Form: New Dimension to Swims

FORM make augmented reality swim goggles that display real-time metrics, empowering swimmers to get in the zone and enjoy their swimming, rather than focus on calculating lap splits, distance, and other metrics.

Why Strava?

FORM was enticed by the value of Strava’s athlete community. While most Strava athletes are registered as either runners, cyclists, or multisport athletes, FORM recognized that many Strava athletes also do swim and wanted to tap into this user base. FORM felt that they could add value by providing eye-catching visuals and analytics for swim activities uploaded to Strava from FORM goggles. FORM was already integrated with Strava, having already provided the ability for athletes to upload activities from the FORM app to Strava. Their latest integration introduced an eye-catching graphic that added insight and flavor when swims are displayed in the Strava feed. The goal was to emphasize that swims can be as exciting, share-worthy, and "kudo-worthy" as traditional GPS-based activities are. Additionally, FORM hoped to leverage Strava’s prolific community of athletes to bring visibility and awareness to their brand and product.

What Was the Integration Process Like?

From a technical perspective, the FORM team wanted to make sure that the Strava integration was easy to set up and maintain. However, upon looking at the documentation, they found the integration process would not prove to be too challenging, and their web & mobile lead was able to handle it in his free time. Most of their discussion was centered around figuring out how they would represent a swim with their in-app graphic. FORM recognized that most athletes in the Strava community would be completely unfamiliar with their product, so conveying what their product was and instilling brand recognition was of paramount importance. Given the fact that swims are not necessarily the most visually enticing Strava activities and attract less attention than GPS-based activities such as runs and rides, FORM had to consider this fact when designing their graphic. They decided that upon first impression, the visual had to clearly indicate that the activity was a swim and was logged using FORM, communicate a lot of the key elements and statistics of the activity, and upon deeper examination, display the more intricate metrics. Additionally, they chose to color code various metrics to ensure that the graphics didn’t look carbon-copied across users and activities.

How Have FORM Users Responded To the Strava Integration?

The reaction from FORM users has been extremely positive, with particular praise for the graphic’s design and how it has elevated the swim’s presence within their Strava feed. FORM has also run several campaigns to drive their users towards connecting their FORM accounts to Strava and uploading activities. This has led to a huge increase in Strava connections within the FORM user base. As the in-app graphic displays different statistics and colors based on the person’s activity, a lot of users paid more attention, with FORM-logged swims garnering an average increase of 10% more views than swims logged without FORM did.

What Features Did They Wish Strava Could Offer on the Integration?

FORM would like to explore how they can leverage activity data of a connected user to provide activity and workout recommendations. For instance, recognizing that deciding on a workout can be a challenge, FORM hopes to use an athlete’s previous activity data to provide recommendations in order to help athletes from continuously repeating things that they have already done.

What Do They Hope to Gain from This Integration in the Future?

From a marketing perspective, FORM wants to expand their Strava footprint. They have already created a Strava club, so they hope to leverage that to engage with the broader Strava community. Beyond organic awareness generation on Strava, FORM wants to eventually start running sponsored challenges. They want to continue to encourage their users to connect their FORM accounts to their Strava accounts (and join Strava, if they haven’t already).