Using Drill Mode and the Pace/Send-Off Timer with the Apple Watch

You asked, and we listened! Swim.com for the Apple Watch now has a drill mode and pace timer!

Using both functions starts with the watch’s digital crown. To start setup for the drill mode, you’ll scroll the digital crown upwards. To start setup for your pace (or send-off) timer, scroll downwards.

Drill Mode

You can start setup for your drill at anytime the watch says “Resting” in red letters. This may be at the beginning of your workout or anytime you’re resting at the wall.  While in rest mode, scroll the digital crown on the side of the watch upward until the drill mode menu appears. Here you can set the distance for your drill using the plus and minus buttons. When you’ve set the distance, scroll up to start the drill mode. When you are done with the drill, you can scroll up again to start a new drill interval, or scroll down to return to your main swim stroke mode. Once you scroll down your drill distance will be added to your total.  Drill mode should retain the last distance setting you used during the workout.

Pace/Send-off Timer

To set up your pace timer, from resting mode scroll the digital crown button down to expose the timer.  Use the plus and minus buttons to adjust your time.

​​When you are finished setting the timer, scroll up to start it immediately You can also scroll the crown button down to exit if you are not ready to use it yet. If you choose to not use it immediately, you can scroll down during any resting period at the wall to open the pace/send-off menu again, and then scroll up to begin the timer.

When the timer runs out, you should feel a small vibration to alert you.

3 thoughts on “Using Drill Mode and the Pace/Send-Off Timer with the Apple Watch

  1. This app looks great! I was looking for a app just like this but for running instead of swimming. Is there a way to make this app work for running, and if not is there another app that you could recommend me to like this. Thank you!

  2. The rest periods are often too long. If I take off early will the workout adjust or do I have to wait that long at the wall? Changing it all in the custom workout takes too long and I keep losing created workouts halfway through creation. Frustrating.

    1. Hi Leslie-
      There is a bit of a display delay when changing from resting to swimming mode. This really only affects the display (what you see on the screen) and not the actual data file. Per 100y, you can expect about a 2 second timing difference from what someone would record if they were timing you with a stopwatch. This is due to the fact that the app must take a few hundredths of a second to understand that you have started or stopped swimming and are in fact resting at the wall. If you want to, check out this blog post that discusses exactly how our auto-interval algorithms work: https://blog.swim.com/swim-com-watch-app-work/

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