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Let’s explore a few of the more popular Garmin fitness trackers.
This new version of Vivosmart has many improvements. While you won’t make a fashion statement wearing this fitness tracker, it’s very comfortable, and the display is now larger and sits in the middle of the band. Speaking of the band, the closure on it has changed too; it’s no longer prongs that snap into a wrap-around band but more like a regular buckle watch which is more secure. You’ll notice that text is bigger and sharper, and it’s easy to see—even in direct sunlight. Now that’s a bonus!
If you turn over the Vivosmart HR, you’ll discover the trifecta of lights which monitor your heart rate constantly. By tracking your heart rate at the wrist, you’ll be free to exercise without a need to wear an additional heart rate band. However, connecting Vivosmart HR to another Garmin device will allow you to use this strictly as a heart rate strap.
Just like other activity monitors, Vivosmart HR measures distance traveled, burned calories and counts steps; but it can also track floors you’ve climbed using its barometric altimeter. It uses intensity minutes to monitor how intense your activity is. What a fantastic feature to let you track your progress! Not only that, but this tracker will set an achievable daily step goal as it learns you present level of activity. As your day progresses, if you remain idle for one hour, you’ll receive reminders via a vibration alert and the move bar to get you moving. You can reset the inactivity timer by going for a short, brisk walk or jog. Once you meet your target for that day, it’ll alter your goal for the following day—before you know it you’ll be on your way to a healthier you!
To save your statistics to the Garmin Connect, simply sync your device to your smartphone during the day. On the website, you can also plan, share your activity as well as compete and challenge other Garmin users. If you create an account on MyFitnessPal, it can be linked to your Garmin Connect account to receive more specific calorie tracking; you can match ingested calories to total burned calories which are recorded by the Vivosmart HR daily. Did you know you can receive your smartphone’s notifications through this fitness tracker? You’ll feel a gentle vibration and the tracker will display the info from your phone; to read more information, just touch the tracker and then swipe the screen. There are some other great linked features too such as finding your mislaid smartphone or controlling your VIRB action camera (purchased separately) and music.
If you’re the type of person that likes to share everything with your family and friends, then look no further than the Fenix 3. All you do is add email addresses of people you want to share with; they’ll receive an email invite that lets them follow your activity including things like activity time, the distance you traveled, your actual location and average speed.
Even though the Fenix 3 is a true activity tracker, it won’t feel that way; the largest selling point of this tracker is that it appears to be more like a sports watch—and it comes with the same hefty price tag. The cheaper model for $500 has a rubber strap and standard crystal; the $600 model comes with metal and rubber straps as well as sapphire crystals.
A terrific quality of this tracker is the many tracking abilities for things like hiking and swimming—even triathlon! What are some other cool features? The Fenix 3 will record the amount of burned calories, log your sleep and count your steps and is equipped with a compass, smart notifications, GPS, altimeter and a barometer. Using a Wi-Fi connection via your smartphone, you can upload data to the Garmin Connect website; likewise, you can download apps via the Garmin Connect IQ Store.
This tracker was created to monitor your steps, sleep and calories burned. A pretty neat feature is the LCD that’s on continuously for looking up workout info as well as the time. If you’ve been stationery for one hour, there’s a red meter that appears—sort of like it’s telling you, “Hey! Get up and move!” But don’t think that after a few minutes the red meter time will go away—nope, it’ll keep building up until you get off of your butt and go for a short walk.
For those of you who’d like a better fitness experience or the ability to change a design, Vivofit 2 is what you’ve been searching for. You can wear it like a normal watch since there are many stylish wristbands to choose from and the Vivofit 2 is superb for keeping tabs on distance, sleep and steps.
Its most impressive feature is the battery life. A pair of coin cell batteries (CR1632) is what makes this fitness tracker work; they only need replacing after using the Vivofit 2 for a year! There are a few more noteworthy features too such as a new backlight, new inactive audible alerts, an actual button to control the .39-inch display and a new stopwatch.
If you look at it from afar, you might think that this is an Apple Watch. Why? The characteristics are similar in that the Vivoactive has a 1.38-inch, nearly square touchscreen display with 205 by 148-pixel color. There are two buttons on each side of its face. The right button handles specific watch functions like starting and stopping activities in addition to opening the settings; the left button deals with power functions and backlighting. Do a finger swipe or tap the display to perform other actions. The watch itself comes in just two colors: black and white; however, you can purchase various colorful rubberized plastic bands separately that will be comfy to wear.
So what are a few of the tracking attributes of the Vivoactive? Well, in addition to being able to log calories burned, distance and steps, it comes with complete GPS tracking. This fitness tracker is also equipped with many apps which allow you to record walking, cycling, golf, running and swimming; it tracks non-GPS and indoor walking, cycling and running too. If you connect the watch to other services (purchased separately), you can then monitor things like temperature, cycling speed, heart rate and running cadence. Cool, huh?
Another neat feature about the Vivoactive is that if you mislaid your cell phone, it could be easily found using the app called “find my phone”. One final nifty highlight is you can receive all of your notifications for emails, calendar entries, incoming calls and texts—you just have to team it with your smartphone.
So now that you’ve read the details of the Garmin fitness trackers, which one will you choose? It may be difficult to pick one, but it’s important to select the one that’s right for you!
Check our Fitness Trackers Comparison Tool for more details.
Additional reading:
The Fitbit vs. Apple Watch Face-Off
The Best Fitness Trackers For Women
Photo Credit: Garmin
