The jack-of-all-trades smartwatch, the Garmin Vivoactive HR is designed to follow your every move no matter what sport or activity you are into. By bringing several different modes from other Garmin smartwatch collections into one place, they have created the ultimate all-rounder sports smartwatch that will take you straight from the office to go swimming, running, golfing, cycling, rowing or skiing.
The Garmin Vivoactive HR smartwatch seems to be the perfect piece of equipment for someone who wants to keep their work life and play time at a balance. The built-in sport apps track your stats and keep your active even when you are away from your phone while the handy smart notifications keep you connected to the outside world no matter where you are or what you’re doing.
Fitted with GPS function, the Garmin Vivoactive HR smartwatch is perfect for those like that to hit the pavement and go running. The GPS allows you to monitor essential running data such as speed and pace while the built-in accelerometer and wrist-based speed and cadence trackers remove the need for a separate foot pod when running on an indoor track or treadmill. You can also sync your smartphone to the watch and the Garmin Connect Mobile app to track your progress and see post-run summaries, calories burned and personal records.
All the fantastic smartwatch functions used for running continue to cater for those that prefer to hit the road on a bike. The GPS data will give you all you need to know about your speed and distance, and you can continue to monitor your progress through the app. Serious cyclists will also be happy to know that the Garmin Vivoactive HR smartwatch will pair with Garmin’s range of bike sensors including the Bike Speed Sensor and Cadence Sensor which effortlessly attaches to your bike and monitors your pedalling cadence and speed which then is automatically synced to both your smartwatch and smartphone.
With a water resistance of 50 metres, the Garmin Vivoactive HR smartwatch is great for those who like to get their heart racing by doing laps around the pool. The Auto Length function is all you need to monitor your interval distance, number of laps, calories burned, length pace and stroke count. The swimming app also automatically calculates your swimming efficiency with a piece of technology called SWOLF which adds the time and number of strokes it takes to swim a pool length. All of this information is then automatically synced to your Garmin Connect Mobile app where you can monitor your progress and beat your own high score.
Last but certainly not least, the Garmin Vivoactive HR smartwatch is designed for those that like to take things a bit slower and enjoy the peace and quiet of a golf green. With up to 40,000 golf courses available to download to your smartphone, you can feel confident knowing all your golfing maps are up to date and hole numbers and pars are tallied. The GPS function also monitors layup and dogleg distances as well as yardage to the front, middle or back of the green. The golfing app on the Garmin Vivoactive HR smartwatch is also equipped to measure shot distance and calculates the exact yardage for shots anywhere on the course while the handy digital score card tracks your progress.
There are also a huge range of smart notifications included with the Garmin Vivoactive HR including social media notifications from platforms like Facebook and Twitter and email notifications which handily display both the sender and subject line. The Vivoactive gently vibrates to alert you of all these notifications as well as displaying any calls, texts or calendar notifications that come through to your compatible Bluetooth-enabled smartphone. We also love the fact that they have included their music function in this smartwatch which lets you control the music you listen to as you workout.
It’s difficult to find any fault with the Garmin Vivoactive HR smartwatch since it not only comes fully equipped to take on almost any activity, but the design is perfect. The thin case measures to only 13.5mm thick so it moulds effortlessly to the wrist without feeling bulky or in the way while the high-resolution touch screen has been designed to be readable in any light. We are also highly impressed with the long battery life of the Garmin Vivoactive HR smartwatch which lasts up to 8 days in activity tracking mode and 13 hours with GPS enabled.
For more information on the Garmin Vivoactive HR smartwatch and the Garmin Vivoactive smartwatch range, click here.
Specifications: Garmin Vivoactive HR Smartwatch (010-01605-00)
- Case Size:2 x 57.0 x 13.5 mm
- Case Material: Black polymer
- Lens: Chemically strengthened glass
- Battery Life: Up to 8 days in smartwatch mode
- Water Resistance: 50 metres
- Clock Features: Time, Date, GPS sync, Alarm clock, Stopwatch, Timer
- Sensors: GPS, GLONASS, Garmin Elevate wrist heart rate monitor, Accelerometer, Barometric altimeter, Compass, Thermometer, Ambient light sensor
- Daily Smart Features: Bluetooth Smart and ANT+ Connectivity, Connect IQ, Smart notifications, Calendar, Weather, Controls smartphone music, Find My Phone, Find My Watch, VIRB camera remote, iPhone and Android compatibility, Compatible with Garmin Connect Mobile
- Activity Tracking Features: Step counter, Move bar, Auto goal, Sleep monitoring, Calories burned, Floors climbed, Distance travelled, Intensity minutes, TrueUp, Move IQ
- Heart Rate Features: HR zones, HR alerts, HR calories, HR broadcast
- Running Features: Outdoor and indoor running profiles, GPS-based distance, time and pace, foot pod capable
- Golfing Features: Yardage to F/M/B (distance to front, middle and back of green), Yardage to layups/doglegs, Measures shot distance, Digital scorecard, round timer/odometer
- Cycling features: Outdoor and indoor biking profiles, time/distance alerts, compatible with separate Garmin bike senors, Speed and cadence sensor support
- Swimming features: Pool swim metrics (lengths, distance, pace, stroke, count/rate, calories), Swim efficiency (SWOLF)
