Setting Up the Start Beep
Get your race starter's beep loud and clear before the meet — wired to a speaker, or over Bluetooth.
Here's the short version
The app handles the beep itself. Your job is making sure it comes out of a speaker everyone on deck can hear — done once, before the first race.
- In the app open Test Start Beep on your meet's Meet Details page
- Speaker connect it — a cable, or Bluetooth pairing, covered below
- Play Start Beep tap to confirm it's loud enough before anyone's behind the blocks
That's the whole setup.
First time? 3 things worth knowing
- Test it before the meet, not during.
- Open Test Start Beep from the Meet Details page and confirm the sound before swimmers are behind the blocks.
- Bluetooth needs pairing first.
- Pair your phone to the speaker in your phone's own Bluetooth settings. The app doesn't do this part — it just plays through whatever's already connected.
- Once it's connected, you don't touch it again.
- The same beep plays automatically for every heat over whatever speaker or Bluetooth connection is active when the meet starts.
Pro-Tips
- Test it in the actual venue if you can. An echoey indoor pool hall swallows sound very differently to a lounge room.
- Keep your cable with your starter kit. One less thing to hunt for on race day.
Find Test Start Beep
Switch to the Race Starter role, open your meet, and tap Test Start Beep on the Meet Details page.
Race starter does this, not timekeepers or parents. Switching to the Race Starter role needs a passcode from your club admin — Starting races covers that, and the rest of the job.
Connect a speaker by cable
A cable is the more reliable of the two — no pairing, no dropouts, and no lag between the tap and the beep. If your speaker is within reach of the starter, use one.
Most portable and Bluetooth speakers have a 3.5mm AUX IN or LINE IN jack. Almost no phone still has a headphone socket, so what you want is a single cable running from your phone's charging port straight into that jack:
- USB-C phones — most Android phones, and iPhone 15 and later: a USB-C to 3.5mm cable.
- Lightning iPhones — iPhone 14 and earlier: a Lightning to 3.5mm cable.
One cable, not an adapter plus a lead.
You can get the same result with a dongle and a separate aux cable, but every extra join is somewhere hum, crackle or a loose connection can creep in. A single 1–2m cable with the right plug on each end is more reliable and one less thing to lose.
Worth spending a little more on the cable
Cheap cables are the most common cause of crackle, dropouts and a beep that works at home but not at the pool. We've had good results with Belkin's RockStar USB-C to 3.5mm cable, which comes in 0.8m and 1.8m — but any reputable brand should do the job.
The 1.8m length is usually the safer buy: it gives the starter somewhere to stand that isn't right next to the speaker.
Or connect over Bluetooth
Often the more practical choice at a pool, where the speaker and the starter may be nowhere near each other. Pairing happens on your phone first — the app just plays through whatever's already connected.
- Turn the speaker on and put it into pairing mode (usually a Bluetooth button held down until a light flashes — check the speaker's own manual if you're not sure).
- On your phone, open Settings › Bluetooth and select the speaker from the list.
- Once it shows as Connected, open Swim Club Connect and go to Test Start Beep as in step 1.
Charge the speaker before you rely on it.
A Bluetooth speaker running low on battery is the single most common reason a beep that worked fine earlier in the night goes quiet or drops out later on.
Confirm the beep and go
Whichever way you've connected, tap Play Start Beep and listen from where the swimmers will actually be standing — not just from beside the phone.
The green Audio session ready banner above the button confirms the beep will take priority over other apps on your phone.
Once you're happy with the volume, close this page and start the meet as normal.
If something's still not working
The usual causes, and the quick fix for each.
- No sound at all
- Check your phone's volume and mute switch (an iPhone's physical side switch catches people out a lot), and confirm the right output is selected — a Bluetooth speaker that's silently disconnected will fall back to your phone's own speaker.
- Sound plays but it's too quiet
- Set your phone to maximum volume before the meet. Test Start Beep already plays at full volume, so quietness is almost always a device or headphone-safety limit — the in-app tips on the Test Start Beep page cover this.
- It cuts out partway through the meet
- Usually the Bluetooth speaker's battery. Plug it in to charge for the second half if you can, or switch to a wired connection.
- A red warning instead of the green banner
- Uncommon, and on an iPhone it almost always means you were on a phone call when you opened the page — the call holds priority over the app's audio. Hang up, close Test Start Beep and open it again. The beep will still play either way; it just might get interrupted by another app's sound.
- Phone won't pair with the speaker
- Forget the speaker in your phone's Bluetooth settings and pair again from scratch. A stale pairing is a common cause of a speaker that shows as Connected but produces no sound.
That's it
Cable or Bluetooth, tested once before the meet, and the beep takes care of itself for every heat after that.
This is one piece of the race starter's job — if you haven't run one before, have a read of Starting races for the rest of it.