Customer Ratings & Reviews

Worst smart watch/fitness tracker I’ve ever owned. After switching from Fitbit’s awesome heart rate tracking to garmin, I’m highly disappointed. I bought this watch about a year ago and wore it maybe 10 times just trying to figure out the issue. My heart rate would be as low as 50 during intense physical workouts. I feel the product had to have some kind of defect.

Terrible value. Screen was dark and unreadable at highest setting. No directions give to operate

I am disappointed by this one. My vivoactive 1 tracked altitude very accurately, this one is all over the map. It gives me negative altitude! Floor climbed is highly inaccurate. Heart rate is only accurate in running mode! When I plug in the charger, sometimes, it shows it is being charged, other times, it doesn't. Battery doesn't last very long either when GPS is used. Garmin totally screwed this one up.

Not very happy the battery unlike other farming has to be charged every couple of days u like other garmin products once a week-

Started using this device a few weeks ago and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. It does not properly record stairs and the troubleshooting advice I was given by Garmin is absolutely ridiculous ("Submerge and soak the device without pressing any buttons for 5-10 minutes in a bath of warm water"). I will be returning this disappointment.

I've been waiting for just this product, a great tracker with heart rate and GPS built in to a solid, attractive watch form factor. I picked this up three weeks ago and already we seen several system updates to address various software issues. While there are some small features I'd love to see get updates, performance is excellent. Battery is pretty good. I typically get 3 to 4 days with 2 or 3 GPS based activities recorded in that time. It charges very quickly. If you are looking for something a little more robust than the typical vivoactive/smart or forerunners with solid features and priced better than the Fenix 5, this is a good option.

Bought this and about 3 weeks into use, the battery gave me 2/3 days use without doing workout tracking. Trouble shot and googled solutions, still gave me problems, so went to exchange it, and despite it being a probable factory defect, it still ate up my warranty. Don’t waste you’re money or time with Best Buy warranties or Garmin.

I thought that this was a good product and it was very poor. Worst problem was keeping it connected to the app via Bluetooth.

This watch was just way more than I wanted or needed. I found it too complicated!

I had this watch for 1 week before switching to the FitBit watch. Seem slow and didn’t respond to commands quickly.

Ended up returning for fossil. Better decision and option i might offer

I've been wanting a Fenix 5 or 5s for sometime now, then came along the vivocative 3. It packs the features of a Fenix into a more affordable watch. This was exactly what I wanted, slim, light and looks really nice. I was using a vivoactive HR at the time. I bought this, opened the box and got it onto my wrist and did the setup. I was very pleased. I charged it for the first time and the device completely locked up on me, had to hold the button down for several minutes to reboot it. No biggie, figured it was a one off issue. I took it out for a spin (did a run with GPS) did a couple walks with GPS just about the same amount of stuff I would do with my Vivoactive HR. The battery was dead within two days! My Vivoactive HR would easily make 7 days with my activities. Charged it again and guess what it was locked again, did another reboot. There are a lot of great things about this watch that are better then my prior one, but in all honesty, for $300 I think some corners were cut, namely the cheap feeling bands and the watch body is mostly plastic. Yes the silver band is metal and the underside is metal too. The side swipe feature is a gimmick and pretty useless. Garmin pay still isn't active, but when it is, it wont make a difference because I will still bring my phone for music (no onboard music on the device) so I can just use android pay from my phone. I don't mind looking past most of everything I mentioned, in fact some of these things could be fixed with software/firmware fixes. I have two large complaints: The battery doesn't last long enough and the vibration is useless even on the highest setting. I use my watch to wake up silently so I don't bother my wife. My Vivoactive HR woke every time through vibrations. This watch has not been able to wake me at ALL, I've reverted to my phone for an annoying loud sound. I'm torn because I have sold my Vivoactive HR so that is gone and I really can't justify spending twice the price ($600) for a Fenix 5 or 5s. I wont use half the features those watches provide except for the alarm and exceptional battery life (up to 2 weeks with the 5). Plus you loose the touch screen on those devices which probably isn't the end of the world, but still. What to do? I don't know if Garmin can issue a fix for the weak vibrations via firmware or software? I can see the battery maybe improving a little bit with OS refinement. I have 20 days left to return it... I'll give it a couple weeks, I am getting the itch to buy a Fenix or maybe jump ship and try Fitbit Ionic :(

Not really a smart watch, which is what I intended to purchase.

It wasn’t accurate. Could of been better. Just didn’t seem right

not great i returned it the thing was all over the place

Well, let's just start by saying this is my first smart watch. I never was interested in them. However, I needed to start working out and I diffidently needed motivation to do so. I got the Garmin Vivoactive 3 GPS smart watch, out of pure curiosity. There are many Smart Watches to choose from in Best Buy but I decided to go with Garmin because this is a Brand made for health, fitness, and adventuring. This watch was on sale for $189.99 and was out of my price point.I started to think if i really watched a watch to begin with; I soon found out that this watch in AMAZING. The watch syncs up with your phone, which it enables Garmin pay, text messages, notifications, and phone calls. It's main point is to track breathing, sleep, steps, heart rate, calories, and SOOO much more. A bonus mod for this is that IT CAN EVEN FIND YOUR PHONE. I do wish I can directly message and call from my watch but it is not necessary for me, personally. I do think this watch is good for people looking to get in to fitness or people that already workout or adventure. I think that the price tag should not scare people away because this a NICE watch. It is not some cheap looking watch like the fit bit; It looks nice and not plastic, as if it is cheap. Battery life it great, and this fit is amazing. Unlike the apple watch, and fit bit Best Buy offers warranty, so if anything goes wrong (e.g. cracked screen/stops charging) Best Buy can replace it for you. In conclusion: I LOVE THIS WATCH!!!!!!!

I purchased this to replace a Pebble watch that had many of the same features, but lacked GPS. After 2 weeks, I'm trilled to have this watch with me in the gym. For the most part, I do strength routines, run outdoors and on a treadmill. It tracks all of them easily and also captures my heart rate data. It also supports external sensors in case I decide to step up the quality of the data captured during workouts (running cadence, heart rate, etc). For smart watch features, it's on par with the Pebble watches, which is all I ever needed. I love being able to control music on my phone from my wrist. The waterproof quality is also something I need since music control during bath time for my kids happens routinely. The battery life is fantastic so far. I'm getting 5-6 full days without GPS tracking for outdoor runs. Hopefully the weather will warm soon and I'll be using it outdoors more frequently. However, even if 3-4 days, it'll be great since it charges in less than 2 hours. If you get this watch, and know what you're getting with screen technology compared to other smartwatches and how that translates into long batter life, you won't be disappointed!

Got it returned it one week did not do what I wanted it to

I originally tried a Fenix 5...it was nice, but having to wade through the menus using buttons was aggravating. The hardware of the Fenix 5 is top-notch and this Vivoactive is certainly cheaper feeling, but that's a perk IMO. It's lighter and has gorilla glass 4 so it won't scratch easily. The Fenix does have a sapphire version, but the cost goes up fast. I went into REI and the staff thought this was a Fenix 5s... In my opinion, this is an outstanding buy if you don't do a million different sports each week. I run outside, on the treadmill, road bike. It tracks all of this with flying colors. Connected my Polar HR strap and it works great. Don't miss my Apple Watch 2, although you do need to know the Garmin line is fitness first, smartwatch second. The Apple Watch is the other way around. I do miss the screen and "taps" from my AW, but nothing else. Staying fit is my top priority and only Garmin can deliver on this with it's ridiculous metrics and data. I bought this with lots of thoughts of returning it, but to be honest.. I'm keeping it. Really happy and I don't really see the need to drop $700+ on a proper Fenix, to be honest.

Nice watch but the sleep tracker is inaccurate. Tried with 3 people and none of us seep to get more than 90 minutes deep sleep. Obviously a problem. Software or watch itself is bad. Unfortunately I had to return it.