Garmin recently released a $250 lightweight and ultra-thin GPS smartwatch with built-in sports and activity tracking apps for running, cycling, golfing, and swimming. Vívoactive is comfortable for all day wear and smart notifications keep users connected. It features up to three weeks battery life in watch/activity tracking mode or up to 10 hours using GPS.
With a gentle vibration it alerts users of incoming smart notifications from a compatible Bluetooth-enabled device, keeping them connected with pressing work matters, family and friends. Its sunlight-readable, high-resolution color touchscreen displays all the same notifications as a smartphone including caller ID and missed call information for incoming calls, sender information and message for text messages, email messages with sender and subject, calendar reminders, and notifications from social media and other mobile apps. Vívoactive also lets users play, pause or skip a song on their smartphone’s music player, and can send an audible alert to help users locate their smartphone.
The running app displays pace, time and distance using GPS and vívoactive’s built-in accelerometer tracks speed and distance when GPS is unavailable, such as when running indoors. Additional app features include Auto Lap, Auto Pause, and vibration alerts for heart rate, pace and run/walk intervals. The cycling app measures time, distance, speed and calories for training rides or a daily commute.
Golfers can download course maps from more than 38,000 courses worldwide, which stay up-to-date automatically, to vívoactive’s golf app. Using GPS vívoactive can measure layup and dogleg distances, as well as distances to the front, middle and back of the green, to improve usability over the entire hole. During a round, golfers can also keep individual stroke play scorecards and measure shot distance on favorite and new courses.
Water-resistant to 50 meters, vívoactive uses sensor-based technology for its swimming app to compute the number of lengths, total and interval distances, paces by length, by interval, and for the full session, as well as calories burned. The app also counts the number of strokes and uses this to determine the SWOLF score, a measure of swimming efficiency.
Between workouts the activity tracking app monitors progress by tracking steps, calories and distance, setting a personalized daily step goal and sending a gentle reminder when users have been inactive too long by displaying a red move bar. Research shows prolonged periods of inactivity, such as sitting at a desk, decreases the body’s production of fat-burning enzymes. Walking for a few minutes will reset the move bar and can help reduce health risks associated with a sedentary lifestyle.
Throughout the day vívoactive automatically syncs with paired mobile devices through the Garmin Connect Mobile app, so users can see a complete picture of daily activities. In Garmin Connect, a free online fitness/golf community, users can track workouts, sleep patterns and trends, join online challenges and earn virtual badges for extra motivation. For detailed calorie tracking, users can link their Garmin Connect account with MyFitnessPal to compare calories burned to consumed and see their net count for the remainder of the day based on goals set in MyFitnessPal. Capture even more data by pairing vívoactive with a heart rate monitor or bike speed sensor, or use it as a remote for a Garmin VIRB Elite action camera.
Users can personalize vívoactive to represent their interests and style with colorful interchangeable watchbands and free downloads from the Connect IQ store. Coordinate with casual or active wear by swapping vívoactive’s bands with colorful accessory bands, or dress it up with leather bands. Available in slate, red, blue, berry, purple, and black or white leather.
Price and Availability
Garmin Vivoactive is available now in black or white for $249.99 or $299.99 with heart rate monitor bundle.
Check out the review by Digital Trends here.
