ChronoSwim

About ChronoSwim Android App

Chrono Swim is a multiple stopwatch / chronometer for swimming pools designed specifically to help swimming coaches in their training sessions. It can track, correct and store the times of swimmers engaged in sets with send-off intervals or given rest, in spite of their staggered starts.

The application is organized into 3 pages which can be browsed using the tabs on top of the screen:

SETTINGS
Here you can enter the parameters of the set that you are going to time. First, you select if you want to time one or two lanes, and you enter the number of swimmers per lane (up to a maximum of 8). Then, you enter the number of repetitions to be done (e.g. 8 x 100m -> 8 repetitions). Finally, you choose the kind of time interval to use and its value: either you enter a send-off interval (e.g. 1:30 for 8 x 100 send-off 1 minute 30 secs), or a rest interval (e.g. 0:10 for a 10 sec rest).

Traditionally, the spacing between swimmers is set to 5 seconds (to make the subtraction easier from the time given by a single stopwatch starting with the first swimmer). But as ChronoSwim already gives individual, corrected times, you can also change this setting to any value that suits you better.

Once you have entered all the parameters, click on the "Set" button to start the timing. Or, if you only need a simple stopwatch or you don't have the time to configure a set, just click on the "QuickChrono" button. QuickChrono is easy to use but offers however two parallel split time columns with their corresponding buttons, allowing for example to time two swimmers on the same race and storing all their lap times.

STOPWATCH
If you have clicked on "Set", now you see a vertical representation of your lanes, separated by lane dividers, with a starting platform on top (TIP: you can change the line number by clicking on the platform). The swimming caps on the left side give the swimmer's position in its lane. There is an individual chronometer for each of the swimmers in the intersection between the lane number and the swimmer position in that lane (e.g. swimmer number 3 on lane 2).

Below the lanes, there is a repetition counter (which automatically increases at the end of each repetition) and a global timer. The global timer starts with the first swimmer and restarts at the send-off time, or switches to rest time (color switches to orange) on first arrival, depending on the timing mode chosen on the Settings page.

On the bottom of the page lie the chronometer buttons. Click on Start to start the set. The starting signals will be given for each swimmer with the chosen time spacing: "Ready..." and "Go!" messages will appear, as well as a race-style, acoustic beep. TIP: you can toggle the acoustic signal on/off by clicking on the loudspeaker icon on the top of the page, to the left of the starting platforms. The individual chronometers will begin counting with each start.

When all swimmers have started, a lap counter appears to the right of the global chronometer, which you can use to keep track of the number of meters already swum when timing long swims (e.g. 400 or 800m). The counter increases by 50 meters with every click, and reset itself at the end of each repetition.

Each time a swimmer arrives, click on the "Arrived" button under its lane. The chronometer of the swimmer stops and its time is highlighted in yellow. The first swimmers can start the next repetition before the last swimmers have finished the current one. However, the chronometer of a swimmer will be reset at its expected send-off time.

TIP: you can freeze the chronometers of a lane by clicking on it (without stopping the global chronometer), which can be useful to take split times

RESULTS
Each time you click on "Arrived", the corresponding time is stored on the "Results" page. On this page, the times of a swimmer for all repetitions in the set are displayed together. The page can be scrolled up and down to see all swimmers.