Just like the as-yet-undiscovered Theory of Everything (ToE) in physics, I’m searching for the as-yet-undiscoverd Wristwatch for Everything (WfE). It’s even money which I’m going to see first.

The latest candidate for the WfE is the Poolmatelive from Swimovate. This company makes a suite of watches for swimming which include this version, which I will write about below, as well as versions that are smaller and less obtrusive – if that’s what you want, I like a bit of heft on my wrist – and a version that tracks heart rate while swimming as well as performing the core Swimovate functions. And what are the core functions?

First, it counts laps. Why would this be of value? There are obvious reasons and others less obvious. Most obviously, in a long sustained swim, even in a pool, even with a clock, you might lose count. If you don’t have a pool clock and the only device monitoring your workout is your sports watch, it’s valuable to have a lap counter on the watch.

Its second feature is vibration, like how your mobile device vibrates. This is not the only watch that vibrates. Casio has a line of watches that have vibration as a feature, and you might be surprised to hear why this is of benefit. Casio’s Pathfinder watch is popular with hunters and fishermen, who need an alarm feature but don’t want an audio prompt. Those who are deaf or hard of hearing have a need. I can imagine couples who work opposite shifts, or who need to be awakened at hours inconvenient for their spouses.

The Poolmatelive has this feature, but exploits it in a way unlike these other watch companies. This watch vibrates at specific intervals. This is especially helpful if you don’t have a pool clock or, even if you do, if you want to make sure you have a pace prompt every length. Let’s say you want to swim a 1500 yard effort, straight, and you want to hold 1:30 pace throughout. You would set this watch to vibrate every 22.5 seconds, so with every push off the wall the watch will vibrate. Or, every 45 seconds if you just want the prompt every 50. The Poolmatelive will offer you 3 metrics during that swim: vibration at specific intervals, number of laps accomplished, and time.

If you want to know where you are by distance rather than by time, set the vibration feature to laps rather than time. Again, let’s say that you’re swimming a straight 1500 yards. Instead of the watch vibrating every 22.5sec or 45sec, or however often you want, you can tell it to vibrate every 500 yards.

The vibration feature is also useful in open water. Let’s say you want to perform a straight swim, so far out, then back. If you want to swim for, say, 40 minutes, I would set the watch to vibrate every 10 minutes. In this case I have a prompt telling me I’m halfway out, at the turnaround, halfway back.

Software

The less obvious benefit of a watch that can count laps is that it can record your workout, and it knows or intuits in rough form pretty much what your workout is. Let’s say you have a number of sets to perform, different distances, leave intervals, and so forth. Once you begin a set, the Poolmatelive will know how far you’ve swum, how many lengths of the pool, it keeps an ongoing chronology of the swim, and if you hit a button every time you commence and complete a new repetition you can download the workout afterward. A cropped, reduced – and therefore unfairly represented – look at the software is just below.

The only thing you need to do, later on, is fill in certain blanks. This device does not know what stroke you’re swimming, so if you use the brand’s software as your swim recording and analyzing app you’ll need to go in and write in that this set was backstroke, that was IM, and so forth. Also, the stroke rate is not, it seems to me, 100 percent accurate, as it can only record the strokes taken by the arm on which the watch is affixed. The watch doesn’t know if the last stroke into the wall was taken by that arm or the other arm. That said, the software seems pretty powerful, and this company says it’s got an API coming that allows you to integrate this watch’s data into Training Peaks.

Before I go into any further explanation of this watch, let me say now that if none of these features is of interest or use to you, there’s no compelling reason to invest in this watch. This watch has a lot of value, but it also has some issues and I would not find this an overly compelling product if I didn’t need the features above. This is primarily a swim watch, and if these swim-specific features don’t interest you, and you won’t use them, this is just another watch.

That established, it is probably the nicest looking of the sports watches I own. The face is large, which I like because the older I get the worse I see, and because I just don’t like a watch that could be confused with the lady’s size. But I also don’t like bulky watches. I like mine with slim lines. I don’t want the Timex’s or Casio’s Camo Commando Bigfoot Hunter Diver. I like a large face but slim lines. This watch appeals to me, and it gives me time, date, alarm (audio or vibration) and, if you want, heart rate readout (but on a specific HR version of the Swimovate line, not on the Poolmatelive).

Other swim features

This watch’s counting feature is not limited to laps or lengths, but also can count strokes, and can take strokes plus distance, speed and so forth to give you stroke length, stroke rate and the like. The thing is, I think I’d probably prefer an audio metronome like those made by Finis if I was specifically interested in stroke rate (i.e., cadence). And, I don’t really need to know what my stroke rate or length is when I’m in a pool; I know when I go from 18 strokes a length to 19 that my stroke got longer, and I know that this happened without counting strokes – in a short course yards pool you’ll know when you start taking an extra stroke or 2. But open water, yeah, I think it would be interesting to get a full readout of what I just spent an hour doing: stroke rate, heart rate and so forth. I’ve long felt that triathletes begin the swim legs of their races too quickly, and it might be of value to know more about our open water habits just as we do about our cycling habits with power meters, cadence readouts and bike computers.

This watch is very fairly priced at between $125 and $140. It’s hard to find a decent watch that offers vibration as a prompt or input selling for below $100 and this watch has certain features that push it well above the other watches that offer vibration, which I’ll list in a moment. The version of this watch that has heart rate included is a bit pricier, at $240. The in between version is the Poolmatelive – which does not record HR – and a USB clip that allows you to download data from your watch to your computer. This is not included with the watch at its base price and will cost you between $40 and $50. The watch with the download clip, all in, has a street price of around $165.

You might ask whether this watch could ever be your all-encompassing head unit for other ANT+ devices. I think the answer is no. ANT+ is not its communication protocol and, besides, I don’t really want my watch to be that central collector of ANT+ data, because then I’d have to break the screen up into too many little squares and I wouldn’t be able to read the darn thing. As it is, I can barely read a Garmin 500 with only 3 metrics reading.

The plus side is, this watch communicates with a low frequently 122KHz signal that allows HR data to be transmitted underwater. I’m looking forward to having DC Rainmaker comment on preferred protocols for underwater transmission, because he extols the virtues of Bluetooth Smart for a variety of uses including underwater HR signals (i.e., Wahoo Fitness’s Bluetooth Smart HR strap), but he also notes that while Polar’s new V800 transmits using both Bluetooth Smart and 5kHz Polar chooses that latter protocol for underwater use.

Land-challenged

While this watch has great in-water features, it struggles a bit on land once you try to use this as a sports watch. It’s pretty good at interval sessions.

What I wish it did that it just does not do – and this is pretty basic functionality – you cannot stop the chronometer and restart it, taking up where you left off. So, if I’m running or cycling for time and hit a red light or take a natural stop, the watch won’t give me a net time. It’ll give me 2 net times that I can add together, but not one net time. I also wish that you had the ability to choose the metric you wanted to see in the watch’s two readouts. The Poolmatelive cannot display time on the large readout on top. That is for laps, date, sets. Time is relegated to the smaller display below. This is not a problem while swimming, because lengths achieved is probably a more important metric (you might already have a pool clock tracking your time). But once you hop onto dry land and want to look at time while running, then the chronometer is the metric of import. But as I said, this is still really a swim-specific device, it’s not yet optimized amphibious use.

The upside to this downside is that this watch has upgradeable firmware. It seems to me this is a big line of demarcation in wrist-worn devices. To me, this is always a big differentiator when you invest in microelectronics. This watch cannot give me a net time in a run. But maybe in 3 months I'll get that functionality when the latest firmware update arrives.

So, then, where do you find a watch like this, which is not (yet, at least) a household name? I’ve rooted around a bit, inquiring as to who’s carrying it. Here is a list I’ve come up with, certainly non-exhaustive. I’ve linked to 3 of the stores below as I know at least these 3 are pretty significant mail order sellers.

Atlanta, GA: All3Sports (404-556-6704)
Detroit, MI: Fraser Bicycle (586-294-4070)
Milwaukee, WI: Emery's (414-463-0770)
Austin, TX: Austin Tri Cyclist (512.494.9252)
Chicago IL : Urban Tri Gear (630-230-9386)
San Diego, CA: Nytro Multisport (760.632.0006)
East Bay, CA: Forward Motion (925-820-9966)
St. Louis, MO: Swim Bike Run (636-220-7781)
Raleigh, NC: Inside Out Sports (919-466-0101)
Seattle, WA: Northwest Tri and Bike (253-638-2453)

[Late add: As sometimes happens, the U.S. distributor for this watch, SwimovateUSA, contacted me after reading this story. Apparently I have overpriced the watch reviewed here. It's $115 for the watch itself and $35 for the download clip, $150 total.]