Customer Ratings & Reviews

It was good at first but then it kept updating everything time. My steps were off by a lot. It was very hard to read the calorie burning. And setting up exercises for the fitness was difficult.

I read many reviews before buying this watch. It has the features most people are looking for: * Excellent continuous Heart tracking * Excellent step and exercise tracking. * Looks good in the pool or in a suit What is never mentioned is that you will actually get a solid 4 days of usage between charges AND it's always on, like a real watch. Add to that that it's EASIER to see in sunlight, and you will understand what's so unique about this watch. The other watches have better screens and look better, but ONLY WHEN THEY ARE ON. This is always on, it looks great, it doesn't need to be charged every single day and it is comfortable and light as a feather.

It’s a pretty blah watch. I wasn’t all that impressed by this watch. The material felt cheap and not worth the price.

Lasted only 1 yr. Battery won't charge, watch totally dead.

Couldn’t charge after regular use for 5 days. Have to return it

Didn't last a week. Worthless! This was a replacement to a fitbit.

I loved my Vivoactive HR so much, It was my go to device for running(treadmill and outdoors), biking and indoor rowing and crossfit type training. I upgraded to Vivoactive 3 only for few reasons. 1. The circular interface, lighter device seemed attractive. 2. Vo2 max estimating was a plus. 3. Stress estimation was another plus. 4. Better display(240px X 240px) seemed like an improvement My 10 days experience with the device was underwhelming for the following reasons. 1. The battery life leaves a lot to be desired(Garmin, you dropped the ball on this one) 2. The software kept freezing all the time(No response to swipe and button press).I returned the device to bestbuy FROZEN 3. I had no issue with capturing data from Vivoactive Hr for my treadmill runs but with Vivoactive 3, for the 5 times tried with Vivoactive 3, the divice would stop working after few miles, or would pause when i paused and never re-start after i commeced running. 4. I biked for 24 miles on this thing and it recorded that I had burned 700 calories, Vivoactive Hr would record over 1000 calories burned for the same distance. Don't know which to belive.. 5. While the display is an improvement from Vivoactive HR( graphics and Pixels) there is not excuse why the display is not as good as the Fitbit or other smartwatch devices.. Final thoughts, for $300, my first choice was you Garmin. but after the disappointment I am now trying out Fitbit Ionic. I willl keep an open mind for future improvements.

Not accurate as it says and a waste of money for a gym rat

This is a great fitness tracker but you will be disappointed if you are replacing pretty much any modern smartwatch. The notifications are slow and spotty and the software is, in general, very buggy. The more you use it for smartwatch features the more often you will find it crashing, freezing and restarting. If all you care about is fitness tracking there are much cheaper options that offer comparable fitness capabilities (even from Garmin).This watch falls in to a very narrow category for people that want above average fitness tracking accuracy (the HR sensor is probably the best you can get at this price point, GLADOS GPS is very accurate in a variety of conditions) in a package that looks a little more like a classic watch, but also has the rock bottom minimum smartwatch functionality. It is so weak in that last category that the value is highly questionable. I have the sense that if they had pushed the internals a little harder (or optimized the software a bunch) and expanded and refined their notification support this would be best in class. It's always especially disappointing to see a product get so close to greatness and fall short.

This is my first Garmin fitness tracker, and I am very satisfied with the product. I've tried FitBits, but didn't like their lack of smart notification, and Samsung GearFit 2, but it has terrible build quality. The Vivoactive 3 has great battery life, looks great, and accurately tracks my activity. The only downside is that it doesn't store music or control music on my phone through the Amazon Music app, but that is a minor compliant for me as I don't listen to music when I run.

Had every Fitbit, gear 2, s3 frontier and vivoactive. I purchased this watch a week ago at BB. Pros- Always on display is great. So many other trackers with lift tracker to turn on works half the time. Screen is tremendous outdoors. Indoors is dull, backlight helps. GPS,steps,activities work as featured. No issues there. Side swipe is Handy but too finiky. Ability to swap around action button is great news for us forgotten leftys. Charges super fast Watch faces easy to replace with the lame ones Garmin has stock. Ability to send a canned text response, nice feature ( looking at u Fitbit Ionic). Glithes Battery life not as promised. Maybe if u turn off all features u can get 7 days, definitely not the vivoactive battery life. Not complaining just saying. Cant swipe away notifications is a pain. Vibrations are a serious flaw. Even on highest setting can't tell when I get a notification. Another fatal is come on give us onboard music storage so when we run we can leave our suitcase sized note 8s home. Sucks I have to bring my s3 frontoer with me on runs to stream music. .. Garmin connect is a mess. Needs to be simplified very tough to navigate. There u have it. Most issues will be fixed in an update.ot two. Overall very please.

I bought this watch in April 2018 to replace an aging Pebble Steel watch. The thing I liked the most about the old watch was the screen and the battery. Those are two things that the Vivoactive does really well. The battery has been solid so far. I get about 4-5 days of use while wearing the watch all the time. It only comes off to charge. I keep the backlight set at 30% normally which is usually all that you would need. The screen is on 24/7. That was one draw for me coming from the Pebble. It can be hard to see in lower lighting areas even with the backlight on. The GPS has been accurate from what I have used it. Also the treadmill selection has been remarkably accurate. I have to try some of the other sports before I can rate them. Overall this is a solid watch. It doesn't have all of the pop and features of the popular choices but it shows me messages, mail, the sleep monitor is usually very accurate and compared to the other watches it has an incredible battery life.

Not worth the money! Lacking in too many features. I am a Fitbit user, and received this as a gift. I was excited to open the box and see the stylish round watch, but 24 hours into using it I wanted my fitbit HR 2 back. CONS- The heart rate tracker is only good with running and walking. The second I started doing circuit training it stopped reading my heart rate accurately. For example, doing squat jumps then burpees, my heart rate was reading at 74. Normally on my fitbit, it would be at least at 140. It read my burned calories at 118. Of the 25 minutes I spent doing T25, apparently my heart was under 90 for 13 minutes. That is not accurate at all! The sleep tracking is also very disappointing. I loved getting the deep, REM, and light sleep tracking from fitbit. With the Garmin, I only got deep or light. I also found it to be not very user friendly. The swiping was annoying and it doesn't seem very organized. If the watch were $100, I would say it's worth it. But I don't want to pay almost $300 for a watch I'm going to have a wear a chest strap heart rate monitor with to get an accurate reading and vague sleep details. PROS- It's round and prettier. Longer batter life than fitbit. Garmin, so good GPS. However, I never used it because it took forever to connect so I gave up. design

I bought this after owning a Vivoactive HR that got crushed in an accident. So far it's not bad... - The band seems flimsy, so only time will tell if it will last. It also feels a little sloppy where they connect to the watch. Kinda cheap, but comfortable. - I find the side swipe useless. If you swipe fast it scrolls through 2-3 screens, if you swipe the screen you only get one. Also, my hand covers it when I try to swipe. I tried to reverse it on my wrist, but it would hit the top of my wrist/hand and jump screens. So I disabled it. - Not sure why, but the calender on the watch seems a day off. I'm looking at it now and it's showing items as tommorow that are on my calendar in two days. That is pretty annoying, as I use my calendar for everything. If I can't get that figured out I'll be returning it. - Garmin pay is not working yet. Not a deal breaker... - It's a little more difficult to navigate. Or atleast for me coming from V HR it is. I'll have to read the instructions on this one for sure. - Screen colors are a little dull. Not as vibrant as the box shows. - Some apps/widgets I'm used to having do not work with the V3 yet. I hope the developers get on that quickly. - Screen is nice and bright. And easy to see outside. And that was at 30% brightness. - Very comfortable when wearing. And very lightweight. Can't really feel it. - Charges very quick. Comes with the USB charging cable, but not a wall adapter. I guess they expect you to have extras laying around. - Charging cable is pretty secure when attached, but it's straight and requires the watch to lay on its side. I do not like that at all. - Not sure about battery life yet, so I can't comment on that. Although, my V HR had about a 6 day battery life. It's a nice watch at this price point and I believe if you purchase it you'll be happy with it.

Had a fitbit ionic and switched to this. Much better except the brightness. Different tech so a paradigm shift. It uses reflective as opposed to backlight. The sharpness of the lines is not as good either. But battery life is good when you use the correct face. Syncing does not require location. It warns you, but still works, unlike fitbit. Updates are quick. And having the phone away from the watch and reconnecting does not take an act of science to upload the data, unlike fitbit. Slimmer than the ionic. No music on this version, but don't need it. Gps is a little wonky. Need to keep it on the whole time, otherwise the waypoints are off. Mine was actually 2 miles off. luckily had a real GPS to get back. Touch screen annoying sometimes, really needs a 2nd button to activate the menu.

Excellent watch! Tracks steps and heart rate accurately. Holds charge for days and charges quick when needed.

I have had me Vivo active 3 for 6 years and I have loved it! I have a small wrist and the face is big enough to function well but doesn't overpower my wrist. I love the smart -watch options available. I love that it connects to my Garmin App and my calorie app. After 6 years, my battery is not holding a charge well anymore, but if I need to replace it, I'll likely get another of this one.

I have had this watch about a month and if I could I would return it and go back to my vivoactive hr. At first it seemed ok but this last couple of weeks, that battery life is horrible requiring recharge every night even when there aren't any gps activities (in less than 24 hours the battery percentage will be down in the 30s). I have tried removing the 3rd party watch face (NoFrills) and returning to the garmin standard which I really do not like. I have tried limiting the features per the garmin maximizing batter life help page and do have a couple of more items I can try but really I shouldn't have to turn some of those items off (such as notifications) when the watch is supposed to have 7 day in smartwatch mode. I will say that the watch is more comfortable than the vivoactive hr as the hr monitor is flat with the bottom of the watch. It also seems to track activities well as one would expect from garmin. If it had decent battery life I'd love this watch but as is I'd say don't waste your money. If I am able to resolve this issue, I will update my review.

I love tech. I must say that I had the gear sport and really liked it. I now have the Vivoactive 3 and there are some very different things about the watches. First the screen. The gear has a prettier screen, much more sharp and more options on faces, but is hard to see in direct sunlight and when exercising the movement to show the screen did not always work and would have to use my hand to see the screen and with polarized sunglasses could not read it at all. VA3 screen is not as sharp but still easy to read and the always on makes it easy to see at all times, in the sun it is perfect, and with sunglasses it is easy to see. I think it is much more accurate especially on stairs, and i love the information Garmin gives.

I have had this watch for 6 years! I still love it. For health tracking I recommend Garmin watches!