Customer Ratings & Reviews

I've tried different fitness watches before but this one is by far the best. It constantly monitors your heart rate, steps and calories without having to start/stop anything on the watch and the battery lasts days. Only drawback is the brightness on the display.

Love the watch. Workouts are better knowing how much energy I am using. the watch is accurate with data. Had second heart surgery in July so knowing my heart rate is extremely important. great watch for the price I got it at black Friday sale

This watch has nearly everything you could want in a smart watch. As a matter of fact, the only thing I would like to see that it's missing is the ability to play music from the device and connect a Bluetooth headset to it. The GPS is the best I have seen from a smartwatch, but what would you expect from Garmin. The battery life is amazing, I have gotten 8-10 days with moderate use, 2 weeks with light use. The built in heart rate monitor is very accurate, and the sleep tracking worthless very well. Overall of the watches I've tried this is the best by far.

I was very impressed with the features of this fitness tracker right out of the box. The notifications when paired with a smart phone are great. It's a tremendous value when compared to other tech watches hundreds of dollars more.

Got this watch on sale. Very good buy with all the features of a smart watch. Only reason for rating it a 4 star is for the dimension. Wish it was a bit smaller.

I bought this so that I would have a watch for when I do my obstacle course races. It works well being waterproof and having built in GPS. I like that you can download a bunch of different watch faces. Currently I have a Mario themed one. Sometimes I find that I wish it was a little brighter and colorful. My previous watch was the Samsung Gear fit, which had a beautiful and bright screen but didn't have the other features I need. HR seems pretty accurate and so is the step tracker and gps. I got this on black Friday and it was totally worth it. I would buy it again.

Amazing battery life, charge out once every 6-7 days. Completely water proof, even when I swim. I just wish there were more apps/ widgets available.

Watch has awesome battery life, easily lasts a week with normal activities. Got it for bike riding, wish it had an auto pause so it would stop when you stop riding and start when you start again. I often forget to stop it if i take a break or when I get home then realize its still going which throws off the time/distance/speed avg for my ride. That's the one thing I miss from my Samsing. It appears to be pretty accurate for riding, still unsure of accuracy for steps/walking. It's is more of activity watch than smart. Can read texts, but unable to send any kind of reply from it, able to answer phone. Music functions are limited. The display is not that bright for viewing in sunlight. The gps works pretty good for tracking rides, walks. I liked the functionality of my Samsung watch that I exchanged for this, but the reliability of the functions on the Samsung gear where inconsistent from app upgrade to upgrade. App for garmin is very nice, has lots of info very informative. Can view/ export Garmin stats for specific periods of time if need to keep track for work health ins. Where can't with Samsung although app was nice if you didn't need that function. It's a good watch, not very stylish, kind of bulky on wrist, has nice band, display on watch could be better. For $179 was a good deal.

I purchased this item because it was waterproof, had standalone GPS functionality, and performed heart rate measurement. The watch has suprisingly good battery life, even when periodically using the GPS enabled modes. The heart rate tracking is also surprisingly accurate compared to other products I have owned and tested (Basis B1, Fitbit Charge HR, and Apple Watch) and would say that it has the best performance in the heart rate tracking area. I use this product for several of its sports tracking modes such as rowing, walk/running, golfing and have enjoyed being able to disconnect from my phone for these events and not worrying about water potential damage. The only major downside is the learning curve for the required Garmin Connect app. This item is perfect if you want to be able to leave your phone at home, get active several sports modes, and track everything you do. If you are a serious athlete and are looking to do triathlons you might want to look for something more durable.

I really do like my Vivoactive HR, but there are drawbacks. (1) The heart rate functionality is very good! This was one of my primary reasons for purchase (monitoring heart rate during running and other activities). (2) There is NO functionality/program for weight lifting/resistance training. There are programs for several other sports but not weights. If you read some of the reviews/comments in various places online you will find some that imply there are programs for weight training coming -- but you can't find any and I'm not believing these comments. (3) The battery life is exceptionally good. (4) The integration with an app on my iPhone called CONNECT is good and works well, but can get kind of complicated until you train yourself. There is further integration with other apps which I have quit trying to use (such as calories consumed during each meal) due to the very detailed and tedious input activities required. (5) The largest negative? Yes there is one...I usually turn it off after running or exercising and then turn it on the next morning. There have been a few times when I have tried to turn it on and it's been reluctant to turn on correctly (only kind of half turns on). So I have to turn it off again, then try turning it on again. Sometimes I have to do this 3 or 4 times to get it to turn on again. Kind of a pain, but you have been advised...

Got this for walking and running, did a fine job of that. Screen is not the brightest better in sunlight but the battery life is excellent.

I love this purchase. I came from a Pebble Steel watch, so I might be easily impressed with this watch than someone else who has a number of these fitness watches out there. First, I didn't have any problems setting up the watch. Since this is my first foray to the fitness watch arena, I am amazed at everything this watch can do. As a matter of fact, I bought one for my wife as well--to motivate her to work out more. It's really easy to use, and as far as I can tell, it captures pretty accurate bio results. The fact that it can do pretty much everything my Pebble can do is just icing on the cake. Kudos to Garmin. (to be fair, I haven't tried the Fitbit products yet but I love my Garmin).

Tracks swim strokes, steps, elevations, heart rate, etc pretty well. Battery lasts a full seven days! Vibration is so so. Sometimes I hear it more than I feel it. Almost like the vibration comes from the middle of the watch and not against my wrist. I wish the smart watch functionality was better though. I get notifications from my phone, but can't view my calendar to see what meetings I have coming up. Weather widget doesn't work that well either. Otherwise I'm very happy with it.

I was looking for a multi sport watch/activity tracker without getting into the price of the fenix series from Garmin. I tried the Blaze from Fitbit but just found it had some bugs and no GPS. I waited for this to come out. I wish the screen was brighter. As others have reviewed, even at the brightest it can sometimes be a little difficult to see inside. I also wish the fonts were a little bigger as I now use reading glasses. I do like that you can add APPS and change the watch face. The GPS seems to work well and was very close to my Garmin bike computer reading. I would have preferred if Garmin had put the unit in a regular watch face design like the Fenix series of watches. I really don't find the design that appealing, but overall, the device seems to function as advertised.

My boyfriend and I purchased our watches in the summer of 2016. I wear mine a lot more often because I'm more active. I love all the apps and widgets. It seemed a little big on my small wrist, but I got used to it after a couple of days. I wear it as recommended above my wrist bone. It's pretty accurate if I wear it snugly. I take it off once a week to clean and allow my skin to breathe. My only complaints are that the screen is not very durable and I can't seem to figure out the sleep function since Garmin's latest update. It used to automatically detect my sleep, but now it doesn't track it unless I manually input my bed and wake times. This is a pain because I work rotational shifts. So now I get prompted to "move" when I'm sleeping if I am sleeping outside of what times are set up. I'm on my first replacement of this watch. The first one had the screen glass come apart from the watch and get water inside. I don't know if the adhesive couldn't handle hot showers or it was a defect. Garmin accepted it as under warranty and I got a replacement through Best Buy. My second watch has gotten minor scratches from bumping into walls and such while working. These scratches have now turned into cracks in the glass. It still works, but I'm afraid to have it come in contact with water. I will be exchanging it under Best Buy's protection plan when it gets closer to ending unless it stops working sooner.

Garmin has a great watch to swim, golf, run, walk, bike, gym exercise and it doesn't require a cell phone for GPS, it has its own. Heart Rate monitor is accurate, I have tested it with exercise devices. Rugged as well, I bang it against stuff all the time. Battery lasts 3 to 5 days depending on how much it is tracking. Phone calls, texts and emails are alerted with a vibrate when connected to my Android phone.

I really hesitated between giving this four stars and give. On the one hand, it isn't as app capable as Android Wear watches. On the other hand, it carries out its intended purposes extremely well. Ultimately, my choice hinged on recognizing that adding app functionality could necessarily take away from the watch in it's current form. It's not fair to compare it to the specs of a watch two or three years into the future. I got the vivoactive hr to replace my Fitbit Surge. I'd decided I wanted a bigger screen. The Fitbit's band was wearing out and there was no easy way to get a replacement (if you're under warranty, the likely response from Fitbit is to replace the watch altogether). I still wanted all the Fitbit features, all day heart rate tracking, built in GPS, 3-4 day battery life, sleep tracking, workout tracking, and activity prompting. I also wanted something a bit more exciting screen-wise. Not only did the HR meet all my requirements, it exceeded them. The Fitbit did well tracking heart rate so long as it was below 100bpm. This watch seems to have much better response across the entire range. The app lets you drill down into a lot more detail than the Fitbit though it is not as well polished. Still, I prefer Garmin's approach to sleep and workout data, it seems to capture and show parameters that fit more into how I'd like to look at things. The activity prompts seem to work better - I'm more likely to respond now than with the Surge. I also like the ancillary features, being able to find my phone, detailed notifications (notifications and audio control just never seemed to work right on the Fitbit). While I've noticed a lot of firmware updates since I got the watch, it doesn't regularly get into a state where I had to try rebooting watch, phone, or both to get things working again. In fact, this only happened once, after a firmware update the night I first used the watch (it's been over a month) where with the Fitbit, this was almost a weekly occurrence. I like the additional detail with my workouts, HR, HR zone, calories, time, all easily viewable. The Fitbit shows most of the same information, but you'd need to swipe through to see it. Taking them on a run side by side and looking at the plotted map of my run afterwards, the Garmin seems to have better GPS tracking (I'd waited until both watches reported a lock). Also, the Garmin consistently achieves GPS lock faster than the Fitbit did by a huge margin. The Garmin's charger is also nicely designed. I feel inductive charging would have been a better feature or a standard connector like USB, however the charger is designed for secure attachment to the watch. Also an improvement over some of the competitors. Battery life is awesome. I consistently have been getting 5-7 days of life (if we keep GPS sessions down to once a week). This includes three hour long workout sessions each week (with the increased heart rate tracking). The Fitbit under the same circumstances would last 3-4 days. Due to the screen settings, the watch is a lot quieter in the dark which is nice when trying to get to sleep. The price, size, battery life, color screen, and feature set make this a pretty compelling watch if you're looking for a casual fitness tracker. As of now, it's my top recommendation.

Pros: Waterproof for shower/swimming, all-day activity tracking, GPS, built-in optical heart-rate sensor, phone notifications, multiple sport profiles and an always-on display. Cons: It's bulky, there are occasional connection and syncing problems, and the mobile app is confusing.

I worked my way up to this wearable device after reading countless reviews and after first trying two other devices. My first device was a Jawbone UP4 - discrete, clean lines and tidy. Great at tracking sleep, passive heart rate and basic pedometer activity but it didn't monitor other things I was doing like biking. I then tried the Fitbit Surge - a much larger device, but nice looking. It tracked a lot more than the Jawbone, but its GPS was flaky where I live (mountains/trees, etc) and my wrist and/or jacket cuff often pushed the buttons on the side of the device, turning it "off" and I found this very frustrating. It also wasn't waterproof and, as I was also engaged in other activities (like swimming, kayaking, SUP), I decided to "upgrade" a few weeks later to the Garmin Vivoactive HR. The Garmin's GPS/GLONASS capability is superior, it captures all the activities that I'm currently engaged in and doesn't lose a beat when I'm doing really active things like mountain biking. It's a much less attractive and "clunkier" device on my wrist and the app is much more complex, but overall its features are terrific and, with buttons on the front, is much easier to turn on/off while in motion. The swimming function is a bit odd (you need to know the swim distance at the outset so, understandably not very useul in the sea or my local lake) but I can live with that! I've now been using it for several weeks and feel that, despite its bulk, it's a really good smartwatch - especially for active sport movers like me!

I wanted a watch that would allow me to pace myself during a marathon and this watch worked perfectly. Every mile it would vibrate with my split and the watch face was easy enough to read with my not so good eyes. Along with GPS, the watch also has heart rate monitoring which also comes in handy. This watch comes with many other features as well and for the price it was well worth it.