Category: Fitness Watches

Garmin Vivoactive 3 Review

 

The Vivoactive 3 is an upgrade to the Vivoactive HR which was released back in 2016. Not much has changed from the 2016 version to the new version.  The Vivoactive 3 (Va3) has optical wrist based heart rate monitoring; on board GPS for tracking your runs, walks, cycling, etc.; full water proofing (5ATM) for swim tracking; ability to track multiple sports and fitness activities with customizable data screens; “apps” available for download in the Connect IQ store.  You would expect it to have these features given they were on the previous model.  What sets the Va3 apart from the Vivoactive HR (vHR) is the addition of Garmin Pay, all day Stress Tracking with guided breathing, VO2 max and fitness age estimations, and finally the ability to track your gym workout sets and reps which I think works in conjunction with MoveIQ.  Yeah, I think that’s it.  Since everything else on the Va3 is virtually the same as with the vHR, and I’ve already written a review on the vHR, I’ll focus only on the new functionality.

Garmin Pay

At the time of my testing, Garmin Pay wasn’t available to activate or use. Not much to say here.  I will say it’s a nice welcomed feature and it seems many wearable companies are adding or introducing this feature to devices.  Having this feature reduces the need to pull out a wallet when making purchases, or say you go for a run, now you don’t have to bring your wallet to buy that post workout drink you like to grad at the smoothie shop.  At the same time, it’s a bit of a hassle.  Why?  Because like I said earlier, many companies are moving to pay-by-device.  I’ve already got Apple Pay, Android Pay, Samsung Pay and more services on the way.  Not to mention Pay Pal, Venmo, etc.  If those services start making apps for wearable devices then the list goes on and on.  The easy fix is to settle on one or two services and stick it out.  That said, I’m not sure Garmin Pay could be the winner of that battle.  Garmin is a fitness focused company, not a banking solution.  For all I know they could be outsourcing this feature to someone else but for me, it feels odd letting a fitness technology company handle my payment activity.

Stress Tracking

The stress tracking feature essentially looks at your heart rate and heart rate variability (HRV) to determine your levels of stress. I’m a huge fan of HRV.  The Va3 displays a score indicating your level of stress.   From there, you decide what you’d like to do to manage or lower your stress level such as completing a guided breathing session.  It’s pretty straight forward.  In my experience it seemed to work rather nicely.  I do wish that the HRV data could be displayed so I could see what my actual readings were.  Garmin is somewhat late to this market with this as Apple and Fitbit have had these features for a little while now.

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VO2 Max

If you’re not familiar, this statistic is used to quantify a person’s athletic fitness level. It increases as a person’s fitness level increases.  The inverse is true for this as well.  This feature has been integrated into other higher tier Garmin devices but I believe this is new for the Va3 line.  I didn’t have any success with this feature on the Va3.  What I mean to say is, the device didn’t seem to register my VO2 max.  It consistently rated me as having a poor VO2 max level indicating my fitness level was very low (which simply isn’t true lol).  I’m not sure why it didn’t measure my VO2 max.  My only guess is that maybe it gets the initial reading when you use the device on a run, which I didn’t do.  I haven’t been doing much of any running since injuring my back (which is a whole different story).  Oh well.

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Strength Training/Rep Counting

This is probably the feature that I was most excited to see added to the Va3. To use this feature, you start a strength workout session on the device, and then before you start an exercise you press the button to let the device know you’ve begun a set.  It counts the reps until you push the button again to let the device know you’ve completed the set.  The device gives you the option to add any reps it may have miss plus add in the amount of weight.  The Va3 attempts to guess what exercise you just did but you don’t see that on the device but rather on the app and website once you’ve synced the device up.  In my experience, the device usually under counted my reps and guessed the wrong exercise I was doing.  But all in all, it was fairly close.  There aren’t many devices out that actually count the reps of your exercises and choose the exercise correctly, let alone track it in the first place.  None that I’ve tried and I’ve tried a few (Biostrap, PUSH, Atlas).  Once you’ve synced the device you can go on Garmin Connect and edit the workout information to correctly reflect the weights, reps etc.  That said, even with its misreading’s I’m happy to see it added to the device.  It makes the Va3 a better-rounded useful device.  I imagine that this feature will get better as updates roll out.  Also, one thing I liked was the app displays your total workout time and breaks that down into work time (time under tension) and rest time (time not working out) based on when you’re hitting the button to start and stop sets.  This gives you a good idea of how your time is actually spent in the gym especially if you’re one of those people who spends more time talking rather than working out in the gym.

Final Thoughts

Overall, the Va3 is a great device. It’s somewhat a jack of all trades while being a master of none.  The new features are welcomed additions from the vHR.  The heart rate monitor is a newer designed monitor which adds the HRV monitoring in the stress level tracking but the device still seems to struggle with high intensity workouts just like it did in the past.  This is not new as virtually all wrist based devices struggle with reading heart rate during high intensity workouts.  For those types of workouts I still suggest using/connecting to a chest strap.  One more thing I’d like to mention.  Garmin is a fitness focused company.  That being said, this is a fitness watch first with a few smartwatch-esque capabilities.  And it doesn’t do those smartwatch functions as well as an Apple Watch or Samsung Gear watch would.  For example, when you receive a text message notification, you can’t respond to the message.  All you can do is view and read the message and dismiss it.  If you want to interact with that message you have to pull out your phone.

Should you buy the device? Absolutely if you’re a fitness enthusiast who takes part in many different fitness related activities and you’re looking for a midrange FITNESS watch that can track all of those activities well and nothing exceptionally great.  You’ll be pretty happy with this device.  I would’ve like to see the ability to add music to the device but oh well.  If you’ve got the vHR and thinking of upgrading its kinda a tough sell.  You’d need to weigh if the new features warrant and upgrade for you.  The Garmin Vivoactive is currently priced at around $299.

 

Thanks for reading!

by Categories: Activity Trackers, Exercise, Fitness Trackers, Fitness Watches 4 Comments

Garmin Vivoactive HR Review

Ok so I’ve had the Garmin vivoactive HR (vHR) for over 2 weeks now.  I’ve worn it consistently for most of that time and I’m ready to share my brief thoughts.

Daily Use:

Wearing the device on a day-to-day basis was very easy.  The device is light weight and not cumbersome at all.  The basic activity tracking aspects of the device work very well.  Steps (distance & floors) and sleep are tracked as you’d expect.  But I’d imagine you wouldn’t buy this device for the activity tracking portions so I won’t spend much time on that.  The 24/7 heart rate tracking is a nice addition to the activity tracking.  But what do you do with that information?  Not much I suppose.  The majority of the time, if your heart rate is elevated, you probably already know it.  Where the heart rate does provide some valuable information is while you’re sleeping.  The resting heart rate can help to determine things like if you’ve recovered properly, and the vHR does that nicely.  It’s much easier to see this information on the device than the Garmin connect app.  The device can receive notifications from your phone but with limited interaction.  For example, you can see a text messaged received but you can’t respond to it.  You can however, answer the phone from your watch.  Cool thing to be able to do, but you can’t talk through your watch so you still have to pick up the phone.

The display screen can be very tricky.  I found at times when I tried to go to a different screen, the device wouldn’t recognize my finger swipe.  And if my hands were wet or sweaty it made the situation worse.  And in the sunlight, the screen can wash out.  But it’s a color touchscreen display.

One thing I don’t like so much about the vHR is the design.  It’s not the most attractive watch to wear daily.  And it’s shaped like a rectangle.  And you can’t change the band on the watch.  This all seems strange to me as there has been a big push for customizing your fitness watch with different bands ie apple watch and fitbit blaze.

Something that sets this device apart from many others in this category is the ConnectIQ app store.  The app store has a good amount of widgets, watch faces and data fields that can be downloaded to the device for use.  Widgets range from weather apps to phases of the moon. The sky is the limit here really.  Great idea by Garmin.

The Garmin Connect app is pretty horrible.  The setup of the app is confusing and can be difficult to find and understand the information within it.  The connect website is much easier to use and understand, but can be overwhelming with all the tiles of information available.

Fitness Use:

Garmin is well-known for it’s gps capabilities.  The vHR performs as you’d expect it would for any Garmin running watch.  I won’t go into details about this since that is virtually what the company is known for.

The device comes pre-installed with several “apps” which represent fitness activities.  So for example running, cycling, swimming, etc are all “apps”.  Within these apps, you can do a great deal of customizing the screen views and data displayed while training.  You can also create your own apps for activities that you want to track but aren’t pre-installed on the device.  Another great idea by Garmin.

I do a good amount of weight training, 3-5 times a week.  Along with that, I do some interval and endurance training (stationary bike, sprints, rowing) as well as more functional training (battle ropes, kettle bell swings, etc).  In my use of the vHR, I noticed a few things.  First, the heart rate data seemed to be off.  To check this, I wore the vHR and my Polar M400 with the chest strap.  Sure enough, the vHR heart rate readings were off, sometimes by as much as 20 bpm.  To make matters worse, the calories burned were off, sometimes by 100 calories or more.  To me, this is a huge problem.  The device’s purpose is to track my selected activity and let me know how I’m performing so I can make real-time adjustments.  I’ve noticed this problem with almost all of the Garmin devices I’ve owned (vivosmart HR, Fenix 3, Fenix 3 HR).  If you check out Garmin forums and customer reviews on Amazon and Best Buy, you’ll discover that many people have this problem.  But it will vary based on how you use the Garmin devices.

Conclusion:

So there you have it.  Just a few of my thoughts about the vHR.  I think this device is great for someone who is into many aspects of fitness.  Running, cycling, weight training, crossfit, swimming.  This device will allow you to do all of those things and then some.  The catch?  The information provided by the device isn’t as accurate as you’d like.  I don’t doubt that Garmin will provide updates to fix these concerns, but at $250, you kinda want a device to work as intended right out of the box.  Garmin is becoming a wearable powerhouse with their extensive line of devices.  Polar and other brands better get with the program or get left behind.

Pros:

  • Good battery life
  • Multifunctional fitness watch with activity tracking
  • ConnectIQ app store
  • MoveIQ (automatic exercise activity recognition)
  • Optical 24/7 HR monitoring on wrist
  • Very customizable (watch faces, “apps”, widgets)

Cons:

  • The Garmin Connect app is confusing
  • Heart rate tracking during exercise seems inaccurate
  • The shape of the watch
  • Watch bands not interchangeable
  • The screen can be dim, wash out in light and unresponsive to touch

Should you buy it?  It’s a mixed bag.  If you’re a multi-fitness enthusiast, probably so.  There aren’t many devices like this that allow you to track your overall fitness activities with this level of customization like the vivoactive HR.  Most of the devices that I can think of that offer this are made by Garmin and they’re tailored towards runners. If you’d like to read a more in-depth review with more of a triathletes perspective, check out DC Rainmaker’s review here.

Thanks for reading! #Garmin #vivoactiveHR #fitnesstechgeek #polar #fitness #fitnesstech

 

 

by Categories: Activity Trackers, Fitness Technology, Fitness Watches, Heart Rate Monitors 2 Comments