Swimmingly Reviews

by AquaPaula

Meet central has potential however there are too many issues to recommend this to others. The system is marketed to eliminate volunteers however it takes the same number, requires tech savvy volunteers to run a meet smoothly, and volunteers to print and process ribbons. It seems difficult to use with a league that has different configuration of pools with regard to the number of lanes and the length of the pools (meter vs yard pool). To run adequately you will need a dedicated iPad to run the meet, an iPhone or iPad for both the starter and stroke judge, and timers who have iPhones. All devices must not have charging issues (an Apple ongoing complaint). Sprint carrier iPhones are inferior and will not work with the system. The starter's cord did not work for us. To maximize the system both teams must be subscribers. Customer service is inconsistent to say the least if not insubordinate to the "customer ". They need field customer service agents to support their subscribed team's first couple of meets to assure a smoothly run meet.

by Ologyy

We have now suffered through 2 meets using Swimmingly and I cannot stress how bad they have gone. Timers continue to struggle and the meet starts and stops for them to reconnect. There is no flow and kids end up sitting in the sun burning. I have never seen so many swims have to be redone because the times never started, stopped or they can’t save it. The starter then reboots and we sit around for 15-30 minutes while they test and talk.

The issues with timing and Swimmingly led to an extra few hours for the first meet and today after 5 hours we had just made 50% through it. This was a small meet that rarely had 2 heat. People started to just leave and the starters we trying to find enough stop watches to just stop using Swimmingly.

I hope the teams agree to stop using Swimmingly and use anything else. Stop watches and paper would be a HUGE improvement which defeats the purpose of Swimmingly.

by Databoss

I was the starter at a swim meet using Meet Central tonight and it was, to be kind, a boondoggle.

The system has too many failure points to be a viable product. We stopped using the system after multiple fails (meaning starter getting knocked off of the system; watches/iPhones not starting; timers phones dropping off of the system. We switched to manual watches and completed our meet, but you can imagine the results are a mess because Meet Central does not integrate with Meet Manager.

To the developers: it is completely unreasonable to expect timers to not switch out of Swimmingly at some point in the meet. You are not going to change the way people use their phones. You need to develop an app that fits into the current iPhone ecosystem.

Developers: Why does everybody use the same Huddle number? What happens if multiple people try to join as “starters?”

Developers: The starter and the meet ref should be able to see how many timers and stroke and turn judges are connected to the system.

Developers: Why does it take so long for you to get 16 timers logged into the system?

Me thinks Meet Central developers have never worked on transaction processing systems that need to be highly reliable and fault tolerant.

If you are a swim team, my advice is that this system is way too unreliable to use at this point.

by Betts Keating

Transitioning into this system does come with a learning curve, as is true with anything new, but once you get the hang of it, it’s fabulous. Way easier to manage than the clipboard/data entry system of the past. Our parent volunteers love using it. Very user friendly!

by Heeden's IPhone

Our summer swim team has used this system for two years and it is awesome! Meets run so much smoother and faster! I am sure it will only get better each year!

by Swimmom3mb

My kids love summer swimming and now the parents love using Swimmingly to run the meets. Very simple, definitely created for our neighborhood swim meets! Hayes was always helpful on the phone if we had a question :)

by By Wolfie2017🐺

I am a supervisor for a local governmental agency and we are host to a variety of swim teams and programs. We have been running our recreation swim team through CARA and up until we made the switch to this app, we were still seeding and heating our meets using the pink and blue cards! Using this app has been the best programming transition that we have ever made.

We have already saved time and money as well as running out meets more effectively and efficiently. Parents love being able to see results, having a record of their kids times, and love volunteering to help with meets! Meets are fun and well organized now because everyone has the same information and the same tools to share the information!

Teaching parents and kids how to use Swimmingly was easy and super user friendly! There are videos and lots of information to help walk you through the set up of a meet and how to run a meet effectively and set up is so much easier than using touch pads!

Support staff is awesome, helpful and available. We appreciate them for and all their help in making this change. Awesome staff, awesome app!

by Speedoburrito

Meet Central has been a huge game changer in running a swim meet. It has made running a meet so much faster and easier as well as cut down on the number of required volunteers. Swimmingly is intuitive to use. Highly recommended.

by Ilst2017

Makes you change the way you do some things during the meet, but for the better. It attracted new parents and fresh turnover with volunteers at our team which is very welcome.

by SwimMOMof4

Honestly, we were skeptics at first. An app to run a swim meet? After our first meet, we are all believers. We left the pool deck with nothing to do. All of our volunteer timers couldn’t believe how easy it was to time a race. Excited for our season to ramp up.

by Marincgvzrnx

I could not recommend Swimmingly and system more for swim meets. Specially, it is the perfect way to run a summer meet in a timely fashion with less volunteers. I had the pleasure of working with Charlie and Hayes and could not recommend them more. Things went “this app!”

by WendyJSwims

Swimmingly was fabulous. For a beginner, I found it very simple to use. With the synchronized start, The timers were totally together and no one missed a beat. I would highly recommend that swim teams use this “EZ to use” APP.

by DanBSwimOC

Swimmingly and system changed the way I run my entire league. It has saved me up to 5 hours of admin time for each meet, anyone can use it, and kids get results immediately. I print my ribbons right from Swimmingly and I’m done! Total game changer for us.

by Wcsltn

Love Swimmingly/service. Our county swim league had used Meet Central for several years. Not only has it cut down on the paper and length of our swim meets, it drastically reduced the number of volunteers required to run the meet. The service is excellent, someone on the Meet Central team is always willing & ready to help. Highly recommend!

by Christian Trotter

Meet Central is more than Swimmingly . The entire system is a welcome and needed update to the sport of swimming and will continue to revolutionize the administration and overall experience of swim meets.

Swimmingly is how the user interacts with the Meet Central system. It’s very simple and intuitive and delivers a great user experience. In the summer swim season, it is the most useful app on my phone.

by LisaMommaCO

First time user at a meet this weekend. Can honestly say our team will never go back to the old, manual, paper system. Absolute game changer for our summer league. We were able to combine heats and events with ease and got rid of all the handing off of paper 😍💯 Thanks for amazing customer support from the this app Team!

by WillCo Swim League TN

Our league has used Meet Central for several years now, and it just keeps getting better and better. As with any change there were some growing pains at the beginning, but I can attest that if you stick with it you will never go back to all the paper and manual entry. It has truly been a game changer at every level, from the individual teams to administration of the league as a whole.

by ACuriousBird

The team behind Swimmingly has a passion for summer swimming, and a vision for how it can be better for the whole summer swim community. Last year was our first year using Swimmingly , and it was a great improvement over the old system. That said, we had a lot of end-of-season feedback about how it could be better. Nice to see a lot of that has been incorporated into version 5.0. Can’t wait to see how things run this year!

by AL Swimming

I am the starter/ref at swim meets in our league. All 22 teams use this app to run their meets and I can’t begin to tell you how many headaches Swimmingly continues to save me. Teaching the volunteers before the meets is a lot of fun and the timers truly enjoy it. Can you imagine not having to worry about a start...ever? Amazing.

Of course with any new technology there is a learning curve! It is so much easier to learn than what is out there today. Not to mention, the this app team has the BEST support whenever you need it!

by Cavachongal123

Cannot recommend Meet Central highly enough. Has made our summer swim meets so much more efficient! Software is much easier to use, and the Hydroxphere team is very responsive. Once you try Meet Central, you will NOT want to go back!! Makes everything from deck entries to viewing results much easier.