Customer Ratings & Reviews

Just a few things I will point out that will hopefully help your decision.... HR monitor and sleep tracker seem to be fairly accurate You can create your own workouts and sync them to the watch, they have hundreds of pre-loaded workouts to choose from. I have one for example that I created that has a 10 minute workout with sit-ups, push ups, dumbell rows, etc. It can sync with MyFitnessPal for additional calorie tracking The touch scroll on the side of the watch is nice to scan through the screens. There is dozens of different watch faces you can choose from There are additional widgets and add ons you can download, however, there are not many at this time but the watch is new and I think this will increase over time. The stress level it calculates daily is kinda neat. Part of the connect app is still in BETA so sometimes it can be a little glitchy but its nothing that gets to be too much of a burden. Decent battery life. If i do not workout using the GPS i lose about 20% a day. Which is the battery is supposed to last about 5 days with regular use. So it is holding true to what they have stated. However, I do workout outside connected to the GPS quite a bit for sometimes 1.5 - 2 hours at a time so it does drain the battery a lot more. I have to charge it about every 3 days BUT it charges so quickly. Garmin will also send you a wall adapter if you call them. Not that happy with the V02 max feature. I didn't think it was calculating so I called Garmin and they said you have to be in the 80-100 % of your HR zone for it to calculate. I also thought it would calculate your cycling V02 max but it does not. It shows up as a section on the connect app because the app is used for multiple products of theirs but you will not get any statistics on it. I have had to call Garmin support a few times for my watch and they are absolutely wonderful to deal with. They are extremely helpful and knowledgeable. I had a fitbit blaze before this watch and it broke after only 1 year and 2 months and their customer service was not helpful. They do not have a repair center to even have a chance of getting your watch fixed but Garmin does so that was a big selling point for me. I feel more comfortable spending $300 on a watch knowing if something goes wrong, at least it could possibly be fixed instead of being told you just have to buy a new one. The GPS was taking a long time to connect, sometimes 2-3 minutes. I would just start my workout instead of waiting. However, I am not sure if it was due to the last update I just did or what but now it only takes 10-30 seconds. The nice thing is I don't have to bring my cell phone on my run since the GPS is built into the watch. The last thing I will mention is the user friendliness of it. I do not consider this watch to be user friendly but at the same time this watch is very customizable. You can change a lot of things to make it the way you want it and to see the things you want to see. There are a lot of different places to change settings between actually doing it on the watch and then doing on the connect app and sometimes certain settings are in more than one place. This can get pretty confusing. I wouldn't recommend this watch for anyone who isn't tech friendly. For example, I would buy it for my 27 year old sister, but my 55 year old Dad who just got his first smart phone and is struggling with that, I would not. I did a lot of research into different watches before making this purchase and overall I love it and I am glad I made the purchase. I hope this review helps.

If it had more accurate heart rate tracking it would have been 5 stars, but this thing is WAY off. I was working out and my heart rate was PUMPING. Checking my carotid pulse I was definitely over 2 beats per second (over 120 bpm). Measuring my heart rate on my phone gave me 164bpm. The watch had me at 72bpm. I can understand a 10 or even 20bpm difference but OVER 90 bpm difference!? Makes me think the number on the screen is just completely made up.

This is a great fitness tracker/smart watch. Good battery life, built-in GPS, lightweight, and aesthetically pleasing. Being able to read and respond to texts is a nice feature that gives the Vivoactive 3 a nice smart watch feel. The screen is gorgeous in daylight but a little underwhelming when relying on the backlight. I have uploaded several workouts into Garmin Connect which the watch actually guides me through set by set. The best compliment I can give the Vivoactive 3 is that having owned it for a month (and using it in conjunction with My Fitness Pal) I have lost 20 lbs on a 2,000 calorie a day diet.

This is more an exercise watch and not a smart watch. For my needs it does everything that I want it to do. HR, steps, calories, stress, sleep, and has some smart features such as texts, notifications, control music, and lets you see who’s calling. It doesn’t have the nice LED screen like the Apple Watch so don’t expect a bright screen, but in exchange gives you about a week and a half of battery life until you have to charge it again (without using gps). It has plenty of sports/exercises you can track and you can swim with it.

I have been wearing this watch for about a week now, and I use it to measure 6 to 7 miles runs. I also wear it to track my sleep, and in my point of view, it does it very well since the supposedly times I sleep seem accurate to my calculations. The GPS does drain the battery faster, however I think you should be able to make two days of two hour runs with this watch without having it to charge. Anything longer than that, might be a stretch. (With the HR on all the time, and without the screen backlight). But like I said this is my first week, I need to do more testing and push it to the limits and see exactly how far can it go. The battery charges too fast by the way. The metrics compared to my iPhone are far more detailed but I need to do more testing and compare it to other watches or activity trackers, but it is a Garmin, it should not be that far off from the best products out there. The next feature I would like to try out is the swimming tracking, but that would be in the next couple of weeks. Overall I am very satisfied and I would recommend it to anybody physical active and that is interested on an Apple Watch or activity tracker. This is a good product that is in between an Apple Watch and a Fenix 5, and in some ways better, for the size, battery life, metrics, and price. The only negative would be with the Garmin App on iOS, it kind of lags, and sometimes doesn't sync immediately the data, however, it does sync eventually after 30 seconds of touching the sync option in the iOS app.

This is great buy if you are looking for light weight activity tracker that also serves good for smart notifications. It has many preloaded sports apps - which covers many activities. They have always been known for good GPS. This also serves well in this watch. I was surprised by the weight of this watch. Though it looks heavy, it is very light. Also it lets you monitor key aspects of your fitness and stress. Not sure how accurate these are.. but they are there for you.Also there is VO2 max and fitness age. Smart notifications is enough for get enough info without being too intrusive (can't take calls - no microphone/speaker) . It also has smart pay (NFC) - however haven't used it yet as my bank is still not on board. Recommend this product for if you looking for primarily a Fitness / Activity tracker that is also smartwatch. Pros - Inbuilt sports apps, good GPS, good display, good battery if not using GPS extensively, light weight. Cons - NFC Payment still need to include additional banks.

I've had this watch now two weeks and I'm really loving it. I've been looking at watches for a good year and this has everything I want. I'm not a big person with having my phone and watch connected so that piece wasn't huge for me but it is nice to see the notification from my watch (I'm an apple user). I can't make calls or reply to texts via the watch but I'm ok with that not a feature that drove me to buy it. The GPS is great so far on my hikes in the mountains. It's a little slow to get the initial location but once it's on, you are set. Very accurate on the sleep analysis from what I feel like I have every night. The heart rate is very accurate as well and is good for training season for me. Overall, the best watch I've owned. I would highly recommend this for those that are more active and wanting to take training just a little further.

Originally had a Pebble Steel and a Moto 360 2nd Gen. Both had their strong points but lacked one major aspect that I missed from my Garmin Forerunner: accurate activity tracking. Main focus of this watch is activity tracking with a hint of smart capabilities. Main reason I got this one over some of the others is because it has standalone GPS at a cheaper price than some of the other watches in this category and it doesn't have that square design that a lot of watches are going for. If I'm going to wear a watch most of the day, I want it to fit it with my style, not look like I'm wearing a Casio calculator watch. All-in-all, you get a lot of bang for your buck. If you are looking for something that will track your activity while receiving notifications from your device, this would be perfect for you. If you are wanting to answer calls/text and control your phone through the watch (with activity tracking being a background feature), you would be better off looking at the Samsung, Huawei, LG watches.

Excellent watch for the money. It is easy to operate and has more features than I need. The ability to customize the look through the iconnect app is awesome as well. Accurate. Durable. Great battery life. Size is good. Option are super. I’d buy again as it meets my needs perfectly.

I upgraded from a Garmin viofit2. I’ve had really good luck with Garmin products in the pass. The price of $200 also attracted me to this watch. It has gps, heart rate and supports many different activities. It’s also waterproof for showers and swimming. You can get your text messages and phone call notifications. But I turned my off to extend the battery life. I get about 4 days of use on a full charge and it takes about an hour to fully charge the watch. Garmin has a lot of different watch faces you can download for free. The cons are if you’re older and need reading glasses it can be hard to read things like steps, the battery %. Also if you are a medical person like me, the second hand displays are not reliable. The second hand comes and goes. Garmin you should make that a priority update. Overall I enjoy the watch.

My 4th Garmin Watch in the past 20 years. It is awesome to see these watch get better every time. It is comfortable on runs & walks, yet looks good in the office. Easy enough to use. The watch face & sides can be a little too sensitive if you are wearing long shelves that brush on it, but there is nice lock-screen feature. It syncs up good with my andriod phone, but sometimes looses the connection (could be fault of older phone). The heat rate monitor feature works great. Battery life is excellent. Option is change screens is fun. The Garmin Pay feature is a fun way to impress friends too.

I am coming from Android wear, so I was skeptical about this watch. I have been using this watch for a week. So far I like that this watch is way more accurate on steps, notifies you when you haven't moved in a while, it's waterproof enough to take showers and swim with it. On Android you can get notifications, text, and answer or deny phone calls. And most importantly the battery life is awesome. I charge it and it lasts 5 - 7 days. No more charging every night. However, when I use the GPS it does use up the battery faster. The watch is also a size that can be worn on a smaller wrist and still look good. The only con I see is that there are not as many good watch faces. This is a new watch so more watch faces will be coming.

Unhappy with Gear Fit 2's GPS and battery life on my runs, I opted for a Garmin after some research, and after a month of daily use, it's been everything I'd hoped for and more. Resetting the unit after the initial charge is recommended, and now my battery can go three days on a single charge. I use GPS for 60-75 minutes daily, so that cuts into the typical 7-day cycle. The new garmin connect interface is a HUGE improvement, as well. Very happy with this purchase.

I ended up returning the Garmin vivoactive 3 for the iWatch 3 that was on sale for $10 less. Here are my pro's and con's for this watch. It is a nice watch, but not for the price, and the issues with counting floors climbed. Pro: 1. Always on Display. 2. Great in Sunlight. 3. Steps taken are pretty accurate. 4. 4 - 5 day battery life when getting texts and messages. 5. Nice looking design. 6. Water resistant to 50 Meters. 7. Good Heart Rate sensor. 8. GPS built in. 9. Tons of third party watch faces. Cons 1. Blueish tint when using back-light. 2. Limited ability to read messages. 3. Lacking internal memory. 4. No built in speaker for alarms (vibrate only). 5. Floor count is always wrong (counted 1 in every 8 taken). 6. Slow processor. 7. Too expensive. If you are looking for more of an activity watch with a longer battery life, this is a good choice. But the biggest drawback was the pressure sensor not being able to accurately count a flight of stairs, which my iWatch has no issues with.

I started with Garmin when we first bought watches that can track the items we needed. We wanted steps, sleep and since we walk, the GPS version to look on a map at our activity. I also wanted heat rate. I would have given it 5 stars but it still has issues I complained about back when I bought my first one. They do not seem to be able to fix them, so you just deal with it the best you can. Issue #1. It does not always stay connected to your smart phone and you phone says it cannot not find the device. Constantly having to pair the watch to my phone. #2. It changes settings on you that you save in your account online so when it syncs it is supposed to know what your individual settings are. I complained about the “Move Alert” to them and they told me they don’t change any of your settings, but it happens. Over all it does what I need to get an idea of how I am doing. I know we changed to Fitbit and took them back right away as their issues were way more that I could handle.

I’ve worn this watch for 2 months now and I really like it. It seemlessly integrates with the Garmin program on my Samsung s8 and tracks all my activities: walking, running, biking, elliptical. Tracks my heart rate, sleep patterns, stress level automatically and is generally accurate, although sometimes it has me recorded as going to bed 3 hours after I actually do for some reason. I leave GPS on full time so I charge it daily, although I could easily get two days out of one charge. Only takes 15 minutes to charge from 50% to 100%. Super fast. Just lift your wrist up and it lights up the face. I have it set for “not disturb” at night so wrist movement doesn’t activate the light, but just tap the face if you wake up and want to see what time it is. A myriad of watch faces, both analog and digital, are available on the garmin app, as are cool programs for different sports activities. Even tracks altitude changes, which is really cool. On the downside, the colors on the watch face are not vibrant so sometimes I need to tap the face to get it to light up to read it. That’s not important to me so this was the right watch for me.

I like it a lot. I wanted a fitness tracker mostly. But, the feature of notifications of calls, texts, emails, weather...etc is very nice. It links to my phone and I can control musics from the watch. It has GPS tracking for my out door runs, walks. Has methods to calibrate when running on a treadmill. Over great look and has met all my needs. Things it might not have is okay because the price point of the watch is what I wanted to spend, but there are a few features missing. But again, for the price you can't beat it. Also, able to download "faces" for watch/widgets. These are 3rd party but hopefully they are evaluated by Garmin before going on the the Connect IQ. Which is a separate app that you use with your phone called just Connect.

This is a great sport watch after using for more than 1 week. I used Fitbit before. Compared to the old one, the vivoactive is more accurate in recording all data of activities, like locations, heartrate, steps, and distance. Also compared with Apple Watch, the batter duration is much better. At least during one travel, I have no problem for 4 days without charging.

This is my 5th Garmin Watch/wearable and by far my favorite. Very accurate with all features. Very stylish than other similar ones on the market while being lightweight. I am a big fan of Garmin connect, and the latest update has made the app better than Fitbit or Apple health. It’s water proof but the screen is sensitive in the shower. The smart notifications are readable on the large screen. I really like the all day stress monitor. Overall this is a superb product at a good price point $249 dollars. I have no complaints.

This is the watch I bought when my VivoActive HR died, and there's a lot to like, and some very nagging dislikes. The wrist strap is great, and comfortable. I like how they can be easily removed and switched out to different style bands without much effort. The watch face, being round instead of square, is much more visually appealing while giving a larger screen. The watch tracks heart rate really well, and the sensor doesn't protrude from the back of the watch, leaving an unsightly bump on your arm. Something the HR did. Watch connects to GPS quickly, and has been a much better experience than the HR as well. Sleep tracking has improved, with it tracking not only light vs deep sleep, but also REM sleep as well. Unfortunately, the sleep tracking itself is not great, as it still strongly relies on the times you set for when you'll go to sleep and wake up. The VA3 also is strongly affected by water, causing the screen to go crazy while swimming or showering. It's been a major downside to having a glass screen instead of plastic. The biggest issue for me is how poorly it's tracked stairs. I'm not sure if it's an issue with this model, or just my specific unit. I work in a building with 24 floors, and when I have time, I'll start from the bottom, and go to the top. The problem is the watch rarely ever records every flight I climb. I don't hold on the rails, I tried exaggerating my arm swinging, swinging normally, as well as keeping it perfectly still. Walking up the stairs, walking quickly, and even jogging up them, never skipping steps, as I know that's a problem. Nothing seems to help. I only recommend this watch if you don't climb a lot of stairs, because it's relatively useless if you do.