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Swim with your watch on Catch

Find out how to connect and sync your Garmin or Apple watch to the Catch app. Send your sessions to your watch and let your watch guide you through your swim.

How to Set Up Your Garmin with Catch

Good news - setting up Garmin with Catch only takes a minute. Once it’s connected, your swim sessions will automatically sync both ways: from Catch to your watch, & from your watch back to Catch.

To connect your Garmin:

  1. Open the Catch app
  2. Go to Settings → Connect my watch
  3. Tap Connect Garmin
  4. You’ll be redirected to Garmin’s login page - sign in & tap Allow
  5. Done! Your Garmin is now linked

When you next open the app, your planned sessions will automatically appear on your Garmin, & your swims will sync back into Catch once they’re saved on your watch.

💡 Tip: If you ever need to reconnect (for example, after a Garmin app update), just repeat these steps.

How to Follow a Swim Session on Your Garmin

Once your Garmin is connected, following your Catch swim sessions on your watch is easy.

To start your guided swim:

Open your Garmin watch

For a pool swim:

  1. Go to Activity list → Pool Swim
  2. Click into your Settings → Training → Training Calendar
  3. Tap the session you want to swim
  4. Hit Start & follow the prompts on your screen

For an open water swim:

  1. Go to Activity list → Workouts → Scheduled (your latest session will appear here)
  2. Unfortunately Garmin don't allow us to create custom open water swims, so these are under the "custom workout" category. This means it won't record some stats like swim strokes or Swolf.
  3. Tap the session you want to swim
  4. Hit Start & follow the prompts on your screen

Your watch will guide you through each rep & rest. It’s a seamless, zero faff way to tick off your sessions.‍

Buttons to know:

  • Lap button: Press this when you finish each rep.
  • Skip forward: Press the Lap button again to move on to the next part of the session.
  • Pause/Resume: Use the Stop/Start button if you need a longer rest (or fancy a quick chit chat).

Handy tips:

When you're in a rest

Depending on which Garmin model you have, the watch might buzz on your last length. This is normal and is designed to let you know that you're nearly at the end of the rep.

When you’re done, save your activity on your watch. It’ll automatically sync back to Catch the next time your Garmin connects.

Troubleshooting

My sessions aren’t appearing on my Garmin:

  • Make sure you’ve connected Garmin via Settings → Connect my watch in the Catch app
  • Check that your Garmin watch has recently synced with Garmin Connect. You can refresh the sync from within the Garmin Connect app.
  • If it still doesn’t appear, open Garmin Connect → More → Training → Workouts, then pull down to refresh

My swim didn’t appear in Catch:

  • Check that Garmin Connect has synced with your watch (you’ll usually see your swim appear there first)
  • Open Catch→ Settings → Connect my watch, then tap Refresh connection

How to Set Up Your Apple Watch with Catch

Good news - setting up Apple Watch with Catch only takes a minute. Once it’s connected, your swim sessions will automatically sync both ways: from Catch to your watch, & from your watch back to Catch.

To connect your Apple Watch:

  1. Open the Catch app
  2. Go to Settings → Connect my watch
  3. Tap Connect Apple Watch
  4. You’ll see an Apple permissions pop-up - tap Allow All
  5. Done! Your Apple Watch is now linked

Your swims will also sync back into Catch once they’re saved on your watch. Head back to the Catch app after your swim to see your stats. Catch will analyse your swim and feed this back into training plan.

To send a session to your Apple Watch:

  1. Open the Catch app
  2. Go to Sessions
  3. Tap watch icon
  4. Tap the arrow next to Send to Apple Watch
  5. Your session will now appear at the top in the Workouts app on your Apple Watch.
  6. Note: Make sure you select the correct day in the Catch app before sending. If you have selected a different date, click the 3 dots to view all Catch workouts and you'll find it there.

Your swims will also sync back into Catch once they’re saved on your watch. Head back to the Catch app after your swim to see your stats. Catch will analyse your swim and feed this back into training plan.

How to Follow a Swim Session on Your Apple Watch

Once your Apple Watch is connected, following your Catch swim sessions on your watch is easy.

To start your guided swim:

Open your Apple watch

For a pool swim:

  1. Go to Workouts app → Pool Swim
  2. Your Catch session will appear at the top
  3. Tap the play button → select the pool length and you'll see a countdown start.
  4. Once the countdown finishes, the timer starts and the instructions for your first rep will appear.

Top tip: If you want a little longer to prepare for your first rep, press pause as soon as the countdown ends and the instructions appear.

When you're ready to swim, resume by pressing the same buttons again.

Apple Watch screen showing the Catch Swim app ready to start a swimming session with a purple play button.Smartwatch screen showing workout instruction: Next Warmup - Any stroke 400 meters, with time 07:14 and progress dots.

Buttons to know:

  • Pause/Resume: On newer Apple Ultra watches, you can press both the "action" button and "side" button at the same time. On all other Apple watches press the "side" button and the "digital crown" at the same time.
  • Lap button: The "action" button on newer Apple Ultra watches.
  • Skip forward: Turn off the water lock by holding down the digital crown. Swipe right, select "Next".

Following the workout:

  1. Swim your first rep, the watch will show how many metres are left, so if you lose track, you can have a quick check to see how many lengths are left.
  2. At the end of the rep, the Apple Watch will automatically detect that you have finished.
    1. But: When we tested this, it can take a few seconds to figure it out. So if you want the most accurate rep times and paces, then pause at the end of the rep to tell it you're done.
    2. This moves you to the next step (usually a rest period), but it does also actually pause, so you'll need to resume to allow the rest period to continue.
  3. Once the rest period countdown ends, the watch will move on to the next step. This is previewed as you can see in the screenshot, but sometimes you can't see the whole description until the start of the next rep.

    Remember you can pause at the start of the next rep to see the instructions without the timer continuing.
  4. Once you've finished all the steps:
    1. Pause the workout
    2. Turn off the water lock
    3. Swipe right
    4. Select "End"
Apple Watch showing a paused workout with 24 seconds elapsed and 15 seconds rest time left.Smartwatch screen showing a paused workout with 7 minutes 14 seconds elapsed, 400 meters left, interval time of 7 seconds, and no heart rate displayed.

Water lock: During a swimming workout, the touch screen locks. You can unlock it by long pressing the digital crown.

We don't recommend you do this until the end of the swim, when you want to end the workout.

Smartwatch screen showing a blue water droplet icon with the message 'Unlocked. Ejecting water.'

Troubleshooting

My sessions aren’t appearing on my Apple Watch:

  • Check the settings in your iPhone → Privacy & Security → Health → Apps → Catch Swim → make sure all permissions are turned on.
  • If you do not see Catch Swim in your settings, make sure you’ve connected via the Catch App → Settings → Connect my watch → Apple → Connect Apple → Accept all permissions
  • If this is still not working, delete the Catch App, reinstall and try the connection process again.
  • Go to Apple Fitness app → Workout → you should see Catch Swim at the top → View schedule to see workouts sent successfully.

My swim didn’t appear in Catch:

  • Check that your session has appeared in your Apple Fitness app (you’ll usually see your swim appear there first).
  • Check the Apple Connection as per the steps above.
  • In the Catch App - press the refresh icon next to "Logged sessions"

Need a hand?

Drop us a message at support@catchswim.com - we’ll get you sorted.

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