Garmin Vivosport - Review 2022

The Garmin Vivosport is a sports band-style fitness tracker that checks all the right boxes. It records steps, distance, sleep, calories burned, middle rate, activities, stress level, and more. Information technology also functions as a smartwatch, delivering notifications from your phone to your wrist. At $169.99, information technology's a piffling expensive compared with other bands in this category, including our Editors' Choice, the Fitbit Charge 2. Merely it really delivers on functionality, and is an excellent tracker if you're into its design.

First Impressions

Out of the box, the Garmin Vivosport comes off as a simple and sporty wristband with a slim blueprint. In appearance and functionality, it'due south most similar to the Fitbit Alta Hour and Huawei Ring 2 Pro. For my taste, the Alta Hr looks a little less sporty, and then I adopt its style.

You can choose from three colour options and two sizes, but they don't mix and match perfectly: Slate (available in small-scale/medium and large), Fuschia Focus (just in small/medium), and Limelight (only in large). The smaller size fits wrists with a circumference of 4.eight to 7.four inches, and large works on v.eight to 8.4 inches. It's low-cal, too, weighing 0.85-ounce (small/medium) or 0.95-ounce (large).

Compared with other Garmin devices, the Vivosport seems like a baby version of the Vivoactive HR, a very capable sentry-style tracker with groovy fitness tracking options that's been effectually for a few years and shows its age in its thickness and weight. The Vivosport seems like a pared down version, with fewer features, but all the essentials, such as all-24-hour interval heart charge per unit monitoring, GPS, and fifty-fifty a similar but smaller transflective retentivity-in-pixel display.

The display stays on 24/vii but remains dim until you lift your arm to expect at information technology. During setup, you tin can customize the default watch screen to show the time, date, atmospheric condition, remaining battery, and and then forth. You can also choose whether you want information technology to be in portrait or landscape orientation.

With no concrete buttons, the Vivosport relies on a impact input, namely swipes, taps, and long presses. It's responsive and works well, though I prefer to have at least one concrete push so that I tin can operate the watch even while wearing gloves. People who are differently abled in fine motor skills may likewise find that this device has as well small of a screen (0.38 by 0.76 inches) for them to operate information technology easily.

In terms of ruggedness, Garmin has a good reputation for building watches that last, and the Vivosport seems similar it will hold up well with long-term use. The lens is a chemically strengthened glass, while the case is polymer and the strap is silicone. Though non especially fashionable, these materials are durable.

Bombardment

The battery of the Vivosport holds up well. Wait to become about a week'due south worth of utilize out of information technology in smartwatch mode and up to viii hours when using the GPS. That's enough for a rigorous run training and even a marathon.

Using the Vivosport in smartwatch manner means getting push notifications from a connected Android or iOS device. The notifications aren't limited by app or character count, which is overnice. If you get a text message, for example, yous tin encounter both the sender and the entire contents of the bulletin. Yous won't run across photos attachments, emojis, or a few other not-text elements, however.

The device ships with a proprietary USB charger, although it'due south the same charger that goes with the Vivoactive 3. Ane of my common gripes about fitness trackers is that all ends that connect to the devices are unique, making it difficult to share chargers with other people in the same household. At least this charger connects with more than one Garmin device. I wish Garmin would make them uniform across the board.

Fitness Features

The Vivosport collects all the typical fitness data you would wait, including steps, distance, stairs, sleep, and calories burned. It also monitors active minutes, helping y'all differentiate between puttering around and working out. Remote music controls to your telephone and a weather summary as well show up on the display as you swipe through information technology.

Several newer devices from Garmin, including the Vivosport, report stress level based on heart charge per unit variability. You run into them every bit a number aslope a chart and then that the data makes sense even if yous don't know what heart rate variability is. (In curt, it's a measurement of how much variability there is in the length of time between individual heart beats, wherein more variability indicates better health or a lower stress level.) While I didn't accept a heart rate variability sensor on mitt to accept a comparative reading, I did get a sense that the data was accurate. On an average day, my stress level was reported as depression, and on a solar day when I had three very important appointments and felt broken-hearted virtually all of them, the Vivosport showed my stress level as high.

Garmin has done a not bad job of incorporating data that fitness enthusiasts like to come across, such as VO2 max and heart rate zones, and I'm impressed that the visitor includes those capabilities in nearly all its fitness products, including the Vivosport. I assumed the Vivosport might be aimed at a marketplace segment that doesn't put much stock into these avant-garde metrics, but there they are if you desire them.

In terms of supported activities, the Vivosport comes pre-programmed to allow you record walks, runs, wheel rides, force training sessions, aerobics, and a catch-all "other." For most of these options, yous specify whether you're indoors or outdoors, which dictates whether the Vivosport will burn up the GPS. For strength training, the device has an automatic rep counting feature. You can also wear the Vivosport while pond because it'south water resistant, but it doesn't actually track swims.

From the mobile app, y'all can enable automated activity tracking, if, for example, you want the ring to outset recording a walk or run session if it recognizes that you've been moving for a predetermined number of minutes (e.g., "If I run for one minute, then start recording a run"). It's a useful characteristic for people who forget to record runs and walks. Similarly, you can enable MoveIQ, which automatically records fifty-fifty more activities, such as elliptical training and bicycling, whenever the Vivosport identifies that you're doing them.

Vibration alarms for waking or other reminders are included, too, as is an idle alert or motion reminder.

While the Vivosport embraces much of what the larger Garmin brand has to offer, it does not connect to the Garmin Connect app store, so you lot can't install non-standard widgets. The app shop has some groovy items in information technology, but you lot aren't missing out in a major way by not having admission to it.

Accuracy

In testing the Vivosport over a few days, it reported accurate results compared with those reported by a treadmill; the Wahoo Tickr X, which is both a breast strap heart rate monitor and an activity tracker that'due south specifically for walking, running, and cycling; and the Misfit Ray.

For step count, the Vivosport reported very similar numbers to the Misfit Ray. Across three periods, the average difference between them was 349 steps. That'southward shut. In general, I run across it as a proficient sign when fitness trackers are no more than about 500 steps, or about a quarter mile, different on average. In my observation having worn it for nearly two years, the Ray has held up every bit authentic for stride counts.

During a i-mile treadmill walk, the Wahoo Tickr X reported 0.95-mile (then less than one-tenth difference), while the Garmin Vivosport reported 0.88-mile. That reading, while rounding to one-tenth of a mile different, is far enough off to cause some concern—except that you have the option to right such data in the Garmin Connect app, and doing and then helps calibrate the device. I certainly took reward of that capability and saw more accurate results thereafter. Not all fitness trackers permit you right statistics in this way, just it'southward hugely beneficial when you can.

After calibrating, a half-mile treadmill jog showed up as 0.52-mile on the Vivosport and 0.48 on the Wahoo Tickr X. Both of those readings are shut enough for me to be satisfied.

Heart rate readings were in line beyond three devices likewise. When I walked at jogged at a steady footstep, all three reported nearly the same reading, ordinarily with just a 2d or two lag time. Occasionally, the readings were off past two beats per minute or so, but they generally defenseless upwardly with 1 another. Eye rate at rest looked as authentic.

Conclusions

If you like the style of the Garmin Vivosport, there's no reason not to become one. It's reliable, durable, and authentic. If you lot're not sold on the Vivosport's design and would rather get a more fashionable tracker, cheque out the Vivoactive 3, a electric current favorite device from Garmin, and an Editors' Option. Though it costs more, it also has more to offer. The Fitbit Alta HR and Charge 2 are as well strong alternatives.

Source: https://sea.pcmag.com/review/19874/garmin-vivosport

Posted by: phillipspritioneatch.blogspot.com

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