Customer Ratings & Reviews

I've been using my Vivosmart for 3 months now and absolutely love it!! My main requirement was having a waterproof fitness band that could also measure heart rate since my main exercise is swimming laps. The band is comfortable and works great with iOS. I was on the fence initially when purchasing as I wanted to wait for the Apple Watch, however, I have a really nice watch that I love to wear and can't imagine replacing it with a smart watch, which is why the band is perfect. I can wear it with my watch and it doesn't look out of place.

When i purchased this the salesman was very rude. He acted like he was doing me a favor by getting the item and ringing it up. That should have been my first clue. I loved the viviosmart for the first 2 weeks. It did everything I needed and wanted. On the third week the bluetooth quit working. I did everything the manual troubleshooting suggested. I look online deleted and reinstalled etc. I then took it back to Best Buy just for an exchange. not a return. I was told to bad so sad and to call the manufacturer. You see I had not purchased the extended warranty. So they would do nothing. I should have purchased the warranty but was put off by the salesman attitude I should have called back for the extended warranty to cover that 1 week. but life gets busy. I thought for $160.00 and careful use It would have lasted longer than 3 weeks. I had intended to purchase one for my spouse. Will I now, NO! Will I purchase from Best Buy again NO!

I find the Vivosmart a nice bit of hardware. It is does what it is designed to do on your wrist well. But and it is a huge but, the Garmin ecosystem of their cloud platform to sync and manage data collected by the Vivosmart and that ecosystems integration with mandatory platforms like MyFitnessPal is simply woeful. The Garmin ecosystem regularly crashes, data doesn't sync, MyFitnessPal integration (much trumpeted by Garmin) is simply so buggy that it cant be relied upon. For these reasons while I like the Vivosmart hardware it is proving a complete pain to use for fitness and calorie tracking because the Garmin cloud is unfit for purpose.

Overall I like the Vivosmart a lot. It looks great and works well. My main complaint is with the sleep feature data, it could be a lot more informational if its actually told you something about your nights sleep! Actually now that i think about it that would be a great idea with the calorie section too, and how about separating the calorie section into two sections calories consumed and calories burned! It's been discussed a lot on the Garmin forums but not really acknowledged. I trust Garmin will get the issues sorted out via a software/firmware update. To be honest if I didn't have it for more than 30 days now I'd probably return and wait get the Up24 Jawbone, id be willing to give up the swimming advantage and heart monitor feature for better reports and information.

Product is pretty cool and the features are easy to use. Had to take back my first one I purchased the day I bought it because the bottom portion of LED's was burnt out so you could only read the top half of the display. Best Buy gave me a new one with no hassle (with my receipt obviously) and the new one worked great. Instructions that come with the device don't explain it'd features and how it works enough and had to learn things from searching on Garmin's website. I'm about 2 1/2 weeks in with the new one and the bottom portion of the display is starting to burn out again making it hard to read. Contemplating between bringing it back to Best Buy for a new one of contacting Garmin directly.

Maybe Someday ………….. BACKGROUND: Tech Savvy, Not a fitness freak, but could use some fitness motivation. I researched exercise bands and smart watches for some time, and I could not decide between a “watch” that had some fitness options and a “fitness band” that had some watch functions. The Garmin VivoSmart (VS) seemed like the perfect blend. I do like wearing watches, though I am not a watch snob. That being said the typical “Smart Watch” seemed too gaudy and showy for me. While the VS was very expensive for just a fitness band, I could justify it with the features of Bluetooth pairing and alerts / music controller for my smartphone (Nexus 5, stock android 5.01). I liked the concept of being able to check my messages, texts, and callers a little more discretely than pulling out my phone every few minutes or skipping or pausing songs, etc. I also thought a “plain” black rubber wrist band would be OK in a work environment without drawing too much attention to myself. REVIEW: Comfort/Fit – Very comfortable, I could see wearing this at night without it bothering me too much. Looks – Looks like a plain black fitness band or maybe a “cause rubber band”. Not supper attractive, but also not ugly. FUNCTIONS – STEPS, Seemed to work fine and more or less accurate TEXT AND OTHER ALERTS, Mostly useless, here is an example. Went to the movies, and I silenced my cell phone, about 10 minutes into the move I received email#1. Cool, it shows up on my wrist. 20 minutes later, 2 more messages, but it repeats the alert for email#1, then #2, then #3. 60 minutes into the movie, it was repeating the same alerts over and over every time a new email came in. By the end of the movie it was buzzing non-stop. I later checked the documentation online and it states “Alerts can only be cleared from your smartphone and not the band itself”. So, in order to clear an alert received on my wrist, I still have to dig out my phone and read it anyway. REVIEW USELESS SETUP, After 30 minutes of pairing and un-pairing, I finally got it connected and synced with the phone (or so I thought). I would later check the phone and ask it to sync steps only to be told it could not find the device in my pocket. So I played with it another hour or so and thought I had it all sorted out, but no. Each time I moved too far away from the phone and back, it would have to re-pair and restart setup from scratch. After one afternoon, and having had to re-pair the band and phone about 20 times, it went back in the box and returned to Best Buy. APPS / INTEGRATION, The apps seemed very basic, at least on the phone. Then it suggested I link my device to MyFitnessPal app. OK, so I downloaded the app, and surprise it not natively supported by MyFitnessPal. There is a button that says “Link Accounts” but of course that did not work, until I set up a MyFitnessPal account, and then it still did not work until hit a confirmation email. Even then they were not connected live, but only through some sort of indirect method. I gave up after this. MUSIC CONTROLLER, Not fully tested, I tied it a few times, and at this time it would say device is not connected, so I gave up and assumed it had lost its paring again. NAG MODE, I could see this getting old. The idea is nice a little alert to remind you to get up and move around. It would be nice if it had more of a “snooze” feature. Again in a movie theater, I’m not going to get up and start jogging around the seats. SUMMARY, Too expensive for an exercise band, and the other features are not fully baked / field tested. I assume they will fix these in the future, but I don’t feel like waiting. Looking at other posts my phone is probably not on the “officially supported list”, but you can’t get more generic than a stock Nexus 5, so if it won’t work on that, then there is someone wrong with your device, not the phone. So, I’ll wait for another year. This items was returned.

The Vivosmart was great for the first 2 months then started losing sensitivity on the touch screen and now has lost almost 50% of the display. Garmin support responded within 2 days then went dark. They have not responded to 3 emails in 10 days. $170 for a product that fails and there is no real support?? DO NOT BUY!

This was a gift to my friend and he likes it very much. Has been wearing since the day he received it and says it helps him track his physical activity accurately now. He likes how the tracker displays alerts from his iPhone.

This fitness tracker is great for beginners or really anyone who is not that tech savy. I use it daily and the charge lasts about 3-5 days depending on my activities.

I raced to the store last night. I was so excited to be "upgrading" from my long time use of my fitbit (the flex most recently). I want to love this, the design is awesome, it is comfortable and sleek, and I was so excited to have the watch aspect of this arm band. However, today after spending hours trying to trouble shoot. I am so disappointed. I can only compare to the fit bit. But the Garmin website is not nearly as user friendly, and no matter what I have tried I can not get my arm band, my computer, and my phone on the same page. I don't really care about the computer interface. But the whole reason I wanted this device was it's ability to interact with my phone. I have a Samsung Galaxy S 3, it is supposed to be compatible. The worst thing (in my opinion) is that while it can control my phone's music app (kind of cool), and tell me when I have a text (not really necessary), It CAN"T KEEP TRACK of my steps!!! The whole reason for the device is to track my movements. Right? However, today around noon I noted that I was about 500 steps away from the (preset) goal of 75,000 steps, but now at 6 pm I'm suddenly 17,000 steps away. I now have no idea how many steps I 've taken. It seems like they missed the most basic aspect of what the user wants. I will give it one more day but I can't waste another day, searching for the IT advice on how to fix the interface issues. I will probably go back to the cheaper fitbit, who's set up literately took five minutes.

So I have the fitbit flex which costs just a little bit less than this activity tracker did and I have to say the Garmin Vivosmart blows the fitbit out of the water. The two best features of this band are the lost phone feature and the fact that I can control my music from every app I use such as Pandora, Slacker radio, and even Spotify. I would definitely recommend this to anybody looking for an awesome activity tracker and not wanting to waste money on a fitbit.

I love idea of the vivosmart. It worked great for about 4 months, then lines of pixels started to go out. Luckily it had a 1 year warranty. Garmin customer service is awesome and sent me a new one. Sure enough about 4 months later, the same thing started happening. I am not rough on this device, most of my day is sitting at a desk. So buyer beware, this band is awesome when it works, but the screen will start to go out. Look for reviews from people who have had their vivosmart for a few months.

My fiancee and I both got this band six months ago and both loved it at first. Does what it is supposed to, pretty good battery life, pretty comfortable. However, one of the bands has some of the screen not functioning and the sticker underneath the screen is peeling, and the other has the screen issues to a lesser degree. Should have gotten the added warranty, but disappointed that the band is falling apart in only 6 months.

Wanted a fitness band with a heart rate monitor and did a lot of investigating. I have had heart bypass surgery and having a reliable heart rate monitor was my number one priority. . When I am working out it is very important I stay in my targeted heart rate range. I have check it against the monitors in cardiac rehab and it is spot on every single time!! I had asked for the Vivofit for my birthday, but, when my family saw the Vivosmart came out, they got that instead. Love the additional phone sync features! Highly recommend it!

The idea of the Vivosmart is excellent....a full-featured activity tracker that also provides quick access to the notifications area of your phone. I also love the 'Move Bar' as a mechanism to remind me to be active after I've been sitting too long. HOWEVER, I've had significant issues with device remaining connected to my Android phone. In fact, I see the same behavior with 2 different Android devices from 2 different manufacturers. The Vivosmart will frequently drop it's pairing relationship with the phone. Once it drops, I have to repeat the pairing procedure multiple times before it 'takes' and remembers it for a few hours or even a day. Then the cycle repeats. While activity continues to be recorded even when the pairing relationship has failed, obviously the notifications feature doesn't work without the pairing. I have contacted Garmin technical support. They were helpful until they learned my issue was with an Android device. After that, I received a curt email saying the developers "were unable to support your devices." I would have given the Vivosmart 2 stars for at least a good idea, but the poor support experience caused me to drop it to 1 star.

I bought my new Vivosmart last Wed. I had it shipped to the Best Buy store near me. I am so happy that I did. This is a great product. I have just started walking, but it is so much more than just a pedometer. My phone features are great, the workout feature is fantastic, the accuracy of the pedometer is right on (I used the custom stride length feature) and the sleep monitor is really cool. I cannot be pleased enough with this purchase. I would suggest it to the whole world.

At the start of the new year, I decided it would be smart to invest in a fitbit like watch. I started researching different kinds, and fell upon the ones Garmin carried. I researched the 4 or 5 they offered, and this one seemed like the best bet for me. I went to BestBuy and got one. I brought it home, set it up, and walked around to see if it worked. It did! I was thrilled. That evening, I attended a basketball game, at which time I noticed the device added hundreds of steps every time I clapped. I tried loosening it, tightening it, nothing helped. When I got in the car to drive home, during the drive it added hundreds of steps as well. I was furious. The next day I took it back to BestBuy, and got the same one different, because the man I talked to at the store said it was probably just not calibrated correctly. One of the GeekSquad members helped me set up the new one, and I walked around the store and it worked. As soon as I got in the car and started driving, it added hundreds of steps again, while I was sitting still. I am so furious at this product, considering how much it is and that it doesn't even work. Please don't buy this, you are wasting your time. I will be returning it.

This would be a great fitness band if it worked correctly. It is well designed and has a nice list of features. I have several other Garmin products and like them a lot. Unfortunately, the Vivosmart has problems with the Bluetooth connection and now the heart monitor strap won't connect. Garmin support is either ineffective and/or overwhelmed as they have been unreachable via email or phone. The two main reasons I purchased this band don't work -- Bluetooth connectivity to iPhone and the ability to use a heart rate monitor. It seems the only option is to return the device.

This works and does exactly what I wanted it to. I like that it tells me if I have not moved on a while. Perfect for my needs. Decent battery life per charge too. I would recommend.

Today have got this tracker, it seems good and I think my husband will like it. But I got a bit disappointed about service. Before going to store checked on website if it's 100% in store black color. It showed yes. I got to the store and 15 minutes were chasing workers ( and I'm 8 month pregnant!) to get this item because label said this item shall be brought by assistants. After finally getting one interested to help me employee and ready to run from stock to closet we found out that there is no in such color! (despite system shows they have 5!!!) I'm not from US and this is second big store ( other IKEA) where I see that online system is not working and does not show real situation!