I wanted a high-quality inflatable swimming buoy (dry bag)
with two pressure chambers and one dry compartment for belongings,
with handles to grip,
with valves featuring check valves to prevent air leakage during inflation,
and preferably a larger size (more storage space; heavier user).
At first, I bought the Agama SWIM PRO + FLASH light,
but I was shocked by the tiny handles—my hand wouldn’t even fit in them.
So I bought the Swim Secure Dry Bag XL.
And so here is a comparison of the two:
Agama is better than Swim Secure in the following ways:
+ Slightly thicker material
+ Great valves
Swim Secure is better than Agama in the following ways:
+ Handles that an adult European can actually grip
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Individual aspects:
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Valves
Agama has great valves.
You screw on two valves one after the other, one above the other.
Unscrew the top cap, leaving the bottom one on: You inflate through the check valve; no air escapes, and it’s very easy to inflate—the check valve doesn’t restrict you in any way.
Depending on how much gear you’ve packed inside, you blow into each chamber one to three times, and that’s it.
It inflates quickly and easily.
My technical intuition told me to inflate one chamber at a time, alternating between them, much like when you tighten a wheel on a car.
To deflate it, you unscrew the bottom layer as well, and the air from the pressure chamber can easily escape. This makes the buoy easy to pack up. And if any moisture happens to get into the pressure chamber, it can “breathe” and dry out through the permanently open inlet.
In contrast, the Swim Secure valves are noticeably worse.
They aren’t made of hard plastic; they’re soft, don’t screw on, and somewhat resemble the valves on inflatable balls and other toys.
It’s not an entirely accurate comparison, but Agama valves are more like those on a boat (great), while Swim Secure valves are more like those on an inflatable toy (they work for now).
With the Swim Secure valve, you simply pull off the soft cap and start blowing.
You blow against the noticeable resistance of the check valve, or sometimes you have to press the check valve down with your tongue at the start. Inflating it is significantly more difficult than with the Agama. But it’s possible; it works—it’s not a tragedy. Just a bit of discomfort.
Deflating the Swim Secure is many times more difficult than deflating the Agama. You have to keep the check valve pressed down the whole time, and because of that, you can’t pack the float up properly. Especially when you’re already in dry clothes and don’t want to press the wet float—which is lying on the ground—against your body. When you’re packing the buoy right there in the air with your hands, you’ll really notice the difference between the Agama and the Swim Secure. You simply can’t deflate the Swim Secure perfectly or pack it up properly.
Swim Secure valves are narrow, soft, and tall; but to prevent damage, they’re located right at the end of the handles. That’s a good solution.
And they’re positioned at the right, logical end—so that when you’re pulling the buoy behind you in the water on a strap, the valve is on the opposite end of the handle from the strap, meaning the strap doesn’t hit the valve, which is good.
In contrast, Agama has plastic valves that are hard, low-profile, and wide—and by their very nature, generally more resistant to damage.
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Handles
Agama’s handles are a disaster.
It’s an absolute joke.
Or rather, a complete failure to understand European body types in the Chinese design and utter ignorance on the part of European importers.
Not even an adult European woman can fit her hand into that handle. Let alone a man.
If you try to force four fingers in there, you’ll scrape them.
Basically, those little handles are like a scaled-down model; their dimensions don’t account for an adult European of any gender at all.
So, in the end, they’re useless. Sure, you can grab the buoy in your arms, press it against your body, and hold on to it that way in the water—it works... But then the handles are useless, and at best they just push against you and get in the way when you’re hugging the buoy and pulling it close. Plus, they’re made of hard plastic, which makes it even worse.
You might as well just buy a buoy without handles and with a mesh outer wet pocket.
At first glance, the Swim Secure handles seem to be made of a somewhat thin and soft material.
You look at them, feel them, and wonder how long they’ll last.
But! You can fit a hand (four fingers) inside them! An adult European man’s hand!
Maybe partly because the material is soft and flexible, so it adapts its shape a bit as needed.
But mainly, they’re bigger.
Agama has stronger material and likely better durability, resilience, and strength;
but SwimSecure has a larger opening for four fingers.
After a very arduous—even desperate—search across the vast Czech and Polish internet, it seems to me
that as of June 2026, the SwimSecure inflatable 2+1-chamber swimming buoy is the only one on the market with handles suitable for an adult European man.
I’m a little worried about how long those handles will last, but so far they’re holding up well.
Or rather, they’re probably the best on the market.
It’s easy to grab the SwimSecure buoy by the handle, even quickly from below in the water when you can’t even see the handle.
I thought it might be a good idea to tie a strap under the handles to reduce the risk of the handle tearing out of the buoy. But the force isn’t that great—you’re buoyed up nicely by the water, and the buoy’s handle is only subjected to a few Newtons of force.
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Material Strength, Durability
Overall, in terms of sturdiness, material strength, the strength (cross-section) of the handle material, and valve construction, the Agama buoy is superior.
However, the Agama is ruined by those tiny handles that are unsuitable for an adult European to grip, which takes it out of the running (if you want a buoy with handles).
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Closing the Dry Bag
Closing the dry compartment:
Both close like a standard dry bag, and both indicate the range of possible rolling,
but there is one difference:
Agama also has plastic D-rings on each side of the plastic trident.
One on each side.
So you can secure the dry bag even further with a carabiner.
In contrast, the Swim Secure has only one (!) plastic D-ring.
Opposite it is a fabric strap that you can thread through the D-ring and then tie a knot.
It’s not as tight and doesn’t look as sturdy, but it does the job, and it can help prevent the device from opening too wide. But if the goal is to prevent the trident from opening, then the two D-rings with a carabiner attached would be better.
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Size
This Swim Secure in the XL version is slightly larger than this Agama. It can hold a little more gear.
In terms of keeping a user weighing just over 100 kg afloat, both buoys work fine—even the smaller one.
In wind and waves, there’s no problem even with the larger buoy (it doesn’t act too much like a sail and pull the user away).
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Waist Circumference
The Agama’s waist circumference is pretty tight—it almost seemed like it might be too short, but it worked out just barely.
And the Swim Secure has an even smaller waist circumference!
But! It turns out that your waist circumference around the belly button doesn’t really matter!
Because the buoy’s strap slides just below the belly, where it stays securely in place just above the hips, and there aren’t such strict requirements for waist size in that area.
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Length of the Towing Strap
On both models, the strap for towing the buoy behind you is too short—the buoy gets in the way—
but it’s very easy to adjust or extend it with a different strap, and that solves the problem.
Interestingly, when you want to rest for a moment at depth and grab the buoy,
the buoy on a longer strap is, paradoxically, easier, more pleasant, more comfortable, and faster to grab.
Because the buoy doesn’t get in your way in the space where you need to switch arms, you can calmly rotate your upper limbs where you need to,
feel for the strap, and in a fraction of a second, you can quickly pull the buoy toward you by that strap.
(If you’re swimming anything other than backstroke, you first need to turn so you’re facing the buoy you’re pulling behind you, and that’s exactly where a buoy on a short strap can get in the way if you have long arms.)
And then, once you’ve pulled the buoy toward you by the strap, you’ll either catch it in your arms—which will automatically lift your legs—and then you’ll float on the surface with your head, arms, and legs above the water, like an otter,
or, in the case of Swim Secure, you’ll grab the lower handle.
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Overall:
I’m sorry to see those great Agama valves go—I’ll miss them,
but if I want a buoy with handles, those handles have to be designed for European body dimensions,
so Swim Secure is the only option, and there’s no need to think twice. Even with those less comfortable valves.
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Color:
Agama comes in bright yellow, orange, and pink. At the time of ordering, they only had yellow.
Swim Secure is only available in orange.
Color comparison:
Yellow is perfectly visible in low light.
Orange is clearly visible in low light.
Orange is very visible in broad daylight;
yellow’s visibility varies in broad daylight.
So:
Daytime:
- orange is good
- yellow is worse
Twilight:
- orange is good
- yellow is perfect
I also make a point of choosing a buoy color that’s different from my cap color so that my head is visible in front of the buoy.
Conversely, if I get some flip-flops so I can take off my shoes and swim barefoot once I reach deep water, I’ll prefer a color for the flip-flops that’s close to the buoy’s color, so the flip-flops on the buoy blend in with it and don’t give the impression that my head is inside a cap.
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Volume!
Be careful: when you fill the buoy with items and inflate it,
the total volume
(which is roughly constant—you simply fill it partly with items and partly with air, and the resulting volume of the inflated buoy is always roughly the same; because the items inside take up space that would otherwise be filled with air in the pressure chambers)
is often significantly smaller than what the manufacturer and seller claim!
Across the entire market!!!
It’s unbelievable what’s going on here.
It’s glaringly obvious; then you measure it yourself, and you see that the numbers just don’t add up.
Sometimes you can already tell from the online store that if you take the dimensions of the inflated buoy as listed—and multiply them by the number of decimeters—you simply won’t get the liters even for an ideal rectangular prism!!!
It’s unbelievable how brazen manufacturers and retailers generally are. The listed specifications can be twisted any which way.
It’s a widespread problem in the market.
(I haven’t checked whether it might be the volume of the bag before rolling it up, but that’s a completely irrelevant value that no manufacturer or retailer with any sense of honor or decency would use in this context. Car manufacturers don’t list the trunk volume with the tailgate open, do they…?)
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Position light:
Agama (supplied with a buoy and sold separately)
- Velcro
- drawback: disposable; once the battery runs out, it’s thrown away
- plus: light-diffusing material that spreads the light nicely over a wide angle, which is desirable for a position light on the water’s surface
Swimaholic Waterproof Safety Light (I bought a Swim Securu to go with it)
- plastic carabiner
- plus: user-replaceable CR2032 batteries
- Drawback: It shines/flashes in a very focused beam, so it’s almost blinding in one specific direction—which is bad—and is significantly harder to see from other directions—which is also bad; since it’s supposed to be a position light for open water, it’s fundamentally very poorly designed for this purpose; the light is supposed to be diffused, which it isn’t; that concentrated beam is absolutely wrong
(Well, but it clips onto the buoy’s handle and you can change the batteries there, so you just have to put up with the fact that the light isn’t diffused—because what else can you do...)
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Pros and Cons:
Swim Secure:
+
Handles large enough for an adult European man
-
Inferior valves, less comfortable, less durable
Agama:
+
Great valves
Slightly thicker material
-
Handles are completely unacceptable—a joke, a sham—an unusable miniature model; a lack of understanding of the dimensions of adult European men and women
