How It Works: A Simplified Guide to the Smart Technology in FORM Goggles
Swimming goggles—in their “modern” form—have been around since the early 1900s. While there were modest improvements made to their design and functionality in the decades since then, they long remained a relatively rudimentary tool.
But as the demands of modern athletes continued to evolve, goggles became due for a technological overhaul.
FORM represents the next generation of goggles, leveraging sophisticated augmented reality and machine learning technology to create an immersive swimming experience that meets the needs of today’s athletes.
In this article, we’ll explain the technology we’ve tapped into for our swim goggles with smart display, how it all works, and how those mechanisms automatically translate your swimming motions into detailed real-time data.
Tradition Meets Technology: The Mechanisms That Make FORM Goggles Smart
Within every pair of FORM goggles, there are two key technologies that work together to create an unprecedented swimming experience.
The first is the augmented reality technology that legibly displays your real-time swimming data and training sets directly in front of your eyes.
The second is the set of sensors that intuitively measure every detail of your swim and then use a machine learning model to translate that motion into metrics.
FORM’s Built-In Motion Sensors
FORM goggles use motion-sensing technology housed within their hardware to track your movements and record them as data.
Known as an Inertial Measurement Unit (IMU), these sensors—which are also commonly found in things like your cell phone or smartwatch—include a 3D accelerometer and 3D gyroscope.
Together, these sensors provide incredibly interpretable signals about your swimming pace, technique, and more.
FORM’s Custom-Trained Machine Learning Technology
While the sensors and hardware in your FORM goggles are innovative, our machine learning platform is where the magic truly happens—all in real time.
Today, machine learning is a buzzword synonymous with Artificial Intelligence. But FORM has been harnessing the power of this technology in our goggles for years. It serves to create a seamless, accurate, hands-free, and immersive swimming experience.
But how does it work?
Every time you swim, the sensors in your goggles deliver raw signals to our machine learning platform.
In turn, our machine learning model analyzes that data and turns it into a prediction of what it thinks you’re doing—including things like your swimming pace, reps, turns, and more.
This information is then shown visually in your goggles using augmented reality technology.
How FORM’s Technology Provides More Accurate Swimming Data Than Other Trackers
If you talk to any triathlete, they’ll probably voice two swim-related frustrations with their traditional fitness tracker:
- Their wrist-worn swim watch doesn’t always accurately capture the distance they swim in a pool
- They get inaccurate pool swimming since their tracker doesn’t account for wall flips or push turns
When developing FORM goggles, we addressed these two issues.
How?
For one, FORM goggles don’t use a GPS but rather a sensor worn on your head instead of your wrist.
This allows the goggles to capture end-of-length turns and rests more precisely. And since turn detection is crucial for counting laps, FORM googles are more accurate in logging distance and number of lengths.
If you plan on swimming in open water, you’ll be able to tap into the GPS in your fitness tracker to provide that data.
Secondly, since our machine learning platform has been taught to identify transitions--specifically streamlines at push-off--in the pool, they’re accounted for when it comes to calculating data like your distance per stroke.
So, when calculating metrics like your stroke rate, FORM goggles account only for your actual strokes—not the extra propulsion you get for the first meter or two after you kick off the wall on each length. They also deliver real-time instructions during workouts so that you know what drills you need to swim, when, and for how long without having to stop your training to check your phone or hand-written instructions.
Teaching a Machine: How Machine Learning Actually Works
In order to understand how raw data gets turned into swimming data, we need to back up and explain how machine learning actually works.
Training a machine learning model is an iterative process—and it’s exactly what it sounds like.
Think of it this way: if you wanted to teach a machine learning program to distinguish between photos of cats and dogs, you could train it by showing it a hundred photos of each. You would tag each photo accordingly—either as “cat” or “dog.
Based on this previous learning, your machine learning model would be able to identify dogs from cats the next time you showed it a picture.
And, the more photos you tag and show to the machine learning platform, the better it will get at distinguishing between the two.
The same applies to swimming data except that, rather than dogs and cats, The Machine Learning team at FORM has collected swimming data from a diverse group of fitness and athlete swimmers, aligning hundreds of hours of their swimming video footage with corresponding goggles sensor data.
This sensor data is then labeled according to what is seen in the video--such as what stroke they are swimming, whether they are turning, resting, or pushing off the wall.
Our team labels the time it takes to swim from one end of the pool to the other and how many strokes it takes to get there, amongst other key swimming metrics.
When these labeled signals are input into the goggles’ machine learning model, the model gets smarter and develops the ability to generate swim metrics based on sensor data alone.
With that, your FORM goggles can determine exactly what you’re doing in the water and provide you with metrics like stroke rate, stroke length, split times, pace, and more.
So, if you go from swimming to resting or vice versa, your swim goggles with smart display will know in a matter of split seconds.
The technology inside our goggles is innovative and complex, but it all works in tandem to create a simple, intuitive, and immersive swimming experience. Using augmented reality, built-in sensors, and a state-of-the-art machine learning program, FORM goggles provide you with real-time metrics and swim workouts—right before your eyes.
Take Your Swimming to the Next Level with FORM
If you want to take your swimming to the next level, add FORM goggles to your gear bag. With FORM, you can see real-time data and drills directly in front of your eyes while you swim. Identify when your technique is dropping off and adjust your form using pace, stroke rate, and distance per stroke data while you swim. Your FORM goggles come with a 1-year trial of Premium Features including 1,500+ guided workouts as well as triathlon-specific training plans.
Already have FORM goggles, but don’t have access to our full range of features? Head to the FORM app to start a 30-day free trial of Premium*.
