FORM swim goggles review: Swim 1 vs Swim 2 compared on display clarity, HR accuracy, and GPS. Find which smart goggle gives real-time stroke rate mid-lap.
Swim 1 versus Swim 2 — head-to-head on display clarity, heart rate accuracy, open water GPS, and price. Plus a side-by-side against the traditional watch-plus-goggles setup most swimmers already own. FORM swim goggles put real-time pace, stroke rate, distance, and heart rate directly in your line of sight while you swim. No glancing at a wrist, no stopping at the wall to check a watch — the data floats in the lower-right corner of your goggle lens, roughly a meter ahead, like a dashboard for your face.
I've coached on deck for 15 years and watched swimmers squint at pace clocks, miscount laps, and guess their stroke efficiency mid-set. These goggles solve a genuine problem: getting feedback during the swim, not after the set ends. At $199 for the Swim 1 and $249 for the Swim 2, the question is whether that in-goggle AR display justifies the price — and which model matches your training.
This FORM swim goggles review compares the two models directly, stacks them against a Garmin watch setup, and tells you exactly who should buy them and who should keep their $15 Speedo Vanquishers. No marketing fluff, no affiliate-driven enthusiasm. Just what a coach would tell you on deck. How FORM Smart Goggles Work Both FORM models use a waveguide display — a transparent optic that projects swim metrics onto the lens without obstructing your forward vision.
The numbers appear suspended in space, similar to a car's head-up display, so you see the lane line and your pace simultaneously. The default rotation shows elapsed time, distance covered, and pace per 100 meters. A firmware update adds stroke rate, SWOLF score, and stroke count as swipe-able screens. A single physical button sits on the right goggle frame.
Tap it to cycle between metric screens during a swim — no need to break stroke or touch a watch. The goggles use internal accelerometers and gyroscopes to detect turns, count laps, and identify stroke type (freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly). Pool length is set manually before the session. For open water, the Swim 2 adds GPS-based tracking with satellite positioning built into the goggle frame.
Glance at the display once every 4 to 6 breaths — the same cadence you'd use for open water sighting. The data should inform your effort, not become the focus of the swim. If you find yourself staring at your stroke rate on every pull, turn the display off for half the workout and swim by feel. The goggles still record everything in the background. FORM Swim Goggles Review: Swim 1 vs Swim 2 Compared FORM launched the Swim 1 in 2019 and the Swim 2 in 2023.
The core idea — an AR head-up display inside a goggle — is unchanged between generations, but the Swim 2 adds features that directly address the Swim 1's biggest limitation: pool-only tracking. If you train outdoors in lakes or oceans, the Swim 1 is a non-starter. The comparison table below lays out the feature differences that matter for training, skipping spec-sheet filler.
The Swim 2's headline feature is open water GPS. If you swim in lakes, oceans, or reservoirs, the Swim 2 tracks your route, distance, and pace outdoors — the Swim 1 cannot. This alone justifies the $50 price difference for any open water swimmer. For pool-only swimmers, the decision is tighter. Both models deliver the same core pool metrics, and the Swim 1's 16-hour battery already covers a full week of 2-hour sessions between charges.
Heart rate support works identically on both: neither has a built-in optical sensor in the goggle itself. You pair an external chest strap or optical armband via ANT+ or Bluetooth, and heart rate appears alongside pace and distance in the display. FORM sells a proprietary temple-mounted HR sensor for $79, but any standard chest strap or armband that broadcasts ANT+ or BLE will work.
This matters because a $50 Garmin HRM-Swim chest strap gives you HR data on both goggle models without buying FORM's accessory. Heart Rate Training with In-Goggle Feedback Wearing a chest strap in the pool has always been awkward. The strap slides down on push-offs, and even when it stays put, the data is useless unless you can see it mid-swim. FORM solves the visibility problem: heart rate appears in your goggle alongside pace and distance, so you can hold a specific beats-per-minute range for threshold sets without a coach shouting splits from the deck.
