I found this from Polar’s website about which heart rate monitors works best in the pool to give accurate readings.

Watch For Heart Rate, Laps and Strokes

We’ve gone to the edges of the earth trying to find the best swim watch combination for those seeking data, especially heart rate data, as well as laps and strokes data.

The task is made a bit tougher by virtue of the fact that so many heart rate monitors use 2.4 GHZ transmission and that just won’t play in the water. Enter Polar heart rate monitors to the rescue. The Polar FT1 and Polar FT2 with T31 coded transmitters will get the heart rate measurement job done in real time but they do not have data download capabilities.

To get data download capabilities you can use watches like the Polar FT7, Polar RS300X, Polar RS400 and the accompanying Wearlink chest strap. The Polar Wearlink WIND chest strap will not work for swimming. Using the Polar FT7 or Polar RS300X you can use a Polar Flowlink device to download your swimming heart rate data. With the Polar RS400 you will need an IRDA data stick.

The Suunto Memory belt is another great solution for heart rate data capture and subsequent download and it does not even require wearing a watch. The downside is that the data is not visible in real-time but you can download it to Suunto’s Training Manager software after-exercise for further analysis and because it is self-contained it captures all the data and uses a USB docking station to transfer it.

Basically any Polar heart rate monitors using either a T31 coded chest strap or a regular Wearlink chest strap will work and then the Suunto Memory belt and that is it. Those are the only ways we know of to get continual heart rate while swim training.

The Swimovate Poolmate swim watch is a great solution for counting laps and strokes and has proven much more reliable than the Oregon Scientific swim watch. We’ve had several customers buy a Swimovate Poolmate swim watch in combination with a Suunto Memory Belt to get laps, srokes and heart rate during swims and this has worked rather well.

We have tried out tons of swimming watch solutions but we deem those mentioned above to be the most reliable and think you will be very satisfied with any of these as a solution. Sorry the field is not broader, we are constantly looking, but we are committed to telling you what works and getting rid o f the things that do not.

If you’d like help selecting a swim watch like the Polar FT7, then just call us here at the Heart Rate Watch Company toll-free at 866-586-7129.