories off, then turn them back on to reset the connection. If issues continue to persist, contact us at support@swim.com.

GARMIN

In order to send data from your Garmin device to Swim.com, you must first link your Swim.com and Garmin Connect accounts. There are two ways to link your accounts: 1) go to https://www.swim.com/devices and enter your Garmin Connect account details or 2) on the Swim.com mobile app, open the device manager, change the device type to Garmin, and use the menu to enter your Garmin Connect account details.

When you save a lap swim workout on your Garmin Watch, the data will first transmit to your Garmin Connect account. Once it reaches Garmin Connect, the swim data is sent to Swim.com and becomes visible on your Swim.com swims feed. Something to note, however, is that from the date that you first link your Swim.com (or any third party service) to Garmin Connect, only the last 30 days of your workouts will be sent by Garmin. This is done to prevent strain on the Garmin servers (yeah, we’re not fond of this either). If you need to upload any older lap swim workouts to Swim.com from Garmin, you would need to manually export the original (.fit) lap swim files to a computer or device, then upload them to Swim.com at this link. For instructions on how to export files from Garmin Connect, please click here.

POOLMATE

Poolmate devices, one of the first market-viable swim lap trackers, can send data to Swim.com via the My Poolmate web portal. First, you’ll need to enter your Swim.com login information in your Profile Settings on My Poolmate. Once a workout has been uploaded from your Poolmate device to My Poolmate, open the swim on your web browser. At the bottom of the analysis, there will be a blue “Send to Swim.com” button. Selecting that will send the file to Swim.com.

USMS FLOG

U.S. Masters Swimmers who were using the Fitness Log (FLOG) feature on the USMS website can send all of their swim data to Swim.com using our new integration. To set up this link, go to https://www.usms.org/myusms and sign in to your account. Select “My Swim Feed” and then select the blue “Get Started” button to set up the account link. This is a one-time FLOG transfer. Note that new FLOGS being are not currently being sent to Swim.com after the accounts are connected so we recommend entering your swims directly into Swim.com (or, dive in and get a device to automatically track your swims!).

MANUAL DATA ENTRY

For those who do not utilize a smartwatch, or if your watch happens to run out of battery or encounter some other problem, the Swim.com mobile app allows users to manually input workout data. The manual data entry icon is located at the top right corner of the screen when the Progress or Swims tab is active. The app will allow for basic data entry such as course length, distance, duration. On the web browser version of Swim.com, you can enter either basic details or switch to an advanced entry method that allows for you to enter stroke type, individual length times and separate the swim into intervals.

UPLOADING .FIT FILES

To upload a lap swim .FIT file, there is a drag-and-drop file box located at https://www.swim.com/workout/enter.

Not Seeing your Swim on Swim.com?

If you are having issues with data not transferring from the watch to Swim.com, there are a number of steps you can take to try to get the data synced.

First, try force closing both the Swim.com watch and phone apps, then restarting your devices. Force closing the apps closes all running processes and restarts them anew when you re-open the app. Shutting down the devices clears any temporary data cache. Once you restart your devices, ensure that a WiFi connection is available on your watch or it is actively Bluetooth paired to your phone and that your phone has a cellular data or WiFi connection to the internet enabled. Once your data connections are live, open up both the Swim.com phone app and watch app and let them run in the foreground for a few minutes. To refresh data on your swim feed on the mobile app, swipe from top to bottom on the feed itself.

If restarting your devices/force closing the apps does not remedy the data sync issue, please contact us at support@swim.com for further troubleshooting help.