There seem to be two groups in the watch community- the people who regularly swim with 30m or even splash resistant watches and the people who never swim with anything with less than 100m water resistance. Who’s right?
There seem to be two groups in the watch community- the people who regularly swim with 30m or even splash resistant watches and the people who never swim with anything with less than 100m water resistance. Who’s right?
Depends on what we mean by “swimming.”
What some people describe as swimming is not much more than splashing around in waist-deep pool water (e.g. at a hotel) for a few minutes. What I describe as swimming is lap swimming in a 25-yard (or an Olympic-regulation 25m) pool for an extended period of time (when I was swimming regularly 1750 yards/meters, or roughly a mile, took me about 40-45 minutes), or ocean swimming beyond the beach for an extended period of time.
For starters, I do not recommend wearing a watch while actually in the water. I always leave my watch upright in front of my lane. That said, for just splashing around in shallow water for a few minutes, 30m WR is probably okay but still risks getting water in the watch, and 50m WR should probably be the minimum for that sort of activity. For anything more, 100m WR is probably the minimum safe bet.