SubscribeI have to admit, when the aquapulse was 1st announced I got pretty excited: I’m all about training with data and in the pool I’d always felt that I was “data blind” especially when compared to cycling and running. Enter the Aquapulse:
The Aquapulse clips onto the strap of your swim goggles and onto your earlobe. It uses a beam of light through your lobe to sense your heart-rate and speaks it via bone conduction into your head.
I tested the Aquapulse in my masters swim class over the last few weeks and I have to say, I’m pretty impressed:
- One of my 1st concerns was that I had pierced ears. Not just pierced, but pierced and once stretched to .75″ holes. The holes have since shrunk, but I hardly have “normal” ear-lobes. I wondered how the sensor would work on my deformed lobes. I was happily surprised that there was absolutely no issue having the Aquapulse find and track my pulse. I did spend a little time making sure the sensor was over flesh and not air, but otherwise it was just clip and go.
- Comparing the Aquapulse to the heart-rate telemetry from my Polar RCX5 and to fingers on the wrist/eyes on the clock, I found it very accurate.
- I already wear swim goggles (and I assume you do as well, if not you would probably prefer a watch-style device) and found the Aquapulse more swimmer friendly than a heart-rate watch and chest strap. Its audible reporting of pulse avoids having to interrupt your stroke to check your pulse and allows you to adjust your intensity mid-set based on its prompting. I also find the chest straps annoying when doing pure swim workouts and that flip turns would frequently dislodge the strap. Further, we aren’t allowed to wear watches in our masters swim class but there’s no issue with a mask-strap-attached device.
- I wear earplugs when I swim and the bone conduction is awesome (similar to the swimp3). In fact, with the earplugs I find the bone conduction better than without, probably due to the lack of other external competing noise. I did find the diction took a little time to get used to, but after 20-30 minutes of listening to the Aquapulse, you get to understand how it “speaks” and life is good.
- The battery life is great. I charged the device when I first received it, have used it for roughly 6 hours on that initial charge and its still going strong. I’m not sure how long the battery is supposed to last, but at over 6 hours that’s amazing.
In all, I think the Aquapulse is a great training aide. (Like so many of Finis’ products.) It’s well thought out, easy to use, and provides useful, timely and valuable feedback to the athlete while they train. No, you’re not likely to use it in a race environment (like you may with a multi-sport wrist-computer), but as a purpose built training aide, it has no rival.
Comments are closed