Customer Ratings & Reviews

Great combination of the fitness band plus a smart watch

I liked it when I first bought it but after a few months I had to replace it

The Garmin vivosmart was an excellent concept. However, like most wearable technology of this type, the product itself was not very good. After a month or so the product stopped working. I traded it in for something else and decided to ditch wearable technology for the time being.

The battery might last 3 days if you're lucky under normal use. The HRM sucks up battery too. Pairing with iPhone keeps crashing. I'm a big Garmin fan but they really blew this one.

I was expecting great things from this, but after only a couple months, several pixels died, and there were multiple lines missing on the display.

I'm went through 3 of the Garmin vivosmarts before switching to a fit bit. The display ribbon on all three trackers began to fade after just a few months of use.

Pros: 1. Looks good on the wrist. Nice form factor 2. Easy to wear 3. Notifications 4. 5-7 days battery life 5. Move feature Cons: 1. Does not have inbuilt heart rate monitor 2. App is useless. Very basic especially for sleep monitoring 3. Monochrome screen 4. No steps While it is a decent tracker but needs lot of upgrades to beat basis peak or Microsoft band. Not priced right for the feature. Decent band if you are ok with the features. Else wait for some of the new ones that will come out in 2015.

I was expecting great things from this, but after only a couple months, several pixels died, and there were multiple lines missing on the display.

I purchased the Vivosmart for the form factor, water proof, and features. I didn't want a large or bulky fitness tracker on my wrist. It also needed to be waterproof since I like to swim. The syncing software and Garmin Connect site are intuitive and easy to use. I track weight and food (which I didn't even want to track initially) in Garmin Connect and myFitnessPal. Linking was easy and quick. I only give it 4 stars since the display has lost 1 line on both the top and bottom, thus cutting off what is being displayed.

I returned both! Couldn't bring up the screen to even use 1 time! Would not recommend this as a purchase!

Goal: I was looking to buy the lowest-priced HRM by Garmin that also provides auto-synch. Thus at $150, the Vivosmart was the device I wanted to try. The Garmin 220, at $250, is the next lowest-priced device that auto-synchs, but is mainly geared towards runners, of which I'm not. I love to workout and cycle, but not run. The 220 has limited cycling features, but I already utilize a Garmin 800 for cycling. The notifcations from my phone that this device can provide are a neat feature, but not something I was interested in. Plus, too many reviews on several sites (DC Rainmaker, Amazon, Best Buy, CNET, etc) made mention of battery drain via notifications. Knowing that, I turned off the notifications soon after opening it from the box, but a neat feature regardless for those that are intersted. The size and weight of the device is great. The display looks nice and the brightness of it while inside working-out was sufficient, but not at its best outside, even at its brightest setting, which can also affect batter drain. I had no issues w/ the band coming undone, but had the "keeper" nearby in the event it gave me issues. The device synched quickly w/ the Garmin Connect app on my iphone6, which pleased me greatly. Again, this is the reason for my purchase. Where I ran into issues w/ the device was the double-tap to "awaken" the screen. I found this extremely frustrating, so much so that I finally returned it. I tried tapping in different manners, but found it to be more of "luck" to get the screen to turn on when not doing an activity. During an activity I initially had the display set to "awaken" automatically when I did a wrist-raising motion, and it perfomed this task most of the time. However, I often like to put my HRM device on the exercise equipment I'm using, such as an eliptical or spin bike or treadmill, so I can see my current HR without having to keep glancing at my wrist. To be able to do this w/ the Vivosmart, I had to change this setting to "always on" during an activity. Unfortunately this led to greater battery drain than I would have liked. I have mixed emotions about this product. It is neat, well-made, and a good idea. It is not Garmin's fault that I'm not interested in step-tracking or basic activity tracking features or notifications from my phone. Nor is it Garmin's fault that I simply want the least expensive HRM by Garmin that auto-synchs my workouts, and that this device does a lot of stuff that doesn't interest me. I would certainly recommend it to someone that was interested in those basic activity tracking features and phone notifications. But I don't know for sure that it is for me. I might still have it if the batter drain were better when the display remains on during my workouts. I also might still have it if the display turned on consistently when tapping the display. I really like my Polar RCX3 for my workouts, but would prefer auto-synch, which the Polar RCX3 does not do. Additionally, I'd like all my workouts to be on 1 site, which the Garmin site currently only contains my outdoor cycling workouts via my Edge 800. And, I don't want to pay $250 for the Garmin 220, just for auto-synch. I think this device has excellent potential. So I plan to purchase it again in the future, but will await a 2nd generation to see if some of the bugs can get worked out of it.

It appears that the Charger will need to be replaced as it does not work. In less than 2 week it stopped charging the Activity Tracker.

Seemed good at first but I do not like the integration of the APP compared to the UP24. THE BATTERY ON LASTS FOR 3 DAY NOT 7 AS ADVERTISED.

Ran out of battery quickly and did not fully charge at night. Not what I expected so I returned it

I really want to like this device. It works with my existing Garmin HR strap; it tracks sleep; it has notifications. BUT, there is so much it could do better. I really like the idea of a vibrating alarm on my wrist, but changing the alarm is a pain and it would be really nice if you could create multiple alarms (one for weekends vs. weekdays, for example). The Garmin Connect software is... not the greatest. It's an unfriendly UI compared to so many of the others out there. I'd love it if I could sync with the software of my choice. Notifications are not customizable. You get notified for EVERYTHING. I'd like to be able to turn off certain notifications. It does not reliably remain connected via Bluetooth, so it constantly (dozens of times a day) vibrates to let you know that the Bluetooth connection was lost or reacquired. Activating the display is touchy. You have to tap it pretty hard to get it to wake up. The fatal blow was that after a little over a month the display stopped working. The device itself was still tracking sleep and movement, generating alarms, syncing, etc, but nothing was visible on the display. That in itself isn't the bad part. I'm OK with the idea that I may have gotten a single bad device out of a batch and that's what warranties cover. It was the customer service (or lack of) that ruined it for me. I work for a company that prides itself on service (time to answer incoming calls is <4 seconds and our service agents fully answer emails within 20 minutes) so I was a little taken aback to see that Garmin asks for 3 days to respond to your email. OK, 3 days it is. I sent my support/service request and put on my patient customer hat. I waited a week. I sent another. I waited another week. Still no response from Garmin. After a little research I come to find that this is pretty typical of the company—slow, lousy service. I also learned that multiple individuals are experiencing the same display failure. I'd love to give this a higher rating, and I suspect that firmware updates may resolve some of its shortcomings, but the lack of service from the manufacturer is inexcusable. I'll probably just return this for a refund and wait for another company to improve their offerings to match the features of the vivosmart and purchase that in the future. I'm definitely done buying Garmin devices!

In about ten months the information on the band had become unreadable. I could no longer set anything up or get information off the band. Very disapointed in product longevity. It turned out to be an expensive non functioal toy. Plus it was anoying to have it on all the time.

Bought this as a replacement to a FitBit (since it stopped holding a charge after 6mos); and this Garmin activity tracker only lasted 6mos before it started not charging; and only time it will turn on if its in the charging cradle. I wouldn't buy this Garmin product!!

I bought the Vivosmart after using the Vivifit for quite a few months. I wanted a fitness band that would send me notifications from my iPhone and this one does that very well. I am 63 years old and just wanted something to track my daily walks and treadmill steps. This really does a very accurate job of that. Battery life of course is set for one week but I charge it every other day just to make sure. The smart is smaller than the fit and is great on my wrist. The strap is always a problem but its something I can get past. I think if you are looking for something to just give you a gentle push to "get up" and "get Moving" this does it very well. The notifications are a great bonus. If you are looking for something that is not over complicated this is probably the best one for you. I cannot say I like Garmin Connect software. The web based version only updates if I sync the smart to my computer. Does not seem to update when I sync from my phone. Maybe this will be corrected at some point in the future.

Ordered it online, received it defective. Took it to my local BB store for exchange. They had to "order" it. That was about 6 weeks ago, when I ask them where it's at they say "in transit" seriously disappointed.

I wanted to dislike this device because I wanted to justify not keeping it. $170 is a lot of money for a pedometer but it accomplishes so much more that I had to keep it. First, it replaces my watch since this shows time and date. Second, any alert/ notification I have set on my iphone will display on the vivosmart. Its nice to be able to read full text messages or see who's calling me without taking my phone out of my pocket. Third, I can control music playback on my phone (pause/play, skip forward/back). Forth, I use it as an alarm clock. It has a powerful vibration that wakes me up from deep sleep. Fifth, I only need to charge it once a week. Sixth, it simply works. It connects and syncs to my iphone without any problems. Smartwatches on the market do more, but they are bulkier and heavier. Plus they need to be charged every day. The Vivosmart is so light you don't even know its there.