Let’s get one thing out of the way off the bat – the Garmin Vivosmart HR is the best fitness tracker you can buy. If you’re looking for the best value, most feature packed device out there your search is over, the Vivosmart HR is it. So what makes this device so good? There are literally so many reasons it’s hard to know where to start.
The original Garmin Vivofit was the company’s first foray into fitness trackers, and although it showed promise, it wasn’t the ground-breaking device we expected it to be. But one thing that Garmin could never be accused of is complacency, and it’s clear that the company looked long and hard at its own offerings, and what the competition was doing before designing and building the Vivosmart HR, and the result is something very special indeed.
The Vivosmart HR is dominated by a large, touch-sensitive display. The display can be swiped left and right to cycle through the plethora of data and functions available. The screen is always on, so you can simply glance at your wrist to check the time, unlike the Fitbit Charge, which requires a press of a button to activate the display.
One of the major criticisms of the Vivofit was its lack of backlight, so when the sun went down it was pretty much impossible to read the screen. Garmin has learned from this and equipped the display on the Vivosmart HR with a backlight that’s activated with a tap to the screen face.
There’s also a single button which will open up further options such as starting a training session, setting a silent alarm and “find my phone” – more about that later.
The strap has a proper buckle to secure it, so you don’t have to worry about it coming loose no matter how active you’re being. That buckle also allows you to keep the Vivosmart HR tight enough (but not too tight) to your wrist to ensure that the heart rate monitor works.
Talking of heart rate monitoring, the Vivosmart HR uses an optical heart rate monitor, just like the Fitbit Charge HR and Fitbit Surge. A quick swipe to the right on the screen will display your current heart rate along with your average resting heart rate.
As well as heart rate the Vivosmart HR will track every step you take and every fight of stairs you climb. It will also estimate you distance walked and calories burned. The Vivosmart HR will also determine when you’re being active and log those ‘intensity minutes’ separately, while also setting you a weekly ‘intensity minutes’ goal for you to achieve.
Talking of goals, Garmin has taken a different approach to most manufacturers. While other trackers will give a default daily step goal and allow you to customise that goal manually, the Vivosmart HR will dynamically adjust your goals based on your achievements. So, if you’re smashing your daily step goal the Vivosmart HR will raise the bar to make it more challenging for you, and if you’re struggling to get close to your goal it’ll relax it a bit so you don’t get disheartened.
As is the norm with most fitness trackers, the Vivosmart HR will also track your sleep. There’s no need to activate a sleep mode, since the device will automatically work out when you go to sleep and when you wake up. You’ll be presented with a breakdown of light sleep and deep sleep, along with how many times you woke up and for how long. It’s interesting to check your sleep data, especially if you wake feeling particularly tired or well rested, but it’s not as easy to act upon, though cutting out caffeine later in the day might help.
Alarms and alerts
The Vivosmart HR has vibration alerts, so you can set it to silently wake you up in the morning – there’s even a clock icon in the display when you have an alarm set. You’ll also get a vibrating alert when you’ve been inactive for too long, while any notifications will also get your wrist buzzing.
Those notifications are another point in the plus column for the Vivosmart HR. The device will display caller ID information, as well as text messages that arrive on your phone, just like the Fitbit Surge. However, the Vivosmart HR will also alert you to notifications on any and all third party apps on your phone – during testing I was alerted to Amazon deliveries, PlayStation friend requests, Twitter mentions, credit card purchases and even notifications from the Fitbit app.
Okay, so the small screen doesn’t lend itself to reading long text messages, but it is quite handy being able to glance at notifications as they come in, without digging your phone out of your pocket. If you’re not keen on smartwatches, having your phone notifications on a fitness tracker could be a solid compromise.
The Vivosmart HR will pull weather data from your phone, too, displaying it with the swiping rota on the display. And if you’re listening to music on your phone, you can control that from the Vivosmart HR as well.
Another absolutely great feature built into the Vivosmart HR is the “find my phone” functionality. If you regularly misplace your phone at home or in the office, you can find it with the Vivosmart HR. The screen will display a series of bars – the more bars that are displayed the closer you are to your phone. It works brilliantly, and makes you feel like a spy in a 1960s movie.
Apps and website
The Garmin Connect app used to be a weak point within the ecosystem, but it’s had a major overhaul. The latest version of the app looks great, is stuffed full of all the data and insight you could want, and syncs with your devices far, far quicker than the old one.
The Garmin Connect web portal is also a breeze to use, employing a similar dynamic tile layout to the Fitbit portal. Garmin connect brings further advantages if you use multiple Garmin devices. If you use a Garmin Edge when cycling and a Garmin Forerunner when running, then all your data from all your devices will sync in the same place, making it easy to analyse results over time.
Garmin quotes a battery life of around seven days, and that seemed about right judging from our time with the Vivosmart HR. It’s also waterproof to 50m, so you don’t have to worry about taking it off in the shower, or even when you go swimming.
As if the incredible feature set wasn’t enough to convince you to buy a Garmin Vivosmart HR, it also has price on its side. If you shop about you can find it online for as little as £107 inc VAT. That’s about £15 more than you can find the Fitbit Charge HR, but you’re getting so much more here for your money.
Conclusion
The Garmin Vivosmart HR is a simply superb fitness tracker. It has more features than you could shake a stick at, an easy to read built-in display, touchscreen control, integrated heart rate monitor and excellent supporting app and web portal. Throw in the extras like find my phone and relaying of all your phone’s notifications, and you’ll be hard pushed to think of a feature that this device doesn’t have.
The only minor criticism that could be levelled at the Vivosmart HR is that it’s not the best looking fitness tracker you can buy – it’s relatively large, and quite utilitarian. But that really is a minor criticism when you consider the feature set, usability and very attractive price.
Put simply, if you’re in the market for a fully featured fitness tracker, the Garmin Vivosmart HR should be top of your list.
Pedometer: Yes, Heart-rate monitor: Yes, Display: OLED, Battery life: 7 days