FORM Goggles – Now Race Legal – What Next With The Product?
More: FORM Goggles review
I’ve got 3 pieces of news/opinion for you on FORM Goggles, I reckon you’ll find at least one of them interesting and I’m sure you’ll tell me below if not!
FORM Goggles – A Very Brief History
FORM Goggle are an augmented reality product of sorts. Simplistically they beam your swimming performance stats directly into your field of vision and work both in the pool and open water.
Tech: The company rapidly progressed from being a standalone product that used its internal accelerometers to determine the end of a lap, and the distance and pace metrics that follow, to a product that linked to Garmin and Apple sports watches.
Platform: the app is nice enough with all the outbound links you’d expect. Like many other apps, its sports features have become richer over time and the inevitable subscription tier has also been introduced. In FORM’s case, this gives access to training plans.
News 1: Race Legal
Innovative new products like FORM are often illegal by default in race use. For you and me doing a local triathlon that restriction is irrelevant and only becomes relevant at pro-level events. To cut a long story short, FORM has been approved for triathlon use by World Triathlon, SuperLeague, PTO and USAT.
This approval certainly will add credibility and acceptance both to the company and its technology, plus any competing technology that may come down the line.
News 2: Text-to-Plan Generation
I saw some very interesting developments with FORM and its interaction with TrainingPeaks.
In a nutshell, there is a feature whereby you paste in a generic plan to create a digital one. So you would cut and past something like this into TrainingPeaks
- Building stamina (Source: speedo.com)
- This half-hour pyramid swim workout aims to build strength and stamina by gradually increasing the distance and time you swim. Take a short break after each repetition and use the clock on the wall to keep an eye on your times.
- Warm-up 200m
- 1 x 100m Front crawl
- 2 x 50m Backstroke
- Main set 450m
- 1 x 50m Front crawl. Try and swim a little faster than in the warm-up.
- 2 x 50m Breaststroke. Aim to swim the second half faster than the first.
- 1 x 50m Front crawl. Aim to swim the second half faster than the first.
- 2 x 50m Breaststroke. Aim to swim the second half faster than the first.
- 3 x 50m Front crawl. Aim to swim the second half faster than the first.
TrainingPeaks/FORM then converts that to a digital, structured swim workout and sends it to the FORM app and hence to your Goggles
Well, I thought it was cool.
I guess you could probably do the same with chatGPT and a bit of thought.
Opinion 3: A New Product?
FORM Swim Googles are a first-generation product from the company (2019) and the only one of its kind of sophistication that I know about in the swimming world. Other HUDs exist for cycling/running and, indeed, I believe FORM’s founders came from using similar tech in the cycling world.
The product has a couple of drawbacks despite being the clear leader in its field. Firstly the display resolution is very low and the external aesthetics are not great with the bulk of display transmitter/battery required for FORM’s tech wizardry. You just have to think (speculation) that a 4-year-old product is ripe for a replacement that might have a smaller footprint, longer battery life, more accurate accelerometer, and better BLE connectivity to Garmin/Apple.
Buy: Use the code THE5KRUNNER to get a $30 discount and a 1-year pro subscription at FORMSWIM.com
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