Garmin Large Vivosmart Activity Tracker with Smart Notification - Slate

I have moved from the fitbit as I kept forgetting to take it with me everytime I had a change of clothing. This device sits unobtrusively, yet quite stylishly on the wrist and for the most part, I do not wear a watch on the other wrist as two taps on the device will tell you the time/date and day. I absolutely love the product but cannot give it five stars until Garmin resolve the bluetooth connection issues. I have a nexus 5 and it was extremely difficult to get any bluetooth connection and when I did, as soon as I moved out of range it was disconnected and does not reconnect, rendering the whole process a complete waste of time. I have just upgraded to a Motorola X 2nd generation phone and the bluetooth connection is more stable with this phone but by no means satisfactory. Secondly, in my opinion the Fitbit website and notifications are far superior to Garmin and they need to do some more work to in this area to improve their current website experience. The app is OK on android but the information given, whilst handy, is not as detailed as I would have liked. That said...this is a great little product that I absolutely love and is well worth four stars, five with a decent Bluetooth connection. It provides date/time/day, number of steps,number of steps to reach your estimated goal for the day,a "move" feature that vibrates when you have stay still for too long, calories burned, mileage covered, a system to connect to your phone music (Bluetooth required!!) and an incoming message/email and phone alert whereby the name of the caller/email or message are displayed (again, Bluetooth required). In fairness, for the most part, once you have paired the device, it will work fine. The problems start when you go out of Bluetooth reach with your phone. Another plus is that it also pairs up with the Garmin heart monitor strap. It has a "sleep" function as well, recording your sleep patterns. Furthermore, it is fully waterproof and will easily stand a shower or bath whilst fitted. In conclusion, in my opinion, it is not for the super serious health/runner. It is probably best appreciated by those of us that are just interested in staying reasonably healthy and like or need to monitor their daily activity. For those of us, it is very highly recommended.

I've been using Vivosmart (Large) since last 3 months now and I absolutely love the product for it's minialistic design and impeccable function. There was a brief period where I faced issues with the bluetooth sync with my Galaxy Note 2 but it was rectified by the updates in the Garmin Connect app. I've read reviews about Fitbit mobile app being better but IMO Garmin provides all essential stats around tracking steps and sleep, unless you are into drawing complex statistics around your movements every single day. The notifications on vivosmart are brilliant, the settings I've made in my Garmin Connect app allows me to read news headlines from BBC and Bloomberg Business App which is extremely useful. Email notifications, watsapp/facebook notifications on vivosmart work flawlessly. The steps tracking is very accurate as well. The battery life is very good, i have to charge it just once a week and that is with heavy use of checking news, social media notifications and time. I very highly recommend this product to people who want a minimalist looking fitness tracker which performs the functions of a smartwatch brilliantly without drawing too much attention. Very handy if you are in a meeting to see if you've got an important email or message without taking your phone from your pocket. 5 out of 5 stars. One star each for fitness tracking, notifications, bluetooth sync, design and flawless functioning.

I really like the Vivosmart, it looks great, it's very minimalist and has some great features such as it's ability to flip through your songs. I'm not going to cover all the features here, that's what the sales blurb is for, we know it tracks steps and sleep, that's all great! :) Pros (my top 3): - Play, pause and skip through your songs. Handy in the car and when your phone is the otherside of the room. - Waterproof - It's a smartwatch, I love getting my texts without having to get the phone out. Cons: - If you close the Garmin app on your phone you can't control your music. That's annoying, my bluetooth handsfree in the car doesn't require an app for this. Does not display what's playing, I was a little disappointed at first but heck it's my playlist so I suppose I should already know what it is. - The band can be a little itchy after wearing it for long periods of time. - Viewing longer emails (a couple or more paragraphs) you you often get this annoying loading message but nothing seems to load, or atleast I gave up after 20 seconds and just pop the phone out. - You get all the notifications, Facebook, Twitter, AppStore, it's cool but considering you're required to use the app I would like to see an option that basically lets you choose what you want sending whilst still leaving them on the phone. - Requires separate device for heart rate unlike the Withings Pulse and soon to be released Peak. - Very pricy compared to others out there. - Seems to register steps when I'm sleeping, driving or working at the computer. - For someone new to Garmin I don't yet see how to analyze my sleep and that doesn't seem to sync with iOS HealthKit although my steps have. I just found on the Garmin forums that sleep integration is apparently being considered, you can read more here: [...] I've had devices like this, depends on what you're looking for but I'd definitely choose this one over the Withings Pulse due it's similar features and the fact Vivosmar, Vivosmart is a great piece of kit! It will be interesting to see how this one competes with the new Intel Basis Peak, Really looking forward to getting my hands on that too. The Basis Peak looks smart, and has some great features for walking, running, biking, optical heart rate sensor, galvanic skin response, skin temperature and accelerometer If I had to get another for the wife I certainly buy it again, it's a great looking little smartwatch with fitness at its heart and I've already had people ask about it too. EDITED: 9th November 2014 I felt I needed to add another con couple of cons here after some extensive usage: - Remember to mark yourself as awake, it won't figure that out for you, a couple of days I forgot and apparently slept for 17 hours or so. You can edit that within the app though. - In order to use the iOS App (probably Android too) you need a connection to the internet, if you have no connection you can't even sync with your Vivosmart. - With no connection to the net you can't view any of your past sleep, weight, or steps. For people with pay as you go phones, those spending time in the country with no connection, or something similar where they have no connection, they can't access the data they want. This could make your Vivosmart pretty useless. I honestly think you should be able to retain a copy of the data locally on your device, you should also be able to sync regardless of net connection and the app simply update Garmins servers when that connection becomes available. EDITED: 3rd April 2015 There is a strip of what I can only describe as dead pixels. A line on the screen doesn't work, it's annoying. This review was originally a 4 star review I think. It then dropped to 3 on 9th November 2014. It now drops to 1 star due to durability of the device. Really starting to regret buying this thing now. Hoping for a replacement, or better yet a refund. I'm doubtful the latter will happen.

The hardware is fantastic, it's very accurate, the smart watch features work great, I love how discreet it is and how soft and comfortable the band is. The battery life is also exceptional for someone that has over 200 notifications a day it easily lasts me 5-6 days. What really lets this band down however is the software counterpart that installs on your phone, it's horrendously bad, dropping connection to the band quite frequently for no apparent reason, the IOS app is not even optimised for the iPhone 6 Plus, sync complications and worst of all the settings I apply to the band that I cannot do on the band itself do not seem to get synced across, haven't been able to get the alarm to sync over, or been able to change the bands orientation. and for that reason I don't know if I can recommend it, I would say if you're looking to buy this over the FitBit Charge, yes buy it, I had the fitbit and it was returned after 2 weeks, If you just want notifications on your wrist, buy it it's great, but if you want to really focus on your fitness this isn't the band for you as the app lets this down big time. I will update if the app gets a major improvement, but it seems Garmin subcontracted the app to another company who are just lazy.

I was looking forward to getting to grips with the Garmin Vivosmart as it appeared to do well in a lot of reviews that I had read online. I also liked the styling of the device and the fact that it would replace my day to day wrist watch. Upon arrival I took the unit out of the box and was pleased with the quality of the device, a slick band that was light and not too bulky and it felt comfortable on the wrist. As expected it had no life in it so I attached it to the charger, and odd device as it sort of clamps itself in place a bit like a large clothes peg. After about an hour it was fully charged and ready to go, the initial screen details the website where you can get the app etc, however, this was a little blurry to read but I put this down to a very small font on what is by today's standards an old style pixel screen. With the app on my phone I proceeded to setup both the app and device and this is where I discovered that some of the pixels on the bands display didn't work, mainly the lower right hand corner and most of the upper line, this was most evident when you scrolled through to the "Move" bar. Disappointed, I packaged the unit back up and took it to my local Maplins store for an exchange, a few days later this arrived. Once again it was flat so needed a charge. About an hour later it was fully charged so now I could finally get to use the device, or so I thought. Scrolling through the screen I noticed that the pixels were dead in exactly the same place as my last device. So once again I packaged it up and went back to my local Maplins store to return it, this time, for a refund. I never even got to wear it One faulty product I can understand but two makes me question not only Garmins quality control but also just how long the life expectancy of this band would be. The phone app was excellent, well laid out and able to show a lot of important information, including on a Window's phone which is rare for fitness devices. I liked the style and weight of the band too I just wish it would have been checked prior to leaving Garmins factory.

This is a great band/watch - I wanted something that would serve as my watch and something to link up to a HRM or my bike computer. So far it's been really useful, but lets start with the cons... Cons: - I spent the last week using this outdoors in really bright conditions, the display is pretty hard to read in these situations and I had to cup my hand over it to see. - Double tapping the display is a little hit/miss sometimes (more so if you're doing something!) - The set up guide/manual is just horrible - easy enough to plug in and get up and running but no explanation on how to use various aspects of the device, link it to your account, choose notifications etc. The premise of downloading the app then following the instructions would be great if the app actually provided these. Fortunately Googling the full manual and other sites solves these queries, but should you really expect users to resort to this?! - iOS notifications are linked to the notification centre settings. Easy enough to remember / use but I'd actually quite like to be alerted to some events by my phone and exclude these from the band. Pros: - You can swim! I'd missed having the time with me when out in the water so this has been useful. Have played with it in the pool and the sea (no problems with salt water) and thrown plenty of activities at it. It's still on my wrist and works fine so it's passed the test. - Pretty durable/stays on - admittedly I've been a little careful but its survived water ski / sailing / biking / swimming / kayaking / boarding and there aren't any nasty marks yet (a couple of small scuffs that aren't noticeable). - the extra rubber clasp definitely keeps it on your wrist - notifications are handy - not mentioned much, but the ability to locate your phone using the device is pretty handy too!

* My rating may or may not go down. I've only had the band a certain amount of time so I'll be making an update in the future, if I remember. So, I got this band on the 10/12/14. I ordered it a day before so kudos to Amazon and their team for the incredible shipping process and delivery. Before you even consider buying the device, PLEASE check that your model of phone is supported. It works brilliantly with my HTC One however I've seen plenty of people complaining that their device isn't compatible. You can find this on their website. I didn't do this because my phone is one of the latest, however it'll save you the time and hassle if you do. I've seen certain iPhone's software isn't, so check please. I've a few devices like FitBit Flex, Ultra, Misfit Shine and the Garmin Vivofit. The Vivosmart in my personal opinion surpasses them all. Obviously a few of the devices have certain pros and cons which I'd have preferred to make the ultimate band however this, for me at least, is near perfect. *As a point, I was holding out for the FitBit Surge as I was a loyal Fitbit user and as I can't judge that yet, I believe this is better for me in comparison from what I know. In the box is: A manual Heart rate monitor (if brought with) Vivosmart (in your colour) Charger Clasp holder. You need to set up the device on the computer/or through mobile first so make sure you read the manual/leaflet with the device. You need to do a 5 second charge or so to set up the device regardless if computer/mobile, and when downloading on computer you'll need to connect with the charger. The charger itself is a usb connected grip which clips onto the device (as the device is non-removable from the strap) with a connector on the grip which once connected properly, and is a little fiddly, will begin to charge the device. A full charge should last the device around 7 days. I've had the device less than 7 days so I can't say how long it'll last but I've checked the battery several times and it seems to be lasting quite well. *I brought the large version of this band after seeing a review by JimsReviewRoom, check them out for a review on this device and many others as they're the reason I debated this, on the device about how he got small and was a hole away from it being too small, please consider this when buying your band and considering the wrist type. Sometimes the large can be annoying to clasp but this may be the band in general. The band itself once clasped is comfortable to wear. I've took it off a few times to sort settings out like orientation and left/right handed use (which you might feel weird about as I did when I first put the band on). These settings can be sorted through the app and then synced once connected to bluetooth. The device itself has an OLED screen which requires double tapping to activate, sometimes a bit flunky if you don't tap in the right place/hard enough, but once on the screen is fluid. You can swipe both left and right to different screens (which can be changed and activated as home screens through the Garmin Connect App). The options on the screen provided are (from home screen to end): Time/Date Notifications (which can be set through the app) Music Control Heart Rate (needs the heart rate monitor bundle) Miles Reached Calories Burned Move Line Steps Goal Steps Taken Holding down on the screen once opened brings up more options (settings): Stop Watch Sleep Mode Brightness Privacy Find My Phone Sync Bluetooth Time/Date Settings Information (Software Version & Battery Level) I've not used a lot of the options and only tested a few such as Find My Phone which works great and gives you a little warmer/colder notification on the band to say how close you arm to your phone, it'll also ring the phone to allow you to find it. I've not used the sleep mode so I cannot judge on the efficiency however my Misfit Shine and apparently the new Fitbit's will register the motionless of you falling asleep so this is something I wished they had put into this band. I'm guessing this is something that could be changed with software however I doubt it'll ever happen. Personally I don't use/or care for the sleep mode but it would be good to see the information. Now, a great thing about this band which my previous band had that I loved (The Fitbit Flex) is that it is also waterproof meaning it can be used in the shower and when swimming. This is also a large reason I didn't go for the Surge as bands should be 24/7 otherwise you're missing slight information (more like I didn't want to take it off to shower/bathe every time. The difference between this and the flex is the obvious OLED screen providing your information. The screen however, and most obviously, cannot be used under water. Tends to go to the settings screen if tried. Some people on here, and other groups, have had problems with their bluetooth connecting and whilst I'll say that yes my connection doesn't automatically repair and neither did my Fitbits/Misfit Shines, the connection can be manually forced through the bluetooth settings option on the band. Slight inconvenience but nothing major unlike the other bands I've owned. I cannot talk about how far the range is for connection to be lost and the Find My Phone option I used was with my phone somewhat next to me so I cannot talk about that either. Other than repairing the connection I've had no problems bluetooth wise. Now, I brought both the band and heart rate monitor which was a steal through this page. I'm a gymnast/cheerleader and I also go to the gym, and bike, so my calorie intake, which I use to diet, is going to be different every day and even to the average person who may/may not exercise. The heart rate monitor allows me to see how many calories I've burned which is mainly what I was after with the band. When brought, the heart rate monitor should automatically be paired so all you'd have to do is place the heart rate monitor in the right place on your chest (there is a manual on the Garmin website) and go to the heart rate part of the band and click the heart, give it a couple seconds and your heart rate should be registered and showing (I know some have had problems, so check the forums or make sure it's in the right place). I've used the heart rate in the past two days and for me it seems incredibly accurate, I even tested it to the Fitbit Flex which seemed accurate at the time and the monitor a brilliant addition. The band itself is just a step up from the Flex - the problem with the Flex compared to the heart rate is that it can't tell when you do different exercises as it just senses it differently, this is where Garmin are brilliant as accuracy is greatly increased. Many people expect the band itself to be accurate, and yes for the price you pay it probably should be, however if it's close and/or near accurate then to me that isn't a massive deal and it's the reason I brought the bundle. Accuracy is important but even if it's not 100% it isn't a big deal and I don't expect it to be, if you do then none of the fitness bands are for you. Whether you're the average person who wants to get into exercise or a fitness enthusiast then the Move Timer part of the band will motivate you. As I've been writing this, the band vibrated to tell me to move which I find to be a great option since you'd want a fitness band to help you get around more right? Well, that's what it does. This feature was on the previous Garmin band so for those who had the Vivofit, then you'll know this feature greatly. In the end, I love the device it fits me and works well for myself. I was a loyal fitbit user and the waiting for the Surge along with the waterproof of this device plus upgrades from my Flex were the reason I got it, and it was a great decision. It has its pros and cons, but so does everything. ONLY thing I wish, was that the heart monitor bundle was available in the other colours and not just the black and slate. There's probably a bunch of things I've missed out or forgotten about, so if anyone has any questions then feel free to ask and if I can answer them then I will, if not then I'll try find an answer/resource.

Initially this was 5 stars. As it was brilliant however that's not long lived. I bought my original Vivosmart in August '15 and it worked well, then one day started to delete the OLED lines. I could not read the top or bottom lines on notifications which led to a panicked call as I feared my wife was injured. It turned out the message had been misread due to line failure. I contacted Amazon and they were great, instantly allowing me to return it even after 8 months. I bought another which arrived on the 1st of may, todays the 6th of May. I am typing this after arranging a return for my new unit. It has failed and again the notifications, the move bar etc is unreadable to the right hand side and top/bottom aspect. As such the entire point of the unit is broken. I am gutted as I love this gadget. I love its notifications, its subtle design everything. However I am now utterly frightened to buy another as I see a pattern. It is such a shame as feature and design wise this beats all the competitors for me. I will be lost without it but I can't risk it failing yet again. Especially as I have seen others that are reporting the same screen issues. THis my original impression, prior to two failing units. Absolutely Awesome piece of kit. Has motivated me to start making more healthy choices. I am now more active and taking an interest in calories. I have even lost half a stone in the last few weeks. Purely by being more aware. That's just the health side of this Garmin. It also does all of my phones notifications. As such everything comes via this. All my texts, emails, calls. All notify via this. I can even control spotify from this. It is utterly awesome and in such a short space of time I am very reliant upon it. But it is such a brilliant bit of kit. I highly recommend it if you are teetering on the edge!