Garmin Vivosmart – Activity Tracker with Smart Notifications

By Michael S • September 5, 2014 • News

With a 7 day battery life and 5 ATM water rating, the Garmin Vivosmart is an activity tracker that can pretty much be worn 24/7. Besides the ubiquitous steps and sleep tracking, the Garmin Vivosmart offers new workout support like timed activity function that allows a workout to be tracked. And the icing on the cake? Autosync. Owners of Vivofit will understand the pain of going days without syncing the data to Garmin Connect. (This is 2014 no?) The Garmin Vivosmart will sync when in range of a compatible smartphone device.

The Garmin Vivosmart displays notifications like calls, texts, emails and reminders from compatible smartphone devices with vibration alerts followed by a preview. To read more, simply swipe on the touch enabled OLED display. The display remains discreet and only lights ups when there are notifications or when the user manually activates it through double tapping and swiping. The vibration function also serves as a silent alarm and idle alert seen in activity trackers like Jawbone UP24 and Runtastic Orbit.

A closer look at the Garmin Vivosmart

The data is synced to Garmin Connect app which is available on Google Play Store and App Store for select smartphone devices. Like Vivofit, the Garmin Vivosmart will provide a personalised daily step goal based on your tracked stats over time, nudging you towards towards a more active lifestyle. Users can also link their accounts to MyFitnessPal to get access to a wide database of food caloric count.

The new Garmin Vivosmart comes in Berry, Purple, Blue, Slate, Black.

List of features:

Tracks steps, distance, calories, sleep
Personalised daily goals
Time
Idle alert in the form of move bar and vibration
Compatible with Garmin heart rate monitor strap
Compatible with bike speed sensor
Autosync with smartphone devices
Smart notifications
Vibration
Touch enabled OLED display
5ATM water rating
remote for Garmin VIRB® or VIRB Elite action cameras

The Garmin Vivosmart is packed with a multitude of useful features.

An improvement over the Garmin Vivofit, the newly announced Garmin Vivosmart sacrificed the year long battery life for a multitude of features. The upgrades are not revolutionary but it does make a good product even better. It gets our vote.

From now till November 2014, the Garmin Vivosmart is available exclusively at Best Buy at the recommended retail price of $169.99 and $199.99 (black or slate heart rate monitor bundle). Additional store and online availability will begin after November.