Watch doesn't count all of my swim laps

I have been using the apple watch 2 for the last month swimming breast stroke. Here is what I've found:

During the first 2-4 laps I take short strokes, many more than I normally do.

When I do turns I immediately come up, and do not glide from wall or in stroke hardly at all.

Within 100 meters (on a 25 meter pool) I will get it so the distance at the turn is within 5-10 meters of correct.

I then swim normally except continue to do very short glides and turns. It is always accurate with these adjustments.

Now the long-winded part. The watch seems only to count strokes not turns. This is frustrating. My Garmin swim watch used the accelerometer to judge turns thus the laps and distance. The apple watch seems only to use strokes, not turns. The manual suggest it does go off turns but it does not seem to register them in reality. E.g. it will show 35-45m after my 50m turn.

Also the start is very frustrating. I start in the pool and it doesn't seem to register the start at all. I suspect the accelerometer is expecting a jump in the pool start. Since I do not do this it does not register as started. So the first several laps are many small strokes (about twice normal) to get to a point where it will then record the rest of my swim normally.

The watch also seems calibrated to a smaller person. I am 6'4" so if I do my normal breast stroke with normal glide and turns it will register as less meters swam. Very frustrating Apple. I hope you fix this. Until then I have to shorten my stroke, shorten my glide, and shorten my turns off the wall.

Overal I am extremely pleased with my apple watch 2. I hope they will do updates to fix above problems.

I have found a great deal of variation depending on the type of stroke. In my case I am swimming in my backyard pool which is only 10 yards end to end. When I use a backstroke or front crawl it's pretty good. But if I use the elementary backstroke it's frankly, terrible. For example today I went 20 laps of backstroke and it hit it spot on, but 20 laps of elementary backstroke registered as only 9! What's worse, that appears to varying from day to day, and it is worse this year compared to last year when I first got the watch, where I would typically get about 75%-80% accuracy. Sadly I like the elementary because i can turn without stopping so it keeps my heart rate up. I'm no athelete; I'm just trying to get in a daily exercise and the watch has made all the difference. I just wish there was some way to adjust it to improve the consistency and accuracy.

Hi

I am also having a problem with my series 2 watch. I swim in a 12.5m pool. I have tried to set it to 12 meters and to 13 meters. The lap count and meter count is far off with both settings although 13 m seems to get closer. I swam 1500 meters but the watch measured 832 meters and 64 lengths instead of 120.

My main stroke is breaststroke at a good pace with a few freestyle strokes mixed in. I am a very good swimmer with clean strokes so the watch should have no problems. It identifies the strokes very accurately.

How can I calibrate the watch to be more accurate? I have tried many different watches and gadgets over the years. They all seem pretty bad. Apple always seems better but in this case it is not accurate.

Take a look at the app from swim.com

You manually set the length of your pool and it does a very good job then of keeping track. It's also able to differentiate between your various strokes and has a drill mode, so that you can stop during your workout, set the length for your drills and when done, resume tracking your strokes.

It links with the activity app as well.

I've been very pleased with the app and they are constantly updating and improving upon it...great for a free app!

Hi

During indoor swimming workouts, Apple Watch relies on your arm motion when estimating results.

Reported results can be affected by using training aids (eg wearing fins), by not using your arms (eg when using a kickboard) or when not using your arms in a recognised stroke style.

Your watch will analyse your stroke efficiency over time to improve the accuracy of estimations.