[Review] Garmin Vivoactive HR, the watch with heart

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The new smart health connected bracelet from Garmin is an improved model of the previous version of Vivoactive. Its biggest novelty is its heart rate tracking functionality, while taking up the elements that made the success of its big brother: integrated GPS, sleep tracking, weather and other notifications from your smartphone. Garmin has also opted for an obvious design and screen change, it remains to be seen what the Garmin Vivoactive HR offers when you put it on your wrist.

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Mark : GarminCategory : smart health connected braceletLog in : BluetoothCompatibility : Android and iOSPrice : From € 299.99Availability : AvailableTested with : Asus Zenfone 2 Laser

Buy the Garmin Vivoactive HR:

Garmin Vivoactive HR Unboxing

The Garmin Vivoactive HR is presented in a black cardboard box. Simple, it highlights with a logo the long-awaited novelty: the heart monitoring. The back of the box presents the different activities followed by the watch with drawings, as well as the main features of the mobile application. The whole looks good.

Simple to open, the open box reveals the bracelet in question, highlighted from the opening, around logos and drawings of sports activities and heart rate monitoring. On the second level, we find the accessories: two user and information manuals as well as a USB charger.

The Garmin Vivoactive HR has an efficient and space-saving packaging, facilitating transport.

Garmin Vivoactive HR design and ergonomics

Wider, but also heavier than its predecessors, the Garmin Vivoactive HR has a black plastic strap smart health connected to a touch screen. The device is flat is rigid, you can feel its presence on the wrist, and the touch screen surface is the same as on the first Vivoactive of the name, although it looks nothing like it.

The bracelet in question is removable, so you can equip your watch with a strap of your choice for 30 € more, however the process is not simple, due to the small screws that fix it (and the absence of a screwdriver in the package). The available colors are black, white, yellow, and red.

If there are nine levels of brightness in the settings, the screen remains dark enough, even in maximum brightness, amazing for an LED screen. As a result, you have to watch your watch carefully rather than just take a look at it, not necessarily very practical in full activity. Also a small detail, the Garmin Vivoactive HR screen seems sensitive to fingerprints, further impairing its visibility.

The attachment system is comfortable, the numerous notches on the bracelet allow adjust it as well as possible on your wrist. For thin wrists, the device appears quite wide and massive.

On the navigation side, ease is essential: just do scroll up and down to display successively the time, the steps climbed, the steps, the calories burned, the distance traveled, the weather (provided you install the widget via Connect IQ from Garmin, on the mobile application), mobile notifications , the famous heart rate, and this at rest and in effort.

Two navigation buttons are present below the screen, and the heart rate sensor is visible on the back of the watch.

The left button will illuminate the screen, and will generally serve as a return or cancel key when you navigate in the menu. Keep it pressed to access “do not disturb”, “lock device” and “turn off” modes.

The right button will allow you to access the range of activities offered: golf, cycling, swimming, running, walking, etc., with the possibility of adding them via the mobile app. Keep the Garmin Vivoactive HR button pressed to access the main menu: change the interface, access the history or adjust the parameters (manage applications, monitoring activities, user profile, system, etc.).

The battery life is shorter than that offered by the original Vivoactive, but it is still above average. count 8 days of use without the functions of heart monitoring and GPS. With these activated, the bracelet will work for approximately 13 hours.

Garmin Vivoactive HR is waterproof (5 ATM water resistance): you can wear it under water to a depth of 50 meters, which allows use in the shower, swimming or even skiing.

Garmin Vivoactive HR application

The Garmin Vivoactive HR smart health connected watch is compatible with the application Connect Garmin, available on Android and iOS, giving you the ability to download apps (weather for example) and create a Garmin account if you don't already have one. The bracelet will automatically pair with your smartphone after the first fitting, which does not take much time. The application will then ask you for information (height, weight, age, sport intensity) necessary to follow you as precisely as possible.

The interface of the application does not shine by its design, but remains nevertheless clear and understandable. The all-black interface is a little sad, but one of the positive points is that the Garmin Vivoactive HR quite rarely returns to the application. Most of the data is stored or appears directly on the watch screen.

The application offers several follow-ups: My day indicates where you are in your goals, as well as a summary of steps, runs and sleep. You can also follow your contacts and try to reach first place in the proposed activity ranking. The app also offers a calendar, a flow of activities for your contacts, your statistics for each activity, your health statistics (sleep, weight, calories and heart rate), as well as your workouts, routes, segments and equipment.

Thanks to the synchronization of the two devices, you will receive notifications directly on your watch when you receive SMS, emails and notifications from social networks, without being able to reply to them however.

Via the application, you will have access to garmin store, where you will find the different widgets available. Not a lot of choice, but a sorting system that highlights the most downloaded or top rated apps, so you can find what you're looking for directly.

Using the Garmin Vivoactive HR

Daily activities :

The daily activity tracking is a classic of Garmin bracelets. The Garmin Vivoactive HR is no exception to the rule by offering a recommended minimum of 7,500 steps which is not that difficult to achieve, provided you do not spend your day at the office. A pedometer is therefore required, accurate despite some spikes in acceleration from time to time.

As on Fitbit bracelets, a trophy system was put in place to reward the user's efforts and push him to surpass himself. In this way, even non-athletes can keep an eye on their distance covered per day, the calories burned, the different activities they have done and the floors they have climbed.

On the application, you will find a recap of your day, useful for sleeping with a clear conscience.

Heart rate monitoring:

The heart rate sensor is precise. Having tested the Garmin Vivoactive HR in a gym, we were able to compare the heart rate detected by the watch with the heart rate detected by the treadmill. And the two matched perfectly!

You will be able to access on the mobile application a graph comparing your resting and active heart rate. A one-week follow-up is also offered, allowing you to carefully monitoring your heart rate. As for the Garmin Vivoactive HR, all you have to do is scroll down to access your frequency, the watch will also show you the lowest and highest rates reached during the day.

In activity :

To Review the fitness tracker, we selected on the watch “indoor race"To let him know. Press the right button of the Garmin Vivoactive HR and the tracking will start, indicating the distance traveled, the stopwatch, the pace, the distance of the circuit (useful if you are running outside), the time to do this circuit, your heart rate by compared to your average frequency.

You can pause the stopwatch at any time and then, at the end of the exercise, the watch will offer to save the data or not. After confirming, it will show you a brief summary of your performance.

The bracelet obviously does not interfere with running. Tighten it enough on your wrist to prevent it from sweating.

However, we encountered some difficulties during the Review, namely that the tracking of the “carpet race” application was stopped 5 min after switching it on, without anyone noticing. Maybe a bad manipulation on our part, because we restarted it and the watch then perfectly functioning without interruption.

Finally, the screen display being quite dull, you often have to bring the watch to your eyes to be able to read the indications displayed.

A summary of your race is also available on the app, showing you activity time, distance, calories burned and your pace.

Sleep tracking:

When you create your account, the application asks for your usual sleep fork. This will then be based on the times indicated and will detect if you actually sleep or not at these times. Only, the bracelet does not seem very precise and cannot find out if you are sleeping or if you are just reading a book. Thus, the detector in question thought we were asleep a little early … As for our awakening, we were surprised to discover that we had actually been awake for a big half hour! Having never had a sleepwalking problem, it is clear that the Garmin Vivoactive HR is fishing in this area.

Nevertheless, the detection of the quality of sleep and movement is well thought out, and the application allows us to compare our night with our previous ones and to make an average of it.

Garmin Vivoactive HR facing the competition

Garmin's latest product is more expensive than average fitness bracelets, which usually cost around € 150 (the Fitbit Surge is € 180 and the Vivosmart from Garmin € 150). Is Garmin Vivoactive HR worth more?

That said, the Garmin Vivoactive HR fulfills a number of criteria to make it a success: GPS, heart monitoring, multisports, notifications, activity tracker with automatic detection… In the end, there is not much it does not. Unlike some, the strap is waterproof here, allowing monitoring in any nautical activity.

With the same aesthetic problem that the Fitbit Surge, the Garmin Vivoactive HR does not shine in this area. It is nevertheless presented as an accessory for athletes, which should not bother them too much.

The IQ boutique is successful, but limited : we are far from Pebble and its many applications and software.

The heart monitoring remains one of the highlights of the bracelet, even if such a quality has already been seen at Fitbit.

But from a compatibility standpoint, Fitbit Surge is one step ahead of Garmin by offering a Windows application for smartphones.

Garmin Vivoactive HR battery life remains above average : 13 days without using GPS or the heart rate option, greatly exceeds the Fitbit Surge and its 5 days of autonomy on average.

In the end, the Garmin Vivoactive HR remains a very good device for those who expect a full range of functions from their bracelet. If you're looking for something that can do a little bit of everything, the Garmin bracelet is for you.

The market for smart health connected wristbands is ruthless, and every company has to compete in imagination to win over potential buyers. Garmin offers a full bracelet if possible, some of whose features are pushed to the maximum. But for every day, perhaps you will think of saving money by turning instead to Fitbit, which seems to remain unstoppable in this market. At least for the moment.

Conclusion

Good points

• Accurate heart rate

• watertight

• Above average battery life

Negative points

• Fairly massive structure

• Dark and dull screen

• Imprecise sleep tracking

Design and Ergonomics – 6

Application – 7

Features – 8

Getting started – 7

Value for money – 7

7

Design & Finishing / Ergonomics : The density of the screen as well as its lack of readability make it uncomfortable. The two buttons allow simple and efficient navigation.

Application : A complete application with access to the store. Does its job for want of being aesthetic.

features : Quantity of functionalities which are welcome and which allow us to adapt to our activities.

Use / Getting started : Quite simple, cardiac monitoring succeeds despite the difficulty encountered.

Value for money : Garmin justifies its price with the performance of its bracelet, but is it really worth spending more than for a Fitbit?

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