Garmin Vivoactive: The smartwatch that every athlete should have -

Garmin is a company that has always been known for its excellent GPS products, and since 2014, for its line of Vivofit fitness bracelets. With the launch of the Garmin Vivoactive smartwatch, the company wants to unite the best of two worlds: smartwatches and fitness bracelets for athletes. With the VivoActive, Garmin has mixed Vivofit’s monitoring features with GPS technology and presented it as a smartwatch.

Table of Contents

Garmin Vivoactive - Features

1.4 ″ touch screen with 205 x 148 pixel resolution
Rechargeable battery with an autonomy of up to 3 weeks (10 hours with active GPS)
GPS y GLONASS
Call and message notifications
Integrated functions for running, cycling, golf, swimming
Heart rate monitor
Compatible con Garmin Connect
Weight: 38 grams
Dimensions: 0,8 x 4,1 x 25,7 cm (Grosor: 8mm)
Water resistance rating: 5 ATM
We can buy a pack with chest band included

Garmin Vivoactive: The smartwatch that every athlete should have - Opinion

Design and functionalities

At just 8mm thick, the Garmin Vivoactive is a pretty slim watch, especially when compared to other GPS watches. It has a 1.4 ″ screen with a resolution of 205 x 148 pixels, fully color touch and two buttons (one on each side of the clock). The left button is used to turn on the clock and the backlight, and the right button is responsible for starting and stopping activities or accessing settings. The strap is made of rubberized plastic and you can choose between black or white.

Like fitness wristbands, the Garmin Vivoactive is able to record your steps, calories burned, distance traveled, and tracks sleep, but it also includes GPS tracking and comes with different functionalities for different sports: running, cycling, swimming, hiking. or golf.

When connected to additional sensors, the Vivoactive can record heart rate (with the chest strap), running cadence, ambient temperature, as well as cycling speed and pedaling cadence.

We can also connect this smartwatch with our smartphone and then it will show us notifications of incoming calls, SMS, emails or the calendar.

Plus, we can connect to the IQ Connect Store, Garmin’s app store, for custom dials, additional sports tracking modes, and new ways to view data. We can download new applications or widgets directly on the clock without having to connect it to a computer.

Via Bluetooth we will connect to our smartphone with the Garmin Connect app (Android and iPhone) and we will be able to connect to Garmin Connect, Garmin’s online service, which will give us access to a lot of functionalities and statistics of our exercises .

Performance

Vívoactive does a good job of tracking our steps and motivating us to move when we spend a lot of time sitting. The pity is that we have to activate the sleep mode so that it begins to track our rest, not like other bracelets that do it automatically (Fitbit Charge), and it does not offer us much information about our rest period.

What does work wonderfully is the tracking of specific activities or the GPS, and it is really easy to connect the watch to other devices such as the chest strap. The amount of sports that we can “follow” with our smartwatch is really impressive: running, cycling, golf or swimming, and that we can get into the water without problems is wonderful. its management of notifications is good, but we cannot answer from the clock.

The battery lasts about 3 weeks in watch mode and about 10 hours in GPS, so we will have no problems keeping track of our longest training sessions, especially if we are riding a bike.

conclusion

Except for a few insignificant little details like sleep monitoring, Garmin has done an excellent job on this smartwatch / fitness tracker. It is really easy to use and its functionalities will satisfy everyone. The number of extra accessories is also very good, and they make this watch significantly increase its functionalities.

There are other more complete smartwatches in terms of notifications and other features of these devices, but none of them surpasses the Vivoactive in sports and activity monitoring. The combination of notifications, tracking of our activity and GPS make this watch the perfect device for many athletes.

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