Garmin Vivoactive 3 - Black / Slate

I use the vivoactive primarily for tracking distance and speed for running but also will strap it on to get a rough idea of calories burned during workouts.The watch itself looks good. You could wear it casually without looking weird. Lots of different options for the display. Strap is durable but you may see the holes in the band wear.The run tracker works excellently. Distance is pretty accurate. Speed is typically pretty good but not perfect. Heart rate is where it falls short. It can be all over the place. Ive been gasping for breath and sweating like a pig but its telling me that my heart rate is relaxed at a rate of a slow walk. I hear this is pretty common for wrist based trackers though and, if you want more accuracy, you need the chest monitor. It also has ... MoreI use the vivoactive primarily for tracking distance and speed for running but also will strap it on to get a rough idea of calories burned during workouts.The watch itself looks good. You could wear it casually without looking weird. Lots of different options for the display. Strap is durable but you may see the holes in the band wear.The run tracker works excellently. Distance is pretty accurate. Speed is typically pretty good but not perfect. Heart rate is where it falls short. It can be all over the place. Ive been gasping for breath and sweating like a pig but its telling me that my heart rate is relaxed at a rate of a slow walk. I hear this is pretty common for wrist based trackers though and, if you want more accuracy, you need the chest monitor. It also has different modes for different activities. I havent tried swimming but guessing it would work fine. It does have a weightlifting mode that is supposed to help track reps but its completely useless. Battery life is good but, if youre just using it for exercise, turn it off when you take it off. Left on consistently, youd likely need to charge nightly. If youre looking for a good run tracker with some smart watch functionality, you wont be disappointed.

Best All In One Watch On The Market!

Buy this watch if you live an active lifestyle or want to. Buy this watch if you want one device that does everything and you can also wear to the office. Buy this watch if you like the right amount of information - not too much (i.e. don't need stride length when running) and not too little (i.e. simple pedometer). As a 4 sport high school athlete (hockey, golf, cross country running, and football) and 2 sports in college (D1 hockey and D2 golf), I used to have a Garmin Vivoactive HR that I loved for my all purpose lifestyle which today includes running, walking, gym, pool, hockey, and especially golf. [BTW - Dont play hockey with any watch on] After 3+ years it died in the pool as the fittings wore out and seeped in water. It was still a great investment for how ... MoreBuy this watch if you live an active lifestyle or want to. Buy this watch if you want one device that does everything and you can also wear to the office. Buy this watch if you like the right amount of information - not too much (i.e. don't need stride length when running) and not too little (i.e. simple pedometer). As a 4 sport high school athlete (hockey, golf, cross country running, and football) and 2 sports in college (D1 hockey and D2 golf), I used to have a Garmin Vivoactive HR that I loved for my all purpose lifestyle which today includes running, walking, gym, pool, hockey, and especially golf. [BTW - Dont play hockey with any watch on] After 3+ years it died in the pool as the fittings wore out and seeped in water. It was still a great investment for how hard I ran it... Replacement time - I looked and looked and couldn't find a watch that did everything the Vivoactive HR did unless I was ok paying over $600. With 2 young kids in daycare that wasn't in my budget... I kept researching and found the Garmin Approach S60 and loved the golf features (probably too many features) but wanted to have a heart rate monitor and more fitness options. I liked a lot of other fitness trackers but they didn't have golf, so there is the see saw battle. I finally landed on the Vivoactive 3 after reading the fine print - IT HAS GOLF but Garmin wasnt advertising that for some reason. They are hyper focused on Garmin Pay, which I have yet to try. To me, it's a head scratcher why they don't advertise the golf capabilities on this watch. GOLF FEATURES - total yardage of the hole from the tee, yardages to front, middle, back of greens & hazards and you can manually adjust the pin location to get a more accurate yardage to the stick when zooming in on the green view, which is the actual shape of the green. You can keep score on it and I haven't used the club tracking feature simply because I already know how far I carry each club, but I've heard other people love that feature. To be honest, you can get over analytical when golfing and only actually need front, middle, and back yardages and this watch will help your pace of play because that info is right on the watch. The rest of the game is adjusting for current conditions, nerves, and between your ears, which no electronics will handle for you.ADDITIONAL POSITIVES: A ton of activities you can track making this a very versatile watch. Garmin Connect pairs extremely well with the Under Armour MyFitnessPal app and with the health app through my employer giving me the ability of earning $780 in "wellness dollars" toward next year's medical costs simply by having the watch paired up. FYI - My coworkers without a fitness watch have to log in and manually enter data.POTENTIAL DRAWBACKS: I've read that Garmin Pay is not accepted in a lot of places and you have to download each golf course manually on the Garmin Connect app, which is not a problem if you're a person who prepares, but worth noting.In conclusion, this watch does everything the Vivoactive HR does plus more, is faster, lighter, more comfortable, and looks better! With the Scheel's Guarantee it's a no brainer.

Garmin Vivoactive 3

I was sent the stainless steel version instead of the black slate. That is my only criticism of the service. It still looks good. The pace seems inaccurate at the beginning of a run but is great as your run goes on. However, with that said, I still love the watch and am getting used to it. It does so much more than my old fitbit charge 2. Being able to see the watch in sunlight is a blessing. I have not had a chance to try everything yet but it appears to be the real deal.

Great value and performance!

I have a Samsung Gear S2, which is a pretty old model. I was looking for something waterproof that I could use to record my spin class and workout and upload to Strava. I am very pleased with the performance and value of this product. First time owner of anything Garmin. It provides much more than I was expecting like great battery life, excellent sleep tracking, easy linking with my phone, Wahoo Kicker, and even my Lezyne GPS unit on my bike for HR tracking. I'm comparing accuracy with my chest strap in hopes I can just use the watch. Very pleased! Seller was excellent too. Delivered ahead of schedule, well packaged, and as promised.

Greg's review of Garmin Vivoactive 3

Pros: Nice and straightforward.Cons: Watch seems unable to read HR with any accuracy around the 3-5 to 10-15 minute region of a workout other than running or cycling. It just drops to below 100 or even 80 for no apparent reason.This is reported elsewhere (once you dig deeper) and would appear to be a software algorithm issue as the HR is pretty good at other times, even tracing HIIT intensity reasonably well (except as described above).The watch also seems to take it's eye off the ball during a run with the pace occasionally rising up 25% or more. This is very strange as it's not GPS wander as the plot is very accurate afterwards. If the pace error happens at the end of the run, the run has to be extended to make up the distance as the watch is simply not doing the ... MorePros: Nice and straightforward.Cons: Watch seems unable to read HR with any accuracy around the 3-5 to 10-15 minute region of a workout other than running or cycling. It just drops to below 100 or even 80 for no apparent reason.This is reported elsewhere (once you dig deeper) and would appear to be a software algorithm issue as the HR is pretty good at other times, even tracing HIIT intensity reasonably well (except as described above).The watch also seems to take it's eye off the ball during a run with the pace occasionally rising up 25% or more. This is very strange as it's not GPS wander as the plot is very accurate afterwards. If the pace error happens at the end of the run, the run has to be extended to make up the distance as the watch is simply not doing the maths correctly despite plotting GPS position correctly. If it happens mid run, the overall calculation seems to be unaffected, it just occasionally takes a break from doing it's job properly. Perhaps some dodgy algorithm yet again.Third issue is equally as bad as the others although not a fault like the others are - the locking system.Why oh why can't the long press on the watch face be disabled? The only option is to lock the watch completely to stop all sorts of things happening rather than just locking the long press. Locking the watch leaves a big icon in the middle of the screen so having a sleeve when running or biking in the winter can cause very undesirable behaviour.So two faults that may or may not be in every Vivoactive 3 and one design error that definitely is.Otherwise everything else pretty good.....

High Hopes Met with Deep Disappointment

The field of fitness trackers, especially those incorporating elements of smartwatches (or even smartwatches that incorporate elements of fitness trackers) is extremely crowded these days, with Apple Watch arguably sitting at the top. So, when other devices cost almost as much, they really need to perform at least as well, especially since they don't generally carry the styling and overall cache that comes with the Apple brand.That said, considering a first-gen Apple Watch can be had for less than the Garmin Vivoactive 3, a 2nd-gen Apple Watch can be had for about the same price, and a 3rd-gen can be had for just a few dollars more, I had great expectations for the Vivoactive 3.Reality, though, was so far below those expectations that I felt nothing short of let ... MoreThe field of fitness trackers, especially those incorporating elements of smartwatches (or even smartwatches that incorporate elements of fitness trackers) is extremely crowded these days, with Apple Watch arguably sitting at the top. So, when other devices cost almost as much, they really need to perform at least as well, especially since they don't generally carry the styling and overall cache that comes with the Apple brand.That said, considering a first-gen Apple Watch can be had for less than the Garmin Vivoactive 3, a 2nd-gen Apple Watch can be had for about the same price, and a 3rd-gen can be had for just a few dollars more, I had great expectations for the Vivoactive 3.Reality, though, was so far below those expectations that I felt nothing short of let down and even a bit betrayed by Garmin.First, the marketing images you see of the watch make it look bright, vibrant and even high-resolution. However, the display, once the backlight is turned on, has very muted colors, with a purplish tint to the light that makes things look like a cheap color graphing calculator, with just about the same kind of choppy resolution. It actually looks better without the backlight on, though this requires bright sunlight to see it well enough to be worth trying to use it.Second, its responsiveness, especially when using some downloaded watch faces, is sluggish, at best. The stock watch faces don't display enough data points to prevent the need to scroll through multiple screens to see the various bits of into such as steps, heart rate, battery life, etc., so you will have to download these aftermarket watch faces to get these capabilities. Throw in the fact that setting up the various watch faces can be cantankerous, at best, and it becomes a chore even for someone like me who loves gadgetry and has no problems learning how to operate new devices and their accompanying software. Many users will likely struggle to sort out all the fussy settings for these custom watch faces to get them set up the way they want them.Third, its sleep tracking is laughably inaccurate, to the point of being basically useless. I don't know if it's a software issue, hardware shortcoming, or both, but on any given night, it would show me having been asleep for about 1.5 to 2 hours, when I was in fact asleep from 4 to 8 hours, with very little tossing and turning. While I want to say this makes the feature a nonstarter, it would need to actually come close to doing what it's intended to to be called a feature. As it is, I can only call it a flaw, and it's a big one, considering Fitbits cost so much less while doing so much better.While we're at it, I have to say that I have a Garmin Edge 520 GPS cycling computer, and I use it with a chest strap heart rate monitor, and it has always worked very well for recording my heart rate during rides. And, while I could also sync that strap to the Vivoactive 3 for more accurate monitoring, considering the Vivoactive costs about $300 MSRP, its built-in wrist monitor should do a better job than it does. It flies all over the place, often even showing my heart rate at over 170bpm when I was simply strolling around a store or at work. My heart rate never gets that high even when peddling my bike at a steady 16-20mph. I'm sure its overall daily average is probably very close to reality, but for workouts, it's just too all over the place for my liking to get a good sense of how much I was exerting myself during any given portion of them.Throw in the fact that the Vivoactive doesn't come with the ability to store music directly on the device for playback, and it becomes even harder to justify its price over the Fitbit Ionic, which costs the same, but comes with a phenomenally better display, better sleep and heart rate tracking, and built-in memory for song storage and playback. And, again, for just a few dollars more, you can get the Apple Watch 3, which does all of this and more. And, to be sure, I'm not an Apple fanboi, as I much prefer PCs, but good tech is good tech, no matter how you slice it, and the Vivoactive just doesn't quite cut it, especially at its MSRP.If I were to venture a guess as to what its price is without knowing ahead of time but after spending some time with it, I would have pegged it for about a $150-$175 device, $200 at most. I can't help thinking the cost to manufacture it would allow it to be sold at that price point for still a tidy profit, but it seems Garmin has decided to slap a $300 MSRP on it just to see if people will bite. I strongly recommend against it, so much so that I even returned mine despite getting it on sale for considerably less and even using Best Buy reward points to knock it down even more.I give it 2 starts for turning on and working great as a watch, but I cannot give it any more than this, since more stars would require it to perform much more in line with its price, which I wholeheartedly feel it fails to do.And while the styling of the Vivoactive 3 might coordinate better with different outfits, be they suits or shorts or anything in between, the Fitbit Ionic or even the Apple Watch 3 seem to be much better buys for all they have over this offering from Garmin.I have long liked Garmin's products, especially their cycling computers, and I had hoped this watch would work out so that I could use Garmin Connect for all my fitness tracking gear, since it really is a great app (though it needs the ability to track one's caloric intake and such, too, like Fitbit's app has), but when you just can't trust the data that's being sent to it from the device, and using the device itself feels like more of a chore than a joy, it becomes all but impossible to recommend it.I would recommend it at the $150-$175 price point, but that's about the only way I could see it being worth taking the plunge for one over the competition.

Okay for walking and biking, not for floor climb.

Actually bought this watch twice. Returned (28 days) the first one after problems with it not always counting floors climbed accurately or sometimes not at all. It had also went down in price $20 during that 28 days. Tried different watch and did not like it at all. Second Vivoactive 3 has basically performed like the first one for the last 24 days. I bought the watch for three activities, walk outside, bike outside and floor climb. Watch performs well for the walking and biking, miles recorded are with in plus or minus 1.5% and the same to actual. Recorded the same floor climb (16) times, average shown was 21.5, low 17, high 25, variance 37%. Does not include the last climb today that recorded zero! This problem (not recording at all) happened often on the first ... MoreActually bought this watch twice. Returned (28 days) the first one after problems with it not always counting floors climbed accurately or sometimes not at all. It had also went down in price $20 during that 28 days. Tried different watch and did not like it at all. Second Vivoactive 3 has basically performed like the first one for the last 24 days. I bought the watch for three activities, walk outside, bike outside and floor climb. Watch performs well for the walking and biking, miles recorded are with in plus or minus 1.5% and the same to actual. Recorded the same floor climb (16) times, average shown was 21.5, low 17, high 25, variance 37%. Does not include the last climb today that recorded zero! This problem (not recording at all) happened often on the first watch purchased. Would have to turn watch on and off, sometime more than once to get it to work. Also noted intensity minutes are often off, heart rate appears more or less accurate most of the time, but not all the time. Did not check elevation accuracy on second watch. Spent two weeks at the ocean with first watch and it recorded sea level from minus 15 feet to plus 120 feet. Only showing zero to ten feet about 10% of the time. Battery appears to function per stated, however twice had it lose 30% of the charge over night when turned off!?

Poor Design and keeps resetting to default face

I bought this after the case on my original Vivoactive HR broke. The problem with this device is that the button on the side will keep causing the device to reset the watch face back to the default and then you cannot without uninstalling and re-installing the watch face get back to your chosen watch face. You can lock it but somehow every night it will reset back to the default watch face during the night. I've rotated the watch and still have the same issue and I'm not changing how I sleep to accommodate a poorly designed twitchy watch. The watch face also does not show up in my list of watch faces on the device, its like over night its gone into the great abyss!The GPS on it also has been quite temperamental in when it can correctly receive signal versus my ... MoreI bought this after the case on my original Vivoactive HR broke. The problem with this device is that the button on the side will keep causing the device to reset the watch face back to the default and then you cannot without uninstalling and re-installing the watch face get back to your chosen watch face. You can lock it but somehow every night it will reset back to the default watch face during the night. I've rotated the watch and still have the same issue and I'm not changing how I sleep to accommodate a poorly designed twitchy watch. The watch face also does not show up in my list of watch faces on the device, its like over night its gone into the great abyss!The GPS on it also has been quite temperamental in when it can correctly receive signal versus my original Vivoactive HR. In order to correct this you must wander out into a open field, sorry Mr Farmer, but my watch needs to get a clear and unobstructed satellite connection so I need to stand in your field for about 3-5 minutes while awaiting it to connect. I usually throw on a straw hat and a plaid flannel shirt so I can scare away any scarecrows lurking around.The battery varies between lasting 2 days or up to its 5 days estimate, mostly this depends on if it magically unlocked itself overnight and started doing all kinds of stuff while I was sleeping. Usually it will start its 30minute timer or it will vibrate every second which is an especially good treat having that go off.Having it locked also prohibits you being able to dismiss easily any notifications that come through. If they gave us the ability to lock just the side button, which is poorly placed, and allow us to keep the touch screen unlocked that would be a better solution.If you have a watch face that displays the temperature, rest assured it is your body temperature not the outside weather temperature which would be more useful and used more often than your body temperature which you would only care about 5% of the time and that is mostly when you are doing a hard workout.

Returned Versa and got this - here's why

I returned the Fitbit Versa and got this Vivoactive 3 because:The Fitbit counts steps arbitrarily whenever you're in a moving vehicle over a surface that's not perfectly even, i.e. a car over a moderately bumpy road, a truck, a golf cart, or a motorcycle. While all trackers do that do some extent, despite years of complaints on their forums, Fitbit refuses to resolve the issue on the device itself. Their 'solution' requires users to manually track the incorrectly tracked data and then edit it on their data page on the Fitbit website. In other words, you get to write down all the steps your Fitbit Versa miscounts while driving and then waste hours of your life correcting that data manually after the fact. Alternatively, you can manually shut your Fitbit down while ... MoreI returned the Fitbit Versa and got this Vivoactive 3 because:The Fitbit counts steps arbitrarily whenever you're in a moving vehicle over a surface that's not perfectly even, i.e. a car over a moderately bumpy road, a truck, a golf cart, or a motorcycle. While all trackers do that do some extent, despite years of complaints on their forums, Fitbit refuses to resolve the issue on the device itself. Their 'solution' requires users to manually track the incorrectly tracked data and then edit it on their data page on the Fitbit website. In other words, you get to write down all the steps your Fitbit Versa miscounts while driving and then waste hours of your life correcting that data manually after the fact. Alternatively, you can manually shut your Fitbit down while you drive or ride, in which case you don't have a watch or HR monitor. Conversely, the Vivoactive 3's activity tracker is far superior at distinguising actual steps from vehicle-induced motion, and it has a setting to suspend the fitness tracking while leaving the watch and HR monitor on.Other positives to this product:1) the watch body has a round shape and lies flat against the wrist, so it rarely catches on long-sleeved garments while dressing. The Versa has a rounded rectangular shape that caught on the sleeve everytime I put on a shirt or jacket. How annoying is that?2) The Vivoactive 3 is always-on by default. The Versa display shuts off by default, so you have to quickly and jerkily rotate your wrist to see it, and that doesn't always work, either.3) All the fonts on the Vivoactive are large enough to read. The Versa's fonts for everything except the watch funciton are so tiny that unless you are extremely nearsighted you can't read anything but the time. You can install custom watch faces but finding one that shows the activity and HR data in a large font is a chore.4) The Vivoactive 3 display stays on during workouts and you can switch between clock faces that show large-font workout stats easily. The Fitbit display constantly shuts off unless you install a Fitbit 'app' that will stay on while you work out, but then you have to scroll through screens of apps to get to one you want, and switching between them is impossible if you're moving because the icons are so ridiculously small.5) The Vivoactive 3 wrist band stretches to conform to your wrist. The Versa wristband doesn't stretch, so it was too tight or too loose, and was very uncomfortable on my wrist.6) Vivoactive 3 has onboard GPS. To get GPS on a Versa, you have to tether it to your smart phone.Bottom line: The Vivoactive 3 is a far superior product to its closest Fitbit competitor, the Versa. If there were no alternative to the Versa, I'd have returned it and done without any fitness tracking smart watch. But, instead I returned it and purchased this Garmin Vivoactive 3 which in addition to all its superior features also looks better, IMO.I understand the Versa 2 still has the same issues with the poor step tracking and lack of tracking-suspend function and many of the other Versa weakness still apply. In closing -- there's a lot of hype surrounding Fitbit. Do your research before you make your product choice. The Vivoactive 3 was on sale for $119 here when I got it last week. But even at the current price, it's a better buy than it's Fitbit alternative because it's just that much better a product.

So far, very good

I bought this watch mostly for two purposes: to track heart rate during cycling workouts and for the golf application. A cycling friend has had this watch for several years and had no problems, so his endorsement helped in the decision as well.I had previously looked at golf specific devices but learned that this watch, along with the companion phone app, can do more than I expected. You can download the owners manual from Garmin to see what all it does. I haven't actually used it for gold yet given the weather in Pennsylvania in December and January.Tracking workouts is great. I have been using the Map My Ride app to track workouts (bike rides, hikes, indoor cycling) for several years. I easily set up MMR and this watch so that my outdoor workouts automatically ... MoreI bought this watch mostly for two purposes: to track heart rate during cycling workouts and for the golf application. A cycling friend has had this watch for several years and had no problems, so his endorsement helped in the decision as well.I had previously looked at golf specific devices but learned that this watch, along with the companion phone app, can do more than I expected. You can download the owners manual from Garmin to see what all it does. I haven't actually used it for gold yet given the weather in Pennsylvania in December and January.Tracking workouts is great. I have been using the Map My Ride app to track workouts (bike rides, hikes, indoor cycling) for several years. I easily set up MMR and this watch so that my outdoor workouts automatically go to MMR. Those records include route maps, HR throughout the workout, max HR, and average HR. All I need to do is press the button on the right side of the watch, pick the workout type on the touch screen, and press the button again to start. At the end of the workout I press the button again to end (or pause), choose "done," then "save." The workout will appear on the Garmin app and MMR within minutes. The Garmin app gives even more data on your workout in a user-friendly format.For indoor cycling, the watch detected both an off-brand speed sensor on the bike and when I recently bought a smart trainer (Saris Cycleops M2), it detected it too. In addition to keeping a record of the workout, I use it to check my HR throughout -- it has several display options to scroll through.Of course the other smartwatch features are great too. I like being able to customize the face, get text and email notifications (you can choose what apps push notifications to the watch), etc. Sleep tracking is interesting, but I'm not sure how reliable it is. There are definitely times when it misses me waking at 3 am, but there's only so much you can expect from a device you wear on your wrist.