Swimming workouts just got a digital boost. Swimmers can now tap into guided workouts while in the water via a new feature on Canadian fitness company FORM’s goggles. The new technology employs augmented reality to display real-time workouts through the goggles. 

The tool works through a subscription model where swimmers can pay $19.99 a month or $179.99 a year in order to tap into a library of workouts on the FORM swim app. The workouts focus on endurance, power, sprinting, recovery and other techniques. Users are also able to access pre-workout tutorials which give insights into the exercises. 

Once a swimmer begins their workout, the goggles will display real-time metrics as well as the selected workout. After a swimmer has completed a workout, the history is saved in the app. 

Before this announcement, the goggles were able to display a swimmer's metrics using the AR technology. 

WHY IT MATTERS 

The company is pitching this as a new way for athletes to train in the water. As far back as the Rio Olympics, athletes were using augmented reality to help prepare for competition. This is just one more launch in the move towards tech-backed athletic training. 

“Providing guided workouts to swimmers of all abilities is a massive next step in the evolution of the FORM Swim Experience,” Dan Eisenhardt, founder and CEO of FORM, said in a statement. “Millions of swimmers go to the pool every week to swim without a team or a structured workout. We are fundamentally changing this. There is nothing like this in the market, and we’re incredibly excited to make swimming so much more engaging and motivating.”

THE LARGER TREND 

In 2019, the company released augmented reality-enabled goggles. At that time, the AR was able to display a swimmer’s heart rate and performance metrics. The technology was born out of a collaboration between FORM and Finnish company Polar. 

Over the last decade, the digital health industry has seen an increased number of swim tech tools. For example, in 2016, Misfit and Speedo teamed up to launch the second generation of their Speedo Shine device, a tracker for swimmers. 

That same year Fitbit added swim tracking to the Flex 2 and the Charge 2.