Customer Ratings & Reviews

I purchased the Vivosmart HR on Nov. 24th and wore it every day until today. I do have a few observations about the device that I'd like to share. I'm a fairly active person; goes to the gym at least 4 days a week, typically lifts 5 days a week (I do weight lifting at home and at the gym). In the week and a half that I have been using the HR I have logged 12 cardio sessions and found that, at least during running and biking, the heart rate sensor was much more accurate than I expected. It was consistently within 3 BPM of other heart rate sensors I was using at the same time. It's accuracy outside of running and biking was a different story... During strength training it was consistently inaccurate by as much as 20 BPM. Where as other sensors would show my heart rate spiking upwards of 120, the HR rarely went higher than 95... For 24/7 tracking I found it to be spotty. My resting heart rate varies from 62-72 BPM and occasionally drops a little lower or spikes a little higher. The HR would show over 80 most of the time and would occasionally show the proper BPM. Oddly enough, even though it consistently showed my heart rate so high, according to the HR my avg. resting heart rate was 54 BPM. It never once showed me anything remotely accurate there. Distance tracking was also hit or miss, at least on the treadmill. It's been a bit too chilly for me to test an outdoor run. For a few runs, the distance tracking was within 0.01mi of the treadmill's readings and other times it was off by as much as 0.5mi. Biking was way off, which seems pretty obvious and expected. Calorie counting was not incredibly reliable. As others have reported, mine would over-estimate calories burned very frequently and would occasionally double the total active calories burned in app. That threw off my ability to track net calories with MyFitnessPal... Notifications was convenient, as was the silent alarms and music control. I did have an issue with the fact I could not control my music during an activity and I could never get the weather to work... I occasionally had issues where syncing the device to the connect app would not update the data in the app. The battery life also was much lower than advertised. I could barely get 3 days out if it. I have said a lot of mixed things about the device, but it did exactly what I got it for. It accurately tracked my heart rate during cardio activities and gave me text notifications and for that reason I did enjoy using it, that is until mine died... Today, mine shut down with more than 50% battery left and would not turn back on. I tried recharging it in case the battery indicator was wrong, but charging it for 2 hours did nothing. It didn't even light up and display that it was charging... I called up Garmin and the guy I spoke to said that out of the 1,000's sold already, he has only heard of about 50 of the devices just dying like that. Needless to say, I was rather disappointed with this and returned it to Best Buy for a refund... I really do like the device, but I'm not sure whether or not I will repurchase a Vivosmart HR after this happened...

I received the Vivosmart HR from Garmin to replace my Vivosmart. I received the Vivosmart for Christmas 2015 and after about 4 months the screen was going out around the edges. I expected the HR to be better but iymt exceeded expectations. First thing that impressed me was it has weather for the current day and a 4 day forecast. The heart rate monitor is great. Only down side is that it is not intended for weight lifting, more for running and exercises of that nature. However it does have 3 different settings for exercise and will auto.upload your exercises to the Connect app. The floors climbed is a little off. I'll go upstairs and it won't count the steps. Of course the smart notificationso is a plus. Another plus over the Vivosmart is the improved Bluetooth rang. With the Vivosmart I would go up stairs in my townhouse and lose connection. Have not had this problem.with the HR. It is very comfortable and the watch style clasp is great. Overall I would recommend this to anyone looking for an activity tracker. Q

I have been a fitbit user for years and have no complaints. I wanted something with the Heart rate monitor plus I like that you swipe to see things with no need to "tap". Fitbit has devices with the heart rate monitor but I wanted something waterproof. I read the reviews before reading but nothing was very helpful as the majority said it tracks your steps...no kidding - it's an activity tracker. I only had for one day, so that's why the jury is still out. I decided to wear my current fitbit and the Vivosmart HR at the same time. Steps are accurate. Yesterday it counted the stairs - today of the 3 or 4 times I climbed the same set of stairs, it counted one #1#. I do not like the dashboard #again I'm new and maybe haven't figured it out#. Fitbit's dashboard is so simple and I like simple. I would like the ability to set my own goals for steps. Garmin sets it for me and then changes it. The mobile app on my iphone doesn't allow me to go back so I'm stuck on what I selected. Again, keep it simple, the Fitbit mobile app is awesome. I will do a little research on using. Not sure if I'll be keeping which is why I'm selecting "no" to recommend to a friend..

If you just want it to track your heart rate - this is a great device. If you want a “smart” activity tracker, wait for the next generation. I returned my Vivosmart HR for the following reasons: 1- I’m a cyclist, not a runner. I can press the “run” button to capture a ride, but only my heart rate is captured. The device has no idea I moved, and thinks I was on a stationary bike. 2- One of my reasons for this purchase was to control my soundtrack during a ride. When you press the “run” button to record a workout, it removes the “music control” option. In addition, this only controls the default Apple Music app, and will not control podcasts, GoogleMusic… 3 - Alerts are annoying - they will simply broadcast whatever comes on your phone and your wrist will vibrate. While I like the fact my phone notifies me when I get a new email, it’s annoying on your wrist. I’d like it to tell me who is calling and text messages only. It does not seem to have that functionality. 4 - Sleep Tracking is stupid. One night I took the watch off for charging before bedtime. I then put the fully charged watch on as I got into bed. Checking my stats the next day, it claims I had a really long sleep, including the time while it was charging. Did the watch think my heart stopped for two hours while sleeping? It needs to be able to recognize when there is no heart rate present. 5 - While you can change the orientation of the basic functions, you cannot change them for messages and you cannot up the font size. They are difficult to read. 6 - The Garmin Connect app is a work in progress and can use another year of improvement. It loses it's connection to my music player or notifications about every other day. 7- Goals are stupid. The watch will give a really long vibration when you meet your goal. I want it as an activity tracker, not an activity annoyer. Finally, I gave it a two star review, instead of three, to compensate for all the phony five star reviews.

I had the original Vivosmart and was very excited to see that Garmin came out with the Vivosmart HR. While the tracker itself is a little "bulkier" than the original Vivosmart, the band is nice and comfortable and I love the new features and screen interface. However, the HR monitoring during exercise is wildly inaccurate. The only time it seems to be accurate is when it's tracking my resting or non-exercising HR. Today I did a really intense boot camp (insanity style) and when I looked at my Vivosmart HR, it was giving me readings like 52, 70, 98, 101 through out the class. I took my HR manually a few times and confirmed that it was in the 140's and 150's. I've been noticing this problem for awhile now but today was the absolute worst accuracy I've seen. I even took the band off and wiped it and my wrist in the middle of class, but the readings continued to be wildly inaccurate. The reason I purchased this product was for the HR monitoring -- unfortunately it's a huge fail there so it's going back.

This is a great Fitness band. I've lost over 10lbs since getting this for Christmas. It's was easy to set up and easy to use. I would have given it 5 stars but my light has gone out.

After doing a great deal of research, I decided upon this band. When I first got it, I had some difficulty finding the right spot on my arm - it has to be ABOVE your wrist bone. I had read somewhere that someone put it on the inside of their wrist, but whenever I did that, my HR readings were crazy and all over the place. It took about three days of my wrist/arm being sore from having the band on (maybe that's me having a weird arm shape or something), but after that, the soreness went away. It's been awesome having it since then! I use it in conjunction with the Garmin Connect app on iOS, and it's awesome seeing my stats. My only issues, after four months of using it: - my intensity minutes don't always reflect an accurate measurement. - I lost two days of activities after syncing once (hasn't happened since). - keeping the band on tightly sometimes irritates my skin, especially after working out when I'm sweaty, but if I adjust and move it around a little bit every so often, the irritation tends to not happen. Otherwise, it's a great product that I would recommend to anyone! Additionally, I had the flu a couple of weeks ago. I compared my HR results to the one from the doctor, and they were almost identical (mine was a little lower than his, but only by a couple digits). He remarked that it was a really accurate reading on the Vivosmart and that it was good so I could monitor my HR while I was recovering.

This product has an amazing battery life, excellent screen/lighting, and is very comfortable. It has settings for running, cardio, and crosstraining. As an avid runner and crosstrainer, I use this product often. My only complaint is the heart rate isn't always accurate. But after reading many reviews, it is the most accurate one on the market. The color is excellent, and it is very easy to use. Affordable and worth every penny!

While the Vivosmart HR has many features that in my opinion would make it the best fitness tracker in it's price range, there are several things Garmin really needs to address: 1. Support. When something goes wrong (and it will), they are not available on weekends. When Monday rolls around, plan on being on hold for at least 30 minutes. If it can't be fixed and is still under warranty, you have to pay all shipping costs and will have to wait about two weeks for a replacement. Jawbone is light years ahead of them on this since they ship a replacement first (prepaid) and are available seven days a week. 2. User Interface is a mess. It is difficult to navigate and although they consider things like driving an activity, you have to manually enter activities such as Yoga. Sometimes it takes so long I just blow off entering activities that aren't listed. There are many things about the band that I do like. The battery life is better than some. The weather is a cool feature (but you have to be connected to a smartphone, which is redundant). Steps and stairs climbed are reasonably accurate. If Jawbone (UP) had a band with all of these features, we would switch back to them in a heartbeat.

I did a fair amount of reading about the Garmin vs Fitbit. I like the Garmin because of the larger display. I love being able to look at my wrist to see who is texting me/calling me. I like that it is also immersible/water proof as I spend a fair amount of time around water during the summer. The device works great except it sometimes doesn't want to sync with my iphone and I have to uninstall/reinstall the device -- but it still keeps all my data. And I recently learned that when running, the one mile mark is much less than an actual mile so I still have to use a running app on my phone to give me accurate time/distance.

I bought this new Vivofit HR based on the device's two major - for me - features: a) sport activity timing/tracking, and b) wrist-based HR monitoring. While the former is as good as one would expect from a Garmin sport watch, the HR monitoring is but a joke. It may very well work fine for folks whose HR does not leave the comfortable 60 to 90 bpm range, but for of the serious athlete who frequently exercise within all five HR zones the Vivofit is as useful as a silicone wristband - pretty darn useless. It also seems that the more variations there is during an activity, the more inaccurate the device is. I tested it in one quite hard and hilly bike ride during which I got very close to my max HR (almost 190) for about a minute, and the Vivofit showed me that I was actually not working so hard - HR about 150 or less. Totally unreliable! I tested it at the gym (inaccurate), at the pool (showed 58 bpm average - laughable), on a bike trainer, and a few bike rides. It only came close with its HR for the indoor trainer session and it was probably only because I kept the pace as steady as I could; even then there were many spikes and drops in the reported HR. I returned the device after a week of testing it, since I do not care for any of the other features (steps and stairs counting, sleep tracking, music controls, messages, etc. - all that.) and I do not believe I'll try another wrist-based HR and activity monitor for about next two years.

I love it!! I chose it abave all the rest for the added protection of being waterproof. I also liked that it has the heartbeat detection. I have compared it to my office visit at the same time and it is right on!! It is very sensitive so bumpy car rides detect as walking :(. And the battery life seems not as long as I as the 5 days which is why I gave it a 4 instead of a 5 star review!

This tracker is definitely one of the best on the market. I bought it on sale for $70 this Black Friday weekend and it is well worth the price. I give it a thumbs up for accuracy, battery life (4 days with heavy use), stream line look, and the weight is very comfortable. I have been wearing it to sleep to track my sleep patterns too! It comes with the usb charger as well and a built in heart monitor. You will not be disappointed by this purchase because it delivers. I like the functionality of the app, as soon as you open it, it syncs with the watch instantly. I highly recommend it,,,

I am one who simply cannot make up my mind on these. I'm nearing the return date on the VSHR, but really like some of the features, like the notifications, (text messages come through great when I'm at the gym), I like the comfort, and the Garmin Connect website is much better with much more information than the Fitbit one. However, the heart rate calculation is totally out of whack, and even downright wrong at times. I've had a low heart rate of <40bpm when I'm on the treadmill, or rowing machine! That's not happenin' folks! I wore it together with my Suunto Ambit and chest strap, and saw just how inaccurate it really was. The VSHR at one point showed 74bpm, while the chest strap shows 124! I realize that there won't be complete accuracy with a wrist mounted monitor, but this is way less accurate than the fitbit, which shows a fine heart rate graph, the Garmin one is all broken up, and it's hard to tell what the heart rate is. Granted, if I'm exercising, and wanting accurate data, I know to go to the Suunto, and chest strap, however, the discrepancy during exercise makes me wonder if I have a defective unit, or if I'm simply to live with this type of anolomy, it's hard to even get an indication of trends with the heart rate all over the place the way it is.

I have enjoyed the activity tracker and sleep monitor. Unfortunately, I have to delete and re-download the Connect app each time I charge the tracker as well as it has "created" steps overnight. For example, last night at midnight I apparently walked over 7,500 steps while I was sound asleep. The tracker has the accurate amount so I wonder where this info is coming from. Although the app needs work, I will continue to use it. I am glad I read both good and bad reviews before I purchased.

I think it does a decent job of tracking steps, but it falls short in tracking steps climbed, doesn't work for swimming, and I don't think the intensity tracker works either. For example, I did a stair climb event where I climbed 94 flights of the John Hancock Tower in Chicago, and it recorded 4 flights. When I asked a Garmin rep about the issue, that maybe because I was indoors that was the issue, and she said it doesn't rely on GPS, so that wasn't the reason. But other times when I'm walking on level surface it will register flights of stairs. When swimming it doesn't record heart rate at all, presumably due to the water between the tracker and your wrist. I do like the activity reminder - i.e. it vibrates when you have been stationary for a prolonged period of time to remind you to move. I had issues getting the tracker to sync with the phone app as well as the web platform. I turned off the bluetooth on the Garmin except when I would sync daily otherwise my phone battery would drain too quickly trying to sync with it.

I have been researching fitness trackers for a long time now. I chose this one because it had everything I wanted plus it was waterproof. The day this one came out I just knew it was perfect. I bought it the next day. I found it to be very inaccurate in step count, distance and in tracking sleep. I would count off 50 paces and this would read 38. I’d try again and it would count 42 and so forth. It would say I slept 11.51 hours when I was only in the bed for 7.5 hours. I wore my FitBit while I wore this for the first week and this one was consistently lower by 13-19% on steps and distance and more than an hour longer on sleep tracking. The heart rate was erratic. I never was able to get an intensity minute. Even when FitBit said I was active for 88 minutes, this showed nothing. The heart rate monitor never got close to accurate during a workout. I’d count my pulse and be at 168, this would show 111. Now on to the software issues. I talked to Garmin twice about not being able to sync. The first time I waited 48 hours before I called because they had just upgraded serves/software. Their solution: just keep trying. I tried for 3 more days unsuccessfully and called back. I still couldn’t sync to my phone or my computer. After over an hour on the phone, they tell me that my phone AND my computer had gone bad. When I asked if it could be their device, they told me there was no way it was on their end. My phone and computer were they problems. I returned this yesterday. I think they just weren’t ready to roll this one out but they won’t say it. I may wait until the next generation comes out and try again.

I am impressed with the options offered and the app. However, the most important reason for me to own the HR is for tracking workouts. The heart rate is never accurate during a workout! Weightlifting, running, or xfit. During a 45 min workout the heart rate mostly stayed around 70-80 bpm range (actual heart rate never went below 110 bpm). The HR briefly reaches a max heart rate of 107 after 100 burpees (actual heart rate reached 180)! I am very disappointed that I have to return it. I had high hopes for the HR. Also, Garmin's troubleshooting section was not helpful.

I purchased this for my wife because she really wanted an activity tracker. When I ran down all of the features, the one that sold her on this one the most was that it was water resistant down to 50 meters. She quite often has her hands submerged in water and didn't want to have to remember to take off a device that was only protected against splashes. The only complaints she really has about it is that it seems to struggle with LG smart phones and the stair counter isn't always accurate. I talked with Garmin about the stairs and they told me that they're constantly working on the algorithm for the stairs to assist in the accuracy. My wife likes her so much that when her mom said she wanted an activity tracker, the kids chipped in a purchased the same one for her.

I upgraded from the VivoSmart band to this one because the heart rate monitor was in this one. It works great, step count is accurate, and it seems durable. Only issue is that it feels a little too bulky but given that the heart rate monitor is built into this one I am okay with it.