How to use inDepth Pool

Before your first session

1. Install it. Use the inDepth desktop installer over USB (install help and troubleshooting). 16 Garmin models are supported: the Fenix 5 Plus, Fenix 7 and Fenix 8 families, Descent Mk2 / Mk2S, Descent Mk3i and the Descent G2. The plain Fenix 5, 5S and 5X are not supported. inDepth Blue still runs on them, but inDepth Pool doesn't fit in their memory.
2. Hold MENU → Settings and set these up:
   • Discipline: DYN (with fins), DYNB (bi-fins) or DNF (no fins). The default is DYNB.
   • Pool length: 25 m, 25 yd, 50 m, 50 yd or Custom. The default is 25 yd. Distance is kept in your pool's own unit, so nothing gets converted.
   • Rest time: how long the rest countdown between reps runs. The default is 2:00.
   • Breathe-up: the countdown before your first rep. The default is 2:00. Set it to 0 if you want to skip that screen.
3. Be at the surface when you press START. That's when the watch reads the surface pressure, and it uses that reading to tell when each rep starts and ends.

A session, start to finish

1. START on Home opens the picker. You'll see Free, every workout your phone has synced over, plus Create & sync workouts and Settings.
2. START on your choice takes you to its pre-start card, a preview of what you're about to swim. Press START there for a small menu with Start, plus Length, Rest and Discipline (on Free) or Details and Edit (on a workout: Details lists every step, rests included, and Edit changes its sets right on the watch). Changes you make to the Free items only apply to this one session. They never touch your saved defaults, and pressing BACK throws them away.
3. Breathe-up. This is the countdown before your first rep. If you push off early, the rep just starts.
4. Ready → swim. The rep starts by itself as soon as you go deeper than the Auto Start depth (0.5 m), and ends by itself when you come back up past the Auto End depth (0.2 m).
5. Adjust the distance. The rep is already filled in with the target distance (or, in Free, whatever you swam last rep). Change it with UP/DOWN one unit at a time, then press BACK (or START) to confirm. Your rest has already started, and your rest alerts still go off on this screen. That matters because this screen doesn't show a clock. So there's no rush. If you push off and swim again before confirming, the rep is saved with the number on screen, not lost.
6. Rest. The countdown runs to zero and then keeps counting up, so you can always see how long you've been resting. The next rep only starts when you dive or press BACK. It never starts by itself. In a static set, BACK on the breathe-up, ready or rest screen starts the static before each rep.
7. Finish. Open the Session menu and choose End session. When you finish a workout's last rep, the watch asks you instead: Add workout, End session or Discard. If the session has any saved reps, Discard checks with you first (“Discard session?” → Yes, discard / Cancel), so one wrong press can't wipe out your swim. Cancel keeps everything. An empty session is discarded with a single press, and End session never asks. After that you get a short card with your total distance, reps, time, best rep and swim heart rate. A line at the top tells you whether the session really saved (SESSION SAVED, NOTHING TO SAVE, or NOT SAVED). The watch reads the session back from storage before it says it saved. BACK closes the card, and it stays up until you do. If there are reps to look at, a white arc appears next to START. Press START for a small menu: Done (same as BACK) and Details (this session’s list of reps). No reps means no arc, and START does nothing. If you wrote a session note for today’s swim on your phone or in the browser (Me → Settings → Session Notes), the Session menu gets one extra row, Session Note, so you can read it.

The buttons: the one thing to remember

During a session, BACK does the thing and START opens the menu. Garmin does it the same way in its own strength workouts. An arrow on screen always points at BACK and tells you what it'll do right now.

On Home, START still starts. A short curved line next to the START button shows which mode you're in. On the pre-start card and the post-session summary it's white and means START opens a menu. Once a session is running it's white too, and there START opens the Session menu.

Until the phone app has synced with the watch at least once, Home shows UP · get the app in place of the START hint. Press UP for a QR code that takes you to the inDepth mobile app, and DOWN to go back home. START still starts a session either way, and the hint disappears by itself once you sync.

Settings worth knowing

• Auto Start / End: how deep you have to go for a rep to start, and how shallow for it to end (0.5 m and 0.2 m). Reps always start automatically. If your stroke keeps you shallow enough to end a rep by accident mid-length, turn Auto End off, and BACK ends every rep instead.
• Heart Rate: On, Record only or Off, with recovery Zones on every supported watch. You'll see live bpm on the breathe-up and rest screens.
• Record FIT: On by default. It sends a Swimming activity to Garmin Connect, with one lap per confirmed rep. It uses a generic swimming category, not Pool Swim, so Garmin's pool-length swim tracking does not apply. Turn it Off in Settings if you don't want a Garmin activity. A change during a session applies to your next one. The FIT file saves only after the session saves to watch history; sessions with no confirmed reps, discarded sessions, and sessions interrupted by leaving the app produce no FIT file. If Garmin recording fails, your inDepth history still saves. Garmin Connect may show the category differently across watch and app versions. Garmin records native heart rate when available and lap markers, without custom distance or depth fields.
• Store Detailed Stats: on by default. It saves a second-by-second heart-rate trace for each rep (the rest before it, then the swim). That's what draws the HR graph on the watch and on your phone.
• Turn Detection: off by default. Turn it on and the watch uses the compass to work out your split time for each length, and adds a Turns page to every rep it can read with confidence. It uses more battery while you swim. If it can't read a rep cleanly, that rep just gets no splits. It won't make them up.
• Alerts: sound and vibration cues for the breathe-up and rest countdowns, set separately for each. You can have marks at 0:30 / 0:20 / 0:10, and a Countdown 0:05 that pulses for each of the last five seconds and gives a strong "go" buzz at zero. Out of the box, only the Countdown 0:05 vibration is on.
• Pause (in the Session menu) freezes the countdown, session clock, and Garmin activity timer while you step away. Paused time never ends up in the saved session.
• Reset to Factory Settings: erases all your inDepth Pool sessions and settings.

If you change Heart Rate, Store Detailed Stats or Turn Detection during a session, it applies from your next session. The watch reads all three once, at the start, so a session can't end up half-measured.

Reviewing what you swam

• UP during a session shows the running Summary: total distance, reps, time, best rep and swim heart rate.
• DOWN shows the Progress list with every rep. What you've already swum is green, and what's still to come is gray. Press START on a finished rep to see its details and heart-rate trace without ending the session.
• DOWN on Home opens your pool history, with the sessions saved on the watch, newest first. Open one to see its summary plus each rep's stats, HR graph and (if Turn Detection was on) split times.
• UP on Home, before you've synced, opens Get the mobile app (see above).

If something looks wrong

Reps don't start or end by themselves

The watch needs a good pressure reading. Make sure you're at the surface when you press START, and check that Auto End is on. If the sensor never reports anything, BACK starts and ends every rep instead, and the session still records normally.

A rep has no Turns page

Either Turn Detection was off, or the compass couldn't cleanly count the number of lengths your saved distance adds up to. DNF and very short pools are the hardest. The watch would rather leave the splits out than guess, so the odd rep without them is normal.

My phone won't pull the session

A Garmin watch only runs one Connect IQ app at a time, so inDepth Pool has to be open on the watch when you sync. The same goes for sending workouts to it. See the phone app guide.

A workout I deleted on the watch came back

The phone sends your whole workout library again on every sync, and the phone is always the one in charge. Delete it in the phone app instead. That now reaches the watch by itself, usually within a second or two, or on the next sync if the watch isn't nearby.

Older sessions have disappeared

The watch keeps your 10 most recent sessions and drops the oldest one when a new one is saved. Anything you've synced to the phone stays there for good.

"This build has expired"

Sideloaded Connect IQ apps expire 180 days after they were built. Install a newer build from /install before then.