Garmin Small 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.

A perfect review here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4_KdTKsAoM

Best value for money.Initially i though that should i really need to buy an expensive activity tracker .Later on i realized it is worth to buy.It is easy to use ,easy to pair with ur mobile and it can be connected to several apps like Nike + it is an added advantage from my point of view.

I've had my Vivosmart for 43 days. I was very excited to switch from my Fitbit Flex to Garmin Vivosmart. I had read many great comments and liked the design. Unfortunately, that's about all there is to like: the design. It looks very nice and I have no problems with it falling off as others have suggested. It is sleek, battery lasts at least a week and it's easy to clean. I also like the reminders to get off your behind every hour. :-) The truth is, the Garmin app is a disaster. It makes the band non-functional. I just went for a run to time my mile and it didn't show up in the app for 27 minutes (after 3 sync attempts). (There is no other way to see it as once you save the information it disappears from the band.) There is also no way for it to adjust to your stride: I ran this mile on a track that I know is one mile, however the app said I ran 1.4 miles. I'm sure this is because at 5'2" I obviously take smaller strides than the average height person, but there is no way for my Vivosmart to know this. [Insert "not very smart" pun here.] For sleep tracking, it is again unfortunately useless. You set it when you go to bed and when you wake up, so you know how long you slept but that's about it. There's a chart with no times on it that looks all jagged, I suppose this is supposed to tell you how often you moved but there are no specifications so it really doesn't mean anything. This also takes nearly all morning to load, even after syncing. As to support from the company, I have received none. I emailed them twice and once on twitter and have received no response. I gave this product a good try, and I really wanted it to work because I love the way it looks. If it's not functional, it's not worth it and this, my fellow amazoners, is just not worth it.

I tried several different fitness trackers through lumoid.com, a site that allows you to test 5 different fitness trackers, and other products, for two weeks. The $25 I paid was money well spent. After trying the Misfit Shine, Fitbit Flex, Withings Activite Pop and Pulse and the Garmin VivoFit I decided the Garmin product was the one for me. While I liked the functions of the VivoFit, I didn't like the size and that the display was always on. When I saw the VivoSmart was smaller and the display was not constantly on, but it had many of the same, but better features I decided it was the fitness tracker for me. My number one objective with getting a fitness tracker was to get me to move and walk more. I am a pretty active person, but when I'm not working out I sit at my desk for long periods of time. I needed to move more. With the VivoSmart, it will vibrate when I need to move and display the word "Move!" on the bracelet. Perfect! It truly does get me to move. And, even better you have to walk for a little while before it will inform you that you've moved enough and no longer displays the move bar. While it's great it can show my smart phone notifications (email, phone, messages, etc.) it's annoying having it vibrate every time there is a notification. And, being at that age where I need to wear reading glasses I usually can't read the notifications on the tracker anyway. So, I turn off the Bluetooth connection so that it will still alert me when I need to move but it won't vibrate every time there is a notification. Like most trackers it also tracks your sleep quality (light vs deep sleep) and your movement. Boy was that eye opening! Now I'm addicted to seeing how well I'm sleeping each night. I also love that I can wear it in the shower since it's waterproof. All in all, this is a great device if you're looking for something that will motivate you to move and look good at the same time.

Avec un travail de bureau plutôt sédentaire, ce petit objet me rapelle qu'il est bon de bouger, déjà rien que ça, c'est super. Le programme My Connect de garmin avec un challenge, l'analyse du someil, le suivi de exercices est bien fait. Lié au site internet Myfitnesspal avec le suivi des calories consommées par repas et dépensées en exercice...(analysées par ce bracelet) je perds du poids sans vraiment faire de régime, simplement en surveillant un peu mieux mon alimentation et en adaptant mes dépenses caloriques journalières. Avec la ceinture cardiaque associée, le jogging / la course a pied peuvent êtres optimalisés c'est vraiment ce que je recherchais. Les petits plus comme la lecture des sms et la gestion des médias du gsm, ne sont pour moi que gadget supplémentaires. J'aime la discretion du bracelet, mince et sobre par rapport à d'autres, permettant par exemple de porter une monte au même poignet. De plus il est étanche, ce qui est plutôt pratique, car au poignet il se fait vite oublier et je me suis déjà retrouvé sous la douche avec le vivosmart sans même m'en rendre compte. Si vous cherchez un modèle adapté au multimédia, ce n'est pas le but, pensez à une motre connectée... Certaines personnes regrettent parfois le capteur cardiaque qui n'est pas intégré, mais le confort d'un bracelet avec ce type de capteur qui doit être bien "fixe" est nettement moindre car il doit "coller" à la peau, je préfère donc celui-ci, de plus ce n'est utile que lors de scéances d'exercice... pour celà la ceinture cardiaque est tout à fait suffisante et de plus compatible avec le tableau de bord mon tapis de course. Pour ma part 5 étoiles et je ne regrtette vraiment pas ce superbe achat.