Garmin vivoactive
Although there’s no way your smartwatch can tell how much you’ve imbibed the watch offers the next best thing: an easy way to manually log what you drink throughout the day.
One further additional – but also significant – new tool is hydration tracking. I’ll need a little longer with the watch to determine how useful it is in planning a workout schedule, but in theory it definitely has the potential to help stop you overtraining while avoiding bombarding you with confusing data about training load.
This might sound gimmicky but, in practice, I’ve found it works well, letting you check your score against your stress levels throughout the day. In short, it’s a feature that aims to give you a quick, easily digestible way of knowing when it’s a good time to hit the gym and when you’d be better off getting some rest. This uses sleep quality, stress level and activity data to score your current energy reserves out of 100. It feels a little clunky the first time you do it, but after that, it’s a relatively quick and easy process.Īs for other new features, both the Vivoactive 4 and 4S get the Body Battery function that was first introduced on the Vivosmart 4. Providing you’re connected to a Wi-Fi network (also done via Garmin Connect), you can then start downloading songs to the smartwatch.
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Image 13 of 22 To download tracks and playlists from Spotify, you simply choose the service from the watch, log in on the Garmin Connect Mobile app when prompted and you can then choose from categories labelled Playlists, Recently played, Made for you, Workouts and Podcasts.
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Although you will need a Premium subscription to do this, it’s far more convenient than transferring personal music files, which requires you to install the Garmin Express application on your PC. This not only lets you transfer music files directly to the watch but also enables you to connect third-party services such as Spotify, Amazon Music and Deezer. On that note, the standout new feature across both models is undoubtedly music playback. Garmin Vivoactive 4/4S review: Key new features Otherwise, the features of the two models are identical. The Vivoactive 4S (as opposed to the regular 4) is aimed squarely at those with smaller wrists and although it is lighter – 40g vs 50.5g including strap – the tradeoff is that battery life isn’t as good. The other main design changes are that the Vivoactive 4 has two buttons instead of one, and that it comes in two different sizes. The screen isn’t an AMOLED panel, as on the Venu, but rather a transflective memory-in-pixel display that’s easily legible in bright sunlight and, importantly, always on. If you don’t mind forgoing listening to tunes via your watch, the Polar Ignite (£160) is a solid option for those who are really into running, cycling or swimming.
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When paired with a Garmin Running Dynamics Pod, it’ll offer advanced insights into your running technique and give you more data to pore over relating to the training effect of each workout and your current condition.Įlsewhere, there’s not much else besides the Apple Watch Series 3 (£200) and 5 (£500) that offers the sports tracking prowess of these devices along with offline music playback. If you’re more into running than other sports, Garmin’s 245 Music (£300) is also well worth consideration. Packed with all the same sports tracking modes as its successor, the latter still represents excellent value for money. With prices starting at £240 for the S variant and £260 for the regular smartwatch, the Vivoactive 4 costs around £100 more than the Vivoactive 3, which is now available for just £150. Garmin Vivoactive 4/4S review: Price and competition Thanks to its NFC chip, Garmin Pay is also supported, although very few UK banks have signed up to the service. It offers animated guided workouts, which, coupled with Garmin’s “Coach” tool makes the Vivoactive 4 much better suited to running and gym novices than previous devices.Įlsewhere, there are a number of other new features such as Garmin’s Body Battery feature and blood-oxygen monitoring and these build upon the core fitness tracking features you’d expect from a Garmin fitness wearable, with GPS, heart-rate tracking and sleep tracking included. Taking inspiration from the Vivoactive 3 Music, the watch now comes with music playback as standard, including offline storage for Spotify and Deezer.