@Sascha-Domres ok, this is important information. Outdoor pools should work with open water swimming “somehow”. I was doing some triathlons that started with doing lanes in an outdoor pool. Since triathlon mode used to work only with open water swimming, I had to use this mode.
The 500m swimming was logged by Suunto Race S as 449m - I think this is acceptable regarding the “misuse” of the mode.
With this in mind, and you swimming freestyle, the watch should indeed log something better. As for every other open water swimming, it is important to give the watch some minutes time to proper acquire all satellites in the best possible way.
After a soft reset, all AGPS data will be deleted, so the watch is in a bad position to get a proper GPS signal in time.
So for your scenario I can recommend two things:
a) use pool mode for pools and set the correct length. this is the best
b) If you have to use open water swimming, make sure to have the watch synced recently and wait a couple of minutes in the pre-start screen before entering the water.
Here is my open water pool swim i mentioned above:
[image: 1787815387424-img_7511.png]