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Pmych
 
 
 
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    November 14, 2015
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    November 14, 2015
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Pmych's Reviews
 
Garmin Vivosmart HR Activity Tracker: Measure your daily activity with this device that helps you to set and maintain aerobic fitness goals. Vibration alerts let you receive call, text and e-mail notifications from your phone.
 
Customer Rating
5 out of 5
5
Best tracker I've owned
on November 14, 2015
Posted by: Pmych
I'm not an early adopter, but I've been waiting for this. After a lot of research I knew I wanted a unit that combined features of the Vivofit 2 and the Vivosmart (screen of the fit with the enhanced features of the smart). The Vivosmart HR finally gives me the best of both. I've been wearing my Vivosmart HR for a week and the only negative I experienced was Garmin Connect performing maintenance for just over a day. This, unfortunately, caused some temporary syncing issues. I feel bad for the reviewers who bought theirs during the outage because, based on the reviews during that time, they felt that was the whole experience. The day I brought mine home it took me all of 10 minutes to set it up and it has worked flawlessly ever since. The temporary sync issues were easily identified by checking the status of Garmin Connect online. They posted they were performing maintenance and had the system back up quickly.
Now, the specifics:
Screen visibility: I can see it just fine inside, outside, day or night. I have the backlight set to come on when I touch the screen so a simple tap in the dark lights it up. Bright enough to see but doesn't blind me.
Step count: Steps are as accurate as any tracker I've owned (Fitbit Flex, Fitbit One) if not better. And it seems to give fewer "false steps" from arm movement when not walking.
HR: I knew it wasn't going to be as accurate as a chest strap when I bought it. If you believe it's going to be, I'm afraid you'll be disappointed every time and have nothing but negative reviews. We're not living in the Star Trek universe and this will not give you a full body diagnostic scan. It's a $150 activity tracker. However, I tested my Vivo while wearing my ANT+ chest strap on the elliptical. A minute and a half in, the chest strap was reading 100 while the Vivosmart HR was still at 60. But at just under 2 minutes the Vivo ramped up to the correct HR and never varied by more than 3 beats per minute for the rest of my workout. So now I know there's a slight delay, but I can live with that. Two minutes doesn't throw my world into chaos.
Notifications: Flawless. I feel my phone vibrate and the Vivo starts vibrating immediately. At first I was upset that I was having to deal with every email that came in. But then I found where you can customize which notifications you get. No more emails, just messages and calls. Just the way I want it.
Battery: I got exactly 5 days, as advertised.
Music: In the device settings in the app you can choose which player you want to make default. It showed every player I have on my phone. I use Rocket Player so I chose Rocket Player. Now I can control play, pause, next and previous track. Easy.
Sleep: Again, this isn't a medical diagnostic tool. However, it has successfully tracked my sleep and wake times to within 15 minutes every night this week. One morning I woke up feeling like I hadn't slept well. I checked my stats and, guess what? It said I tossed and turned throughout the night. Interesting? Sure. Medically reliable? No. But again, I didn't buy it to track sleep apnea or restless leg or any other affliction. I bought it to give me trend data over time.
Summary: My Vivo HR does exactly what I want it to do, and it does it well. In a world of 1 star reviews because it didn't fly out of the box, strap itself to your wrist and instantly diagnose that heart murmur you never knew about, I felt inclined to leave my own practical experience after a week of use. I'm more than happy with my purchase and I'll recommend it to anyone with realistic expectations of a wrist-based tracker.
Now, if you'll excuse me, my Vivo just told me I've been sitting here too long and I need to "Move!"
My Best Buy number: 0020099817
I would recommend this to a friend!
+384points
396of 408voted this as helpful.
 
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Garmin Vivosmart HR Activity Tracker: Measure your daily activity with this device that helps you to set and maintain aerobic fitness goals. Vibration alerts let you receive call, text and e-mail notifications from your phone.
 

How long does the battery last? How long to charge?

Fit bit hr only lasts 3 days and takes 4hours to charge. I did not want that.looking for one with a better battery life. My mom has the fit bit and isn't liking that either
Mine lasts 5 days and takes about an hour to fully charge.
8 years, 4 months ago
by
Pmych