FORM Smart Swim 2 review

Billed as the world’s first smart goggles, you might be forgiven for wondering what’s so smart about the new Smart Swim 2 from FORM. Out of the box, they look pretty much like ordinary goggles — but look a little closer and you’ll see one side has a small, solid unit to the side of the lens, itself divided into three parts. The middle part is where the magic happens: when you put the goggles on, a digital readout appears, like a mini heads-up (or eyes-up) display.

Once you get swimming, this display gives you real-time feedback on your heart rate, split times, distance and a whole lot more — all of which you can personalize according to your own preferences.

If you have ever lost count of laps, or if you struggle to remember a complicated swim set of varying distances and paces — your problems are solved. The magic display just lets you concentrate on one thing, and one thing only: swimming.

FORM Smart Swim 2 review

FORM Smart Swim 2: Design

• Smart display in one eye showing all metrics
• Different size nose bridges included, and adjustable straps FORM app is easy to use and works well once set up

After unboxing, you need to pair the goggles with the FORM app on your smartphone (IoS or Android) via Bluetooth. This can take a little while — once we connected, there was a firmware update to download. The goggles are charged via a magnetic charging cable which provides 14 hours of life. That’s a lot of swimming, though if you do forget to charge fully before a swim, a mere 10-minute boost will give you enough juice for two hours in the pool.

Once that is done, you have two tasks. Firstly, to make sure you have the best fit possible. To assist in this, the FORM case includes nose bridges in five different sizes. These are easy to clip in and out, and the app guides you through the process. Of course, what feels comfortable for a minute or two in your house may not feel quite so great after an hour in water, but this is something you can continue to adjust, swapping bridges if needed.

It’s important to get this right — not simply for comfort but also because a good, close fit is needed to keep the optical heart rate monitor in contact with your skin, to ensure you get an accurate reading with no drop-outs.

Once set up, the app allows you to configure the data that you will see during the activity. You have three field options per “page” which you can scroll between, or you can keep it very simple and scrutinize the full data after you’ve finished. The fields are grouped into those that you would see during a swim, those that you see during your recovery breaks and those you see just after each turn at the end of the lane. All can be customized.

The unit or pod that powers the display is on one side of the goggles. When you pick them up, this weight feels asymmetrical: it feels like this might be an issue but in fact you can’t feel the difference when swimming at all. You can switch what side you wear it on, and change which eye/lens the data shows.

FORM Smart Swim 2: Performance

• Reasonably comfortable to wear
• Superb HR accuracy
• Excellent integrated coaching tips

Comfort-wise, FORM does have the usual swimming goggles problem. That is, if the Smart Swim 2 is worn tight enough not to leak and to provide good data, then it can start to get uncomfortable after a while. I did find that on long swims, I was increasingly aware of the pressure on the face, but then I’ve found the same with pretty much every pair of goggles I’ve ever tried.

Out of the water, it’s a little odd adjusting to simultaneously looking “at” the display and “through” the goggles, with different depths of field. Even in the pool, I initially found I was trying to switch focus between the bottom of the pool and the display. This wasn’t really a problem, just an unfamiliar experience. Likewise, it took a while to get used to the fact that you have very little peripheral vision compared to standard goggles. This, again, is a tad disorientating at first.

The heart rate (HR) functionality on the goggles is superb. If you’ve ever tried using a heart rate monitor in the water, you’ll know how erratic and unreliable it can be. In all the swims I did use FORM, I don’t think I got a single moment of HR drop-out or a gap where the reading should be. Nor did I have any erratic readings, as you often get from wrist-based optical sensors. It’s really very impressive.

The accompanying FORM app comes with a whole host of structured workouts tailored to your personal goals. To access these, the app suggests you initially just swim 1,000m (not necessarily in one go) so it gets a basic idea of your speed, fitness level and heart rate.

You turn the Smart Swim 2 on, get in the pool and it starts tracking, simple as that. You do not need to hit a pause button if you rest, because it detects that automatically. It also detects turns, total distance (you enter the length of the pool before you start) and pace. Again, the accuracy here is extremely impressive, from the time taken to pause the workout when you stop, to coping with lap-counting even if you stop mid-length.

As well as pool swims, the Smart Swim 2 is also designed for open water. Here, the metrics are a little different. You can, as in the pool, just swim. But in this mode, you can also connect to a Garmin or Apple Watch, and it will use the GPS data these provide to give you accurate pace and distance data. Cleverly, the googles feed you this information live, rather than calibrating it later.

One of the cleverest functions in open water swim mode is called SwimStraight and does just that — helps you swim straight. If you’ve ever tried swimming in a lake, river or ocean you’ll know how surprisingly difficult this can be. You’ll need to calibrate the goggles before each swim, though this only takes a few seconds and a few basic movements.

Then, inside the display, you will see a sort of compass, showing your heading. Once you have figured out where you are swimming to, you simply try and hold that reading steady, though you will also get frequent reminders to “sight” — that is, to lift up your head and check you are still on course and haven’t missed anything you should be aware of.

This is a really fantastic feature and would be hugely useful in an open-water race. And before you ask — yes, that is perfectly legal. World Triathlon, USA Triathlon, the PTO (Professional Triathletes Organisation) and Supertri have all given express permission for the use of this FORM feature in races.

FORM Smart Swim 2: Functionality

• Integrating training plans and coaching tips (with a subscription)
• Live, accurate data integrated in the display
• Full data available after swimming is in-depth and helpful, and easy to integrate with other platforms like Strava

This ease and accuracy of use makes the FORM goggles a great piece of kit even if you never even explore the structured workouts. You can do your entire swim, whether it’s a workout or an easy splash, without pressing a single button and still get very accurate stats. And as mentioned, the accuracy of the data is absolutely fantastic.

However, if you do want to access the full range of workouts and the coaching elements, you need a subscription. That’s $15 (£13) per month or $99 (£84) per year, though you do get a two-month free trial to test it out.

The Premium package comes with more than 45 training plans and over 1,500 workouts, including the ability to create your own custom ones. You’ll also get technique tips. Obviously, the Smart Swim 2 can’t do much to examine how good your kick is or critique your arm placement, but it can rate your efficiency, suggest drills to improve it and, particularly, offer coaching around your head position in the water. I found this really useful and was able to make some small but extremely effective tweaks.

The training plans themselves offer a huge variety, from returning to swimming after a break to swimming as cross-training for another sport, to triathlon training. You can focus on training for a specific event, getting to a new distance or purely on your technique. On the app, you can go into any workout and look at what it entails, and even edit it if you like.

One negative here is that you also need a subscription simply to create your own workouts, or to import them from TrainingPeaks, a system that is widely used by coaches and athletes. That’s a downside as most devices tend to allow you to do these basics without a sub.

However, I did really enjoy the coached sessions: they are just so easy to use and there is so little distraction from getting “in the zone”. Without pressing a single button, all your reps will be counted and you’ll be told how much longer you have left in each set, how long you have left of a recovery break and so on. You literally just follow instructions.

Should you buy the FORM Smart Swim 2 goggles?

These FORM goggles are a great piece of fitness tech that really does have a unique selling point. Even if you put aside the subscription-based features and training plans, and simply use them to track your swims, they are fantastically good at doing that.

Unlike using a watch in the pool, you don’t have to squint at a tiny screen on your wrist at the end of a length or start and stop between reps while trying to remember what’s next. The goggles guide you through your chosen workout flawlessly with minimal disruption, so you can channel your inner dolphin and focus on gliding through the water.

And if you want to take your swimming up a gear, get good coaching tips and follow a structured program, then this piece of kit will do that all for you, too.

✅ Buy it if:

— You swim regularly and want to take it to the next level

— You want accurate data throughout your workout

❌ Don't buy it if:

— You are on a budget and already have a training plan

— You prefer to see your stats after you’ve finished rather than live

If this product isn't for you

If you don’t swim often and really just want something basic, without any need for data, then try a simple, well-fitting pair of “dumb” goggles like the Speedo Biofuse or the Aquasphere Xceed.

Alternatively, if you prefer a smartwatch, then the Garmin Swim 2 is an excellent swimming-specific option.

FORM Smart Swim 2: How we tested

We tested the Smart Swim 2 in an outdoor and indoor pool, in a variety of lighting conditions from bright sunlight to relatively low lighting, with swims ranging from 800m to 3,000m. We also tested them in open water, in the ocean.