Reading heart rate for a whole squad used to mean a proprietary unit for every swimmer, or a general fitness app that knows nothing about swimming. This takes a different path: any standard ANT+ sensor, one receiver, the whole team's effort on one screen, then zone analytics and attendance built around how a swim practice actually runs.
How apxswim compares
| What a coach needs | apxswim | General HR apps | Hardware-locked systems |
|---|---|---|---|
| Live heart rate for the whole squad | Yes | No | Yes, on their gear |
| Build your own team zone chart (colors or gears) | Yes | No | No, fixed presets |
| Runs on a standard sensor you already own | Yes | — | No, proprietary unit |
| One receiver reads the whole team, no per-practice pairing | Yes | — | Varies |
| Swim-native HR zone analytics | Yes | No | Some |
| Automatic attendance from HR sessions | Yes | No | No |
| Free swim calculators | Yes | No | No |
| No per-swimmer or per-unit fee | Yes | Varies | No |
Your team's color chart
This is the one coaches say they can't get elsewhere, and it's a big reason apxswim exists. Most heart-rate systems lock every team into one fixed set of zones and colors. Here you build your own: the bands, their names, and a color or gear number for each, set once for the whole squad. Each swimmer's ranges still scale to their own threshold, and the live deck and every analytic read in your program's language.
The whole squad on one receiver
Heart rate comes in over an ANT+ broadcast, so one USB receiver picks up your entire team at once, with no per-practice pairing, no per-swimmer fiddling and nothing to drop mid-set. Link each sensor to a swimmer once on the first practice, and every session after recognizes them automatically.
Runs on gear you already own
No proprietary head unit that ties your whole program to one vendor. It runs on standard ANT+ sensors, such as a swim-friendly optical armband, and a laptop, so you are not paying per athlete for locked-in hardware.
Swim-native analytics and attendance
Your sessions turn into a six-color zone distribution, training-load trends, and per-swimmer athlete cards, and attendance is drawn automatically from who logged heart rate that day. It is built around how a swim practice actually runs, not a generic fitness dashboard.
Calculators to start with
Pace and split, race pace, critical swim speed, average time, and a stroke-rate tapper. The deck math you reach for daily, ready before you ever join the beta.