FORM has long been one of the leaders in the smart swim goggles market, with Apple even carrying the company's Smart Swim 2 goggles online and in select stores over the holiday shopping season last year. The goggles feature an augmented reality display inside one of the goggle lens, allowing you to see a variety of metrics such as time and distance, and even heart rate thanks to a built-in heart rate monitor that sits on your temple.
Today, FORM is launching the Smart Swim 2 PRO, an upgrade that builds on the previous model by using lenses made of Corning's Gorilla Glass 3 for improved durability and clarity compared to the plastic traditionally used in goggle lenses.
The lens stack provides a 50+ UPF rating to block 98 percent of harmful UV rays, and the switch from plastic to glass only increases the overall weight of the goggles by about 5 percent (3.4 grams). Because traditional anti-fog coatings don't stick to glass, the Smart Swim 2 PRO goggles come with a cost-effective anti-fog spray based on baby shampoo that can be quickly applied before each swim.
I've had a chance to test out the Smart Swim 2 PRO in both the pool and the open water over the past couple of weeks, and they've provided some valuable features and insight for tracking my swims. In the pool, the screen inside the goggles dynamically changes based on where you are in your swim, thanks to accelerometer readings.
For example, during a swim it can show you elapsed time and distance during the majority of your swimming, but then briefly show your speed over the previous interval when it detects you've made a turn, and show your rest interval when it detects you've stopped swimming, all the while displaying a near real-time measure of your heart rate.
Any of these views can be customized to show different information such as stroke rate, pace over different distances, and even some technique scores such as your head pitch and roll to help you improve your stroke. The FORM platform pulls pieces of this data together to generate a FORM score as a measure of your overall efficiency, and that's another display option.
Rather than having to configure just one set of data to view within the goggles, you can save up to five different dashboards and cycle through them with a quick press of a button on the goggles. The dashboard options come pre-populated with sets focused on Fitness, Technique, Pace, and Intervals, but any of these can be edited to display your preferred metrics and a fifth dashboard can be created from scratch.
FORM offers a Premium subscription plan that comes with a one-month free trial and offers features such as over 1,500 guided workouts, automated HeadCoach technique analysis that can provide tips during and after your swims, and SwimStraight, a digital compass for open water swimming.
FORM has been gradually rolling out new features for its Premium plan to increase the value proposition, including HeadCoach Plans to offer customized workouts that evolve over time as you progress, and Smart Set to automatically display intervals and sets as you swim to help you keep track of repetitions during workouts. Launching in September will be HeadCoach Insights with personalized data-driven guidance following each workout that is tailored to your goals.
For open water swims, the goggles can show your stroke rate, elapsed time, and heart rate, and once they've collected enough pool data to understand your speed, they can estimate your open water pace and distance. You can also pair your goggles with an Apple Watch or Garmin fitness watch for more accurate GPS-based pace and distance data. One of the neatest open water features is the aforementioned SwimStraight digital compass that after just a quick calibration prior to your swim can help you stay on your intended course, reducing the frequency of physical sighting required during your swims.
Overall, the FORM Smart Swim 2 PRO goggles are targeted at triathletes and developing swimmers looking to improve their technique and stamina, and FORM's data shows that users who subscribed to the Premium plan and used guided workouts saw 1.4x greater gains in performance than those simply using the goggles in an unstructured manner. For swimmers without access to regular in-person coaching, FORM's platform fills the gap with a remarkably robust set of features to track swims, suggest workouts, and provide technique advice.
For serious swimmers doing coached workouts and race-focused training for the pool, FORM's goggles have a bit less to offer, though features like live heart rate display and Smart Set counting can help even those swimmers keep tabs on their workout performance. But the higher physical profile of the goggles necessitated by the electronics can cause some issues keeping them on when diving into the pool and the design offers a narrower field of view than some more traditional goggle options.
When you're done with a swim, you can optionally sync your data to the Apple Health platform, allowing you to track metrics in the Health app and workouts in the Fitness app. You can also sync directly to Strava, TrainingPeaks, and TriDot.
With up to 14 hours of battery life, I haven't needed to recharge the goggles yet, but doing so is simple with an included cable that magnetically attaches to charging pins on the goggles, though I wish the opposite end of the cable was USB-C rather than USB-A.
The Smart Swim 2 PRO goggles launch today in the United States and Canada through FORM's website and select retailers, with global availability coming early next month. They're priced at $329 in the United States, a $50 premium over the standard Smart Swim 2 model. After the one-month free trial, FORM's Premium subscription is priced at $15 per month or $119 per year.
Note: FORM provided MacRumors with the Smart Swim 2 PRO goggles for the purposes of this news coverage. No other compensation was received.
