. Pros Discreet design. Contains remote controls for music. Vibration alarms and 'move' alerts available. Supports push notifications.
It only takes a few steps to set up your Garmin device for Garmin Connect.
Measures miles, steps, calories burned, active time, and sleep. Informative, touch-capacitive display. Cons Fixed form factor. Can't interact with notifications (e.g., can't reply to incoming text messages from the bracelet). Steps and mileage seemed slightly inflated in tests. Bottom Line Garmin's Vivosmart activity tracker counts steps, measures sleep, reminds you to move, and sends notifications, including text messages, to your wrist.
Its midrange price point makes it an attractive option. The device has limitations, however, the primary one being that you can't reply to messages, the way you can with, say, the or the forthcoming.
Still, it's an appealing feature that's implemented well. In testing, I found the daily steps counts to be close to the ground I know I cover in a day, if a little inflated.
When I wore the Vivosmart at the same time as the Flash, the Flash seemed closer to accurate, based on what I know from tracking my steps counts for the last three years or so, but neither was spot on. The Vivofit's mileage, however, was better. Accuracy will vary from person to person based on stride length and just how much you move around in a day, but at least with a mileage report you can measure how accurate the Vivosmart is for you. That's very hard to do with steps. Step counts are typically based on the estimation that an average person takes 2,000 steps per mile.
I once counted my own steps-per-mile number and learned it was more than 3,000. So again, mileage is a better gauge, and I'm happy to see it's a figure the Vivosmart records. Unlike many other Garmin wearable products, the Vivosmart isn't fully souped-up sports gear. Garmin specializes in high-end watches with GPS for runners, hikers, bicyclists, and even golfers that can cost upward of $500.
Those devices, like many of the watches in the Forerunner series, can collect more advanced information, such as cadence and speed, and some even know the interval between your footfalls when you run! The Vivosmart is much more modest in comparison, and is better suited to people at casual fitness levels, or even just runners who aren't training for marathons.
But you can pair the Vivosmart with a Garmin chest strap heart rate monitor ($199 for the bundle) if you're getting more serious about improving your fitness. If you're right in between those two types I just described—the more casual fitness type and a heavy-duty runner—you might try the. Another feature I really like in the Vivosmart that you can find in a few other trackers is a move reminder.
If you sit still for too long, it will vibrate and flash on screen a reminder to get up and get that blood circulating. Both the and have this idle alert, but only in the form of the vibration, as they don't have a display. Their vibration alarm, in other words, can't work for a variety of uses because there is no secondary indicator that might explain why the band is vibrating. The Vivosmart, on the other hand, vibrates to remind you to move, and when you receive a push notification, because it can also show you on the bracelet's display what the vibration means. That vibration can also be a silent waking alarm, a feature you'll find in Jawone UP, UP24, Fitbit One, and several other activity trackers.
I for one love it. It's an alarm clock that doesn't wake your sleeping partner. Whenever you start to move at a good pace, the Vivosmart also vibrates to let you know it's now counting your activity. That automation is great, but it's not as advanced as what Basis does. The Basis band and the forthcoming Basis Peak automatically know the difference between walking, running, bicycling, and sleeping.
They even sense when you're in REM, light, and deep sleep. That ability is a huge reason the first Basis band earned a PCMag Editors' Choice in the first place. Vivosmart is smart, but not that smart. Garmin Connect Mobile App and Web App Vivosmart owners can download the Garmin Connect mobile app for Android or iOS for mobile syncing and one-the-go details of their day. The mobile app works well enough but doesn't provide deep details.
For those, you can hit up the Web app, which syncs with the mobile app. The Garmin Connect website is where you'll find all your information. It's rich with options and activities. You can join groups, connect and compete for daily bests with other individual users, track your weight, look up courses for activities, analyze your sleep and steps, and much more.
While the Garmin Web app and mobile app don't have their own calorie-logging tools, you have the option of connecting to MyFitnessPal, one of the most well-known apps for counting calories. The Fitbit website and app, for what it's worth, both connect with MyFitnessPal and have their own food-logging system, in case you don't want to use another app. Fitbit definitely has the most user-friendly app and website of all the activity trackers I've seen. One nice perk of being able to sync via the Web app and your computer is that if you don't use an Android or iOS device, you can still use the Garmin Vivosmart—although you won't get the smart notifications, which is one of the bigger perks of the product. Conclusions The Garmin Vivosmart is a very good activity tracker with a number of excellent features. It's simple to use and, like an outfit that can be either dressed up or dressed down, transitions well from being a wristband that counts steps and measures sleep to a slightly more advanced product for tracking long runs and helping you stay fit. If you are a somewhat serious runner, I would encourage you to check out the Forerunner 15, which is a runner's watch first, but also counts steps.
The Vivosmart is the other way around, but it shows you push notifications, which is its primary selling point. The market for fitness trackers is about to be flush with choice (as if it weren't already!), and if you can hold off until mid-November, you might see more and better options for around the same price. But keep the Vivosmart in mind—especially if Garmin is a brand name you know and trust.
It's a nice product and sells for a fair, midrange price.