Garmin Vivoactive Smartwatch

Product Description

GPS Smartwatch for the Active Lifestyle

• Ultra-thin GPS smartwatch with a sunlight-readable, high-resolution color touchscreen
• Built-in sports apps, including GPS-enabled running, biking and golfing plus swimming and activity tracking, let you view your stats even when away from your phone
• Pairs with your smartphone to gently vibrate and display alerts for incoming calls, texts, emails and calendar items plus notifications from social media and other mobile apps
• Customize with free watch face designs, widgets and apps from our Connect IQ store
• Battery charge lasts through all your activities with up to 3 weeks⁵ in watch/activity tracking mode or up to 10 hours using GPS

From the company that has been developing robust, dedicated wearable technology to improve training metrics for athletes for more than a decade comes the GPS smartwatch for the active lifestyle. Introducing vívoactive — the ultra-thin, lightweight smartwatch with built-in Garmin sports apps that you can wear every day to help you keep a healthy balance between work and life.

From Work to Workout

Play harder, work smarter, live better with vívoactive. Built-in sports apps keep you active while smart notifications allow you to stay in contact with pressing work matters — all so you can keep your life in balance. The high-resolution, color touchscreen stays readable in direct sunlight, so you can view your stats when you step out of the office for a run. The ultra-thin profile — 8 mm — is comfortable to wear all day and can easily transition from office to golf course. You won’t have to worry about vívoactive keeping up with your active days. The rechargeable battery lasts through all your activities with up to 3 weeks⁵ in watch/activity-tracking mode or up to 10 hours using GPS.

Built-in Sports Apps

vívoactive features built-in sports apps that track your stats — even when away from your phone. Simply tap to choose among GPS-enabled running, golfing and cycling apps plus swimming and activity tracking.

Hit the Ground Running

Whether you’re training for a 5K or just for life in general, the running app uses GPS to capture essential running data such as distance and pace. A built-in accelerometer and wrist-based speed and cadence trackers eliminate the need for a separate foot pod when running on an indoor track or treadmill and also when GPS is unavailable. You can set up vibration alerts for heart rate¹, pace and run/walk intervals. Other training features include Auto Lap and Auto Pause. Automatic sync with Garmin Connect Mobile gives you a post-run summary, including calories burned and if you scored any personal records, such as your fastest or longest run to date.

Get In Gear

The GPS-enabled cycling app measures time, distance, speed and calories. Compatible with sensors² such as speed, cadence and heart rate monitors to measure your progress on training rides as well as daily commutes.

Tee Off

Pair with your smartphone³ to download course maps from our golf course database — with more than 38,000 courses worldwide — to play favorite and new courses. The golfing app keeps maps updated and tallies hole number and par. GPS measures layup and dogleg distances, as well as distances to the front, middle and back of the green, to improve usability over the entire hole. Individual stroke play scorecard lets you see if you’re under or over par. Measure shot distance at the press of a button. Round timer counts up time on the course, while the built-in accelerometer tracks your steps.

Dive In

Auto Length accelerometer-based technology automatically gauges total and interval distance; laps; calories burned; session average, interval and length pace; and stroke count, including number of strokes per length and interval and session averages. Let the swimming app calculate your efficiency with swolf, which adds the time and the number of strokes it takes to swim a pool length. View your time and interval distance at a glance. Interval Count lets you seamlessly pause and then resume your workout.

The thin profile cuts through the water, and its 5 ATM water rating means you can swim, sweat and shower with it on, worry-free.

Step It Up

vívoactive follows your progress even when you’re not engaged in a specific activity. The activity tracking app tracks your steps to learn your current activity level, then assigns an attainable daily step count goal. As you meet your milestones, the device will adjust your goal for the next day. The red move bar appears on the display after 1 hour of inactivity and builds when you’ve been sitting too long. Just walk for a couple of minutes to reset the move bar. Set the sleep mode when you go to bed and vívoactive will monitor your rest. It also tracks your calories burned.

Stay Connected

vívoactive gently vibrates to alert you to all the same notifications you receive on your compatible Bluetooth-enabled device⁴. Receive caller ID and missed call information for incoming calls. Text messages include sender information and message. Email messages come with sender and subject. vívoactive also displays notifications from Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms, as well as other mobile apps, including weather alerts and temperature. Simply touch and swipe the screen to read more, or clear the screen with the press of a button.

Advanced Smartwatch Features

vívoactive lets you control the tunes on your music player, locate your phone and let your friends and family track your activities in real time with Live Track. You can also remotely control your VIRB Elite action camera.

Custom Apps and Watch Faces

Personalize vívoactive with free downloads from our Connect IQ store. You can customize your watch face, add data fields and get apps and widgets that provide information at a glance.

Challenge Yourself

Stay up to date on your progress for each of the built-in activities with automatic syncs with Garmin Connect Mobile. You can earn virtual badges for extra motivation, join online challenges and connect, compete and compare with friends and family around the world. View your history and stats right on the smartwatch.

Show Your True Colors

vívoactive comes in basic black or bright white to coordinate with your philosophy of style. Swap out additional bands to show your true colors, or dress it up with a leather option in black or white.

In the Box

• vívoactive
• Charging/data clip
• Manual

¹Heart rate monitor available with some versions; sold separately with others
²Sold separately
³Syncs when within 30 feet of your compatible smartphone
⁴Compatible with iPhone 4S or later and select Bluetooth Smart-capable Android™ devices. See compatible list at http://support.garmin.com/support/searchSupport/case.faces?caseId={bbfc9660-8f77-11e3-d5f4-000000000000}. iPhone is a trademark of Apple Inc. Android is a trademark of Google Inc.
⁵Battery life varies based on usage and smartphone model

Features

• Built-in sports apps, including GPS-enabled running, biking and golfing plus swimming and activity tracking¹, let you view your stats even when away from your phone(Check User Manual in Product Information before use)
• Refer to page 10 in the User Manual for troubleshooting steps.
• Ultra-thin, high-resolution, sunlight-readable, color touchscreen display
• Built-in sports apps, including GPS-enabled running, biking and golfing plus swimming and activity tracking, let you view your stats even when away from your phone(Check User Manual in Product Information before use)
• Battery charge lasts through all your activities with up to 3 weeks in watch/activity tracking mode or up to 10 hours using GPS
• Customize with free watch face designs, widgets and apps from Connect IQ store
• Display Size: 28.6 x 20.7 mm (W x H)

Top Reviews

Running with the new Garmin Vivoactive
by John Van V. (5 out of 5 stars)
March 16, 2015

I just finished my second run with the new Vivoactive. Although it's not apparently in stores yet, the Garmin booth at the Gate River Run expo had a few last weekend, so I bought one. I had been limping along with a Nike/TomTom GPS watch, but the non-replaceable band has been disintegrating for months and I had wired it together to get by until the new Vivoactive came out. Even with little time to get acquainted with the Vivoactive, I used it during the 15K the next morning and it performed perfectly.

Over the past ten years or so I've owned GPS watches from Timex, Garmin (twice) and Nike (twice). I've also been occasionally using my Galaxy S5 phone coupled with a Pebble watch and Endomondo for running and biking, so I can make some comparisons.

During the race, I had not yet had time to couple the Vivoactive to my phone, so I was using it merely as a stand-alone GPS watch. It's by far the smallest GPS watch I've owned and is comfortable and light, yet I was able to read the display without any problems. Like most watches in this class you can customize the data displays, but the standard one worked fine. The unit locked in to the satellites more quickly than any of my other watches and accuracy was as expected. At the end of the 15K it read 9.45 miles. That's about 1.3% high over the measured distance, and most runners know that's about right due to not being able to take the shortest route (especially in a race with 15,000 runners) and the small padding added by the certification process. I also wore my Nike watch at the same time, and it registered 9.43 miles.

Speaking of accuracy, I'm lucky to have an accurate, wheel-measured course starting at my driveway. During this morning's workout the watch signaled 1 mile intervals within 5 feet or so of the measured distances at 1, 2 and 3 miles. For some reason my Nike is usually off by about 75
feet at one mile, although it usually gets back on track by 2 or 3 miles. My Nike is also notoriously inaccurate in displaying pace during a run (usually 30 to 45 seconds fast), something that causes real problems for me. So I ran another measured mile this morning, trying to keep a slow,

steady pace to check the Vivoactive pace calculation. I was able to keep the pace display between about 8:55 and 9:35, with most readings between 9:10 and 9:15. After finishing the mile the Vivoactive showed a time of 9:09 for that mile...about as accurate as I could expect and a big improvement over the Nike.

I also sometimes run "Galloway" intervals, and have worn a second watch (Timex Ironman) to measure and display the run/walk intervals. So today I went ahead and set up the Vivoactive to handle that duty as well. It worked flawlessly. At first I thought I couldn't easily see the intervals

being timed (since I was displaying the usual Elapsed Time/Pace/Distance data screen during the run), but then I realized that by merely swiping the display sideways I could get to the data screen with the interval information. So that was a great convenience. I have not yet found a way to easily turn the interval timer on and off during a run though.

Now that I have the Garmin Connect app working on my Galaxy S5 phone, as soon as I got back to the house and picked up my phone all (and I mean ALL) the statistics of my run were displayed on my phone. That part was effortless. And as soon as I sat down at my computer and logged into my Garmin account it was all there as well. Absolutely flawless, with no effort necessary on my part at all.

So as far as an electronic running companion I really can't think of anything more I could ask for. All functions I use are there and work well.

As for the other functions, the watch has all the "activity tracker" functions currently in fashion. If I sit at the computer too long it bugs me to get moving. It measures my steps and compares it to my daily goal. It made a graph of how much I moved while sleeping last night. I'm really not

into all that stuff, so I can't make a real judgement on those features. Also, I don't have any add-on sensors (foot pad, heart monitor, cadence sensor, etc.) so I can't comment on how well those work. Knowing Garmin's extensive experience with those I would expect them all to work well.

I also don't play golf, so I can't vouch for that function. But it does sound like a cool feature.

As a smartwatch I can only compare it to my Pebble. Both watches do a good job of alerting you to any incoming notifications on the phone, and I would say the Vivoactive displays more data on the notification screen. It uses its color display to some advantage with that too.

I set up Pandora as my default music choice, and I would say the Vivoactive controls it more reliably than my Pebble. My one complaint there is that I can't give a "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" from the Vivoactive but I can with Pebble. There also is no apparent way to use Endomondo on the Vivoactive, but the Garmin Connect site is very comparable (although I haven't looked into copying historical data between the two environments).

Presently the Garmin site does not have a lot of apps available, but then the phone really isn't officially out for a few more weeks, so maybe that will improve. I can't really say that I'm looking for any particular app anyway. The Pebble

has more apps available but few if any are of any use to me so I'm not sure how important any of that is. I see most of it as cute gimmicky stuff as in, "Hey, look what my watch can do!" so it's really not important to me.

The Vivoactive is noticeably thinner than the Pebble but slightly wider. Overall they are pretty similar in size, shape and feel while wearing. I have big wrists though, so either one might be too big for smaller wrists during daily wear. And I do expect to just wear the Vivoactive as my daily watch

as opposed to only putting it on for a run.

I don't have a good feel for battery life yet. The first full day I had it I spent about 2 hours in GPS mode and it drained the battery down from full charge to about 75% during that 24 hours. So I expect if you do a 2 hour run every day you would need to recharge every 3 days or so. The last 2 days I only used GPS for about an hour and that period drained the battery from full to about 70%. So with an hour run every other day you might get 6 days or so between charges. (The following sentence was corrected on 3/19/15:)The magnetic charging station works really well, but I much prefer the standard micro-USB port that's on my bluetooth earbuds. I have lots of phone chargers around the house that I can use with those, but if I lose the Vivoactive's charging station I'll be out of luck. In fact I should probably order a spare now.

UPDATE as of 3/19/15: I last charged the unit 3 days ago and have used the GPS for about 2 hours during that time. I'm showing 68% charge remaining. I'll see how long I can go between charges and update again in a few days.

My only slight disappointment with the Vivoactive is that I think the display is a bit low contrast in dim light. With the backlight, outdoors, and in the sun it's very easy to read (they probably optimized it for those most common situations), but indoors it seems a bit faded, and in fact I think the Pebble seems slightly better in that respect. (OK, I'm in my 60s, so younger eyes will likely do better.) But then this will mostly be used outside anyway, and the Pebble is black-and-white-only and lacks a touchscreen. The backlight works fine, although the Pebble's ability to "flick" to turn the backlight on is apparently missing from the Garmin. The Vivoactive touchscreen works really well and is a great feature. Swiping between data fields during a run is really helpful. Touching icons to get to the main apps is really convenient but as with any device this complex, finding the right settings screen for the feature you want takes a bit of experimentation. I've had this same experience with other Garmin GPS watches though, so if you're used to the Garmin settings menus this will seem familiar. Again, a lot of that is due to the extensive number of options and features.

I initially had a hard time getting the Garmin Connect app on my phone to connect to the Vivoactive. I finally realized that my Pebble app was trying to connect to the Pebble and this apparently interfered with Garmin Connect. Once I told my phone to stop connecting to the Pebble everything worked perfectly.

One important note: PLEASE don't buy any GPS watch that does not have a user-replaceable band! For me, these bands never last more than a year (usually breaking just after the warranty period) and I really object to manufacturers designing products that they know you will have to throw away in a year. Nike was nice enough to replace my unit last year a few weeks after the warranty period expired (my kudos to them on that score) but generally you're out of luck. I'm disgusted with makers for designing these products as "disposables". The only way to get them out of that habit is to STOP buying units that have to be thrown away after the band rots away. The Vivoactive seems to have a comfortable, standard and easily replaceable band. My thanks!

I hadn't expected to buy a Vivoactive until I saw some reviews by runners. But when the opportunity came up to buy one early I decided to take a chance. So far I have no regrets on that decision! I hope this helps some other active techno-geeks.

BATTERY LIFE UPDATE March 24, 2015: During the last week I let the battery go from 100% to 10% to see how long that took. I downloaded a battery meter widget, had all phone notifications turned on (generating dozens of alerts per day), had bluetooth on continuously and used the backlight as needed. Sleep tracking was turned on for 3 nights, and it also did at least one system update during that time.

It ended up hitting the 10% battery mark after 8 days and 6 hours. In that time I used the GPS for four runs totaling about 5 hours. Garmin claims 10 hours of GPS use or 21 days of non-GPS use and those specs were confirmed. Using the Garmin numbers my 5 hours of GPS thus should have used about 50% of the battery charge, and the 8-1/4 days should have used about 39% for a total of 89%.That's really close to my actual reading of 90%. So a full charge should easily last through walking a marathon, or doing a half-ironman. Without using the GPS it should make the rated 21 day mark. In "normal" usage (at least for me) I can expect to be charging once per week. That's really quite good in comparison to other watches out there with this much power. Still VERY happy with the watch.
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A LOT of Limitations
by Amber (3 out of 5 stars)
June 26, 2017

This watch does a lot of things, but you really can't use any of them at the same time, which kind of defeats the purpose. For example, the watch works as a GPS watch for running, and it also works as a remote control for your music, but you can't use both at the same time. What a complete waste!!!!!

I bought this to replace a 6 year old Garmin Forerunner that no longer holds a charge. As a GPS watch, this Vivoactive is a nice replacement, since it's close to the same price that I paid for the old watch that didn't do anything extra and took 3 minutes to find a GPS signal (the Vivoactive was only $10 more expensive at $120 and picks up a signal immediately). I have to keep reminding myself of that, since I seem to get angry every time I use the watch and realize that I can't really use any of the other features when I run.

Speaking of the music feature, I was really excited to find out that this watch acts as a remote control for your music. This solves my problem of having to hold my phone in my hand on a long run (or hike), or having to constantly pull it out of my waist pouch or yank off my arm band to change songs (or using my wireless headphones and accidentally pulling them out of my ear). I read that this feature worked well for Android phones but was limited on iPhones, only working for iTunes but not for apps like Spotify. I am happy to report that it DOES WORK FOR SPOTIFY!!!! on the iPhone. The biggest let down though, is that if you are using one of the fitness apps (like you are on a run, and have the run app going so you can see your time, distance and speed), you can't scroll out of the running screen to change your music (major fail- completely defeats the purpose for me).

In fact, you can't scroll out of the running app (or walking, biking, etc) to do ANYTHING else on the watch. You can't see what time it is, you can't change your music, you can't check your altitude. Nothing. You have to push stop on the app, which will then prompt you to save the data or delete the data, before you can go to another screen. If you do that, and then you want to start up the run app again, you're starting a whole new run.

There is also no hiking app on the watch. You have to use the "walking" app, which doesn't track your altitude on the screen (it will track it and give you a total altitude gain or loss in your results on the Garmin connect app, but it won't tell you what your specific elevation is at any given time). This sucks!!! I live in Colorado, we have lots of mountains and we hike them all the time. Sometimes you are going from 10,000 feet above sea level, to 14,000. It can take 4-7 hours, and with little to no trees, it is hard to gauge how far away the peak of the mountain is with no reference points. Having a watch with an altimeter is essential for gauging how far away you are and therefore how much longer you will be hiking and how to pace yourself. This vivoactive does have an App Store (it's called Garmin IQ store or something like that) and you can download an altimeter, BUT, like everything else on this watch, you can't use the walk app (to keep track of your time and mileage) and then scroll over to the altimeter, without cancelling your walk information, going to the altimeter app, and then starting the walk app all over again.

This watch was also hard to set up and not as intuitive as I thought it would be. After playing with it for a while I figured it out, but it did take me some time, and there are still some settings I used when the watch started up, that I haven't been able to find again. There are settings in the app, there are settings on the watch, there are settings on the watch that you have to change from the app, and settings for the watch that you can change on the watch itself...if you can remember which app the setting was under in the first place.

The watch does a lot of things and would be my absolute favorite thing, if only the features could all be used simultaneously. The fact that they can't, makes many of the features useless (I guess I can utilize the music feature when I mow the lawn). If I hadn't needed to replace my old GPS watch, this vivoactive would be getting returned.

Also, I tracked the price of the watch for 7 months, it stayed around $139 for the most part, but for a week or two went down to $132-$136, and for a few hours one day, it went to $120 (so I bought it asap). A few days later, I saw it go to $117, it only stayed that price for a few hours, and is now sitting at $127, and has been that price for about a week. So maybe the price is going down. I think this watch is worth about $75-$80. If the features all worked at the same time (and especially if they add a hiking app where I can see my speed, time and altitude on the same screen) I would pay $200 for this watch.

I'm keeping it, but I don't love it, and am a little resentful of it actually.
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Really like my Garmin Vivoactive watch
by scrivener (5 out of 5 stars)
August 23, 2018

I have had my Garmin Vivoactive watch for about a year, and I am still really liking it. It is not an AppleWatch. My wife has the AppleWatch 2.0. What the Garmin Vivoactive does not do that she commonly does is [1] answer texts from her watch, [2] answer the iPhone from her watch. The Vivoactive lets me see texts and see incoming calls and silence them, plus see alerts (weather, time to leave, Arlo security camera) and notifications from my iPhone. It integrates quite well with my iPhone via the Garmin Connect app, especially to show my daily activities. It counts my daily steps and calories without any effort, and sends "move" reminders (sometimes I resent these, such as when I have just finished swimming). I primarily bought it to count my lengths in the pool (you set the pool length in setup - mine is 25 yds). I did not buy the HR (heart rate monitor) model because HR monitor does not work well in water. I would probably buy the HR model next time because I also find myself using it for outdoor walks (although it seems to do an amazing job of estimating calories even without the HR monitor). I use a third party app for lake kayaking (drains the battery fast while using GPS). I can get up to a week per charge if I don't use the kayaking app. It also has built-in apps for indoor and outdoor walking, running and biking. I use a third party widget for my watch face (Time Flies - an analog display) and for weather (Big Weather). These are available through the Connect (app) IQ store. Those I use are free, as is the Kayaking app. I have used SuperShields tempered glass lens protectors from the beginning. I have chipped five of them in a year. They usually chip along the edge, from pressing on the tile in the hot pool after swimming, or while working in a tight space with cinder block, etc. I buy them by the three-pack, and will continue to use them because I want to protect my Vivoactive lens. My wife has scratched her sapphire AppleWatch lens in the same time-frame. There are many models of Garmin watches, so be careful to read the specifications to get the functionality you need at the best price.
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Promising start, but Garmin quality (or lack thereof) killed it in the end
by Nick (1 out of 5 stars)
April 3, 2017

I really liked this fitness watch when I purchased it, but it didn't even last a year before it inexplicably died one morning.

It simply shut itself off, and refused to power back on.

I tried all of the tips and tricks recommended by Garmin Support and other users, but it was simply dead with no discernible cause.

I really did like this watch, but for what I paid for it, to have it not even last a year...that was simply unacceptable.

And, yes, I did try to go through Garmin for warranty support, and the best they could offer me was a refurbished unit, with a 3 - 4 week turn-around, or I could pay $200 up front as a deposit to have them send me a refurbished unit with a 1 - 2 week turn-around.

Again, for what I paid originally, this was simply not worth it.

This is my second Garmin fitness device to die an unexplained death or quality-control hardware failure (the other device being a Garmin vivoactive 1st gen that suffered the well-known screen failure).

I think I'm done with Garmin products from now on.
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Great Product, Beware of Scam Garmin Website when downloading from Garmin Express
by MMPdel rio (5 out of 5 stars)
June 28, 2017

The watch is great. It is a little dim inside but very to easy to read in the sun. No issues with the product however it was not real easy to set up. Takes some computer skills and a little time. I was unable to load watch faces until I downloaded the newest firmware. I went to Garmin Express via Google. I clicked on the first Google listing and Garmin Express opened. I have other Garmin products and am familiar with their website. I started the download on my Mac and got an error message stating unable to download drivers corrupt Call 1-800 whatever. I went to another windows machine and got the same pop up, should have been my first clue something was amiss. Called the number and they answered on the first ring, second clue something was wrong. Long story short it was a scam site and not the real Garmin site. Believing that they were Garmin I gave them access to my computer, dumb, dumb, dumb. They said I had all kind of issues and they could fix it for $ 500.00. Brain finally kicked in and I disconnected but not until they had loaded two programs and who knows how much malware. Still trying to clean it all up. Make sure you are on the real Garmin site. Once I got on the real Garmin site I downloaded the firmware in a minute and everything works great. Love the golf app.
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Great price and great performance!
by MB (5 out of 5 stars)
June 26, 2017

This is my third fitness watch and so far the best one.

Pros:

East to read display along with other downloadable applications for different watch faces.

Waterproof! Waterproof! Waterproof!

Only watch that can actually record my laps accurately in the pool.

Very functional with my Iphone - can read texts and also answer or decline incoming cell calls.

Great for finding your iphone if you misplace it.

Charging base is magnetic and I can literally place the watch in the charging dock in the dark when going to bed.

Battery life is excellent. Only need to charge it once or twice a week depending on usage.

GPS is very accurate when tested against my bike computer and my other GPS devices.

You can also pair other devices with the watch such as the Garmin heart rate monitor.

Cons:

Takes awhile to master all the functions. Directions not very clear. A lot of trial and error involved.

Watch face is larger than the I-watch which makes it look big on my skinny wrist.
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disappointed in the quality. Broke after 2 months.
by Jr's (3 out of 5 stars)
October 24, 2017

Well, this watch replaced my old Garmin Swim watch and it was a bit of a disappointment as a swim watch. I used it to also track my sleep, an occasional treadmill workout and my steps (which I was sorely underestimating). It works great as a step counter and sleep tracker. Super interesting to see how my sleep patterns looked.

But since it's a $120 watch, I wanted it to help me with my daily swimming workouts. This is where is gets problematic. The swim function on this watch does work, but it glitches if you stop and adjust anything, adding an extra 25 (or length) onto your total. It also has NO drill function, which is annoying. The Garmin swim watch had a drill timer where you could enter yards. So this watch basically thinks I am doing nothing for the 10-15 minutes of kicking drills I do. I have to go in and manually enter it every time.

It's a huge watch. Like it weighs on my wrist and sticks to my wrist during sleep. It has a lot of drag in the pool. I wish there was an option for a smaller face, its just giant for a watch to wear all day. Especially for a woman, this watch is unisex - which means it's tested and made for a man's wrist. I am an average size woman and I found it to be bulky for daily wear.

The screen is very hard to see, as others have mentioned. Through foggy goggles in a pool, almost impossible.

Finally, it stopped working on me after just 2 months! One day it froze and would not respond. So I charged it up and tested it. Then mid workout the next day, it just went black. Never turned back on. Garmin replaced it but I had to ship it back and wait for that process. My guess is that it doesn't like the water, even though it's supposed to be water resistant. I swim laps in a pool, not the ocean or a river. No diving or going deep down. It did perform like promised for swimming workouts. Still looking for a perfect swim watch!
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Solid overall with room to improve.
by DLHin (4 out of 5 stars)
December 18, 2015

Overall this is a great product. Here is my pros and cons list.

Pros:

Battery life: This is great overall. If you don't use the GPS, it will easily last 2-3 weeks. If you use GPS, expect to use 10% battery per 1 hour of GPS use. Still solid overall battery life.

Charging: Charging is very fast and the charger is magnetic for easy connection

Band: The band is plain but very comfortable to wear all day.

Easy to use: The software is easy to use and has minimal touch delay.

Clock: I love the clock. I have had other smart watches that only show the time when you turn your wrist, which doesn't work very well. The Garmin always shows the time and it is easy to read.

GPS: I have used the GPS for running and golf. It works wonderful for both. You can download golf courses to the app and to the watch. It will give you hole by hold distances and even has a score card for you to keep score on.

Step counter: I use this daily and was part of the reason that I went with this model.

Notifications: Good vibration strength on the wrist. Will let you read text and app notification, calendar alerts, and email alerts.

Cons:

Blue Tooth Connection: This is my biggest gripe with the product. It likes to disconnect from my phone frequently when I am right next to my phone. If you get too far away from the phone it will disconnect, which makes sense. But the disconnection while I am literally inches away from the phone is annoying.

Step Counter: Over all this is a pro not a con. The only con is that is tracks very differently than the fitbit which is what I was use to. This will not track any steps until you take 10 steps in a row. This helps eliminate getting steps counted for normal arm movement at a desk or during daily movement but doesn't count steps if you only take 2-3 and stop.

Notifications: Again, more of a pro than a con. This makes my con list since I had a samsung gear 2 which allowed you to take calls from the watch. This is something that I thought I would never use but came in hand on many occasions, such as talking on the watch while cooking. Hopefully this is something that they will add in the 2nd gen model.

Overall:

This is a product worth buying especially with the declining price. I got it for $209 in July/August 2015 and I have seen it on sale at Dicks Sporting Goods for $169 recently (12/17/15). For that price, you can't go wrong if you want a watch with GPS/Notifications/Activity tracking.
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Why not 5 stars
by Sticky (4 out of 5 stars)
December 19, 2017

I have had this over a year. It was purchased right when I found out Pebble was sold to Fitbit. This thing is light, has excellent battery life(2weeks), easy to read in sunlight, and has an ok app. Right after I bought this I received the Tag Connected as a gift. Cool watch but I find myself always coming back to my Garmin. I swim with this, walk, and cycle. All my stats are in one place and easy to find. With any other smartwatch you might need another app or two to get the functionality.

Just know that this is not a smartwatch, but a fitness watch with smarts. You can see incoming messages, control music, and take a call on your phone. The last is helpful if you user speakerphone alot. The screen resolution could be better but take it into the sun. You can see it! For the price this cannot be beat and I have already placed an order for the vivoactive 3. Why is this review 4 stars? The square body and Android like capacitive buttons are kinda dumb from a design standpoint.

Other than that this thing will last and make you happy if you want an all purpose tracker on the cheap. Enjoy...
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Had it for 3 months; very happy. Highly recommend!
by Donna G. (5 out of 5 stars)
January 19, 2016

I do love this fitness watch. I did about 10 times the research I would typically do on a product because I had some specific things that I wanted if I was going to buy any kind of fitness tracker. The deciding factor for me was the separate cycling tracker. I love having the data on every outdoor ride and have found the distance tracking to match exactly my bike computer. The map, break down of speed over particular stretches and comparative 5 mile intervals, and elevation gain/loss are great data points to have. Same for outdoor walking. I don't golf, so can't speak to that and don't swim very often, so haven't tried that out either. The gps turns on automatically when I activate the outdoor program for either cycling or walking; have had no problems with that.

Sleeping: I like the sleep information. I thought since I haven't worn a watch in years it might annoy me to wear it at night, but it doesn't. I've had the watch for about 3 months and wear it every night. I don't tell it when I'm going to sleep, but have programmed in that my typical sleep hours as 10:30-6:00. It seems adequately intuitive unless I read in bed for a while and then to sleep without getting up and moving around again. It will record the bedtime as when I started reading. It's easy to edit though, so no problem.

Indoor cycling/walking: it does a really good job tracking steps on a treadmill just like it would anywhere else, but the distance is always about 30-40% lower than the distance shown on the treadmill. Not sure what that's about. It doesn't translate indoor cycling (or outdoor) into steps in any logical way. Cycling will add steps, but it seems random? (If I ride 20 miles outdoors, I'll end up with about 2000 steps; haven't done a spin class yet with it.) The elliptical confuses it; it counts about 10% of the revolutions as steps. The indoor functions are mainly helpful to record the time that you spend either riding, running, or walking in the gym; won't give you other data.

Battery: like other reviewers, the 3 week advertised battery life is more than I get, but even with some gps use riding and walking, I get at least a week. I charge it when I'm going to be sitting for a while so I don't miss much in terms of recording steps. I haven't actually timed it, but seems like it fully charges from 15% to 100% in 2-3 hours.

The watchface did seem a little dim at first and I was really worried about that, but I adjusted to it quickly and the backlight button is plenty of light when I want to see it in the dark.

Twice, it wouldn't sync right away...I have no idea why... but was fine a couple of hours later. Make sure to periodically check for updates.

I would recommend putting in your own stride length; it will calculate this for you when you input number of steps in a particular distance. It makes for a more accurate step count. Otherwise, it estimates based on height, which I'm sure is close to accurate, but I have a long trunk and short legs, so I thought I might be taking more steps than it was recording and that did seem to be the case once I put in my specific stride information.

The choice a cyclist has to make if trying to stay in the $200-$250 price range is whether to go with a separate cycling tracking feature like the Vivoactive or a tracker with a built in heart rate monitor. I could not find a watch/tracker in this range that had both. The Vivoactive will pair with a heart rate monitor that you wear separately, but doesn't have one that's built in. I prefer to train using PRE and really wanted the separate cycling tracker, so the Vivoactive was a no brainer for me.

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