Gadgetory

the Apple watch the Moto 360 and the LG G watch are these are really nice smart watches that share one common problem they don't have GPS an essential feature for many runners and cyclists sure there's the GPS equipped Sony SmartWatch 3 but that suffers from poor battery life that's where the garmin vivoactive comes in this is part SmartWatch part activity tracker and part GPS sport watch it can display notifications for things like incoming calls text messages emails and app and calendar alerts from your smart phone it can also track the steps you take each day distance traveled calories burned and your sleep at night on top of all that it uses the GPS and other sensors to measure your pace distance speed and more while running biking and even swimming there's even an app store called connect IQ that allows you to install third-party apps and widgets the thing I really like about the vivoactive is the slim design the device is incredibly lightweight coming at only 38 grams and you barely notice it on your wrist even with that slim design and an always-on color display the battery life is really good Garmin claims you will get up to three weeks in watch mode or up to ten hours with an active GPS signal but I saw around seven to nine days of usage but that included three 30-minute runs with the GPS enabled well there's a lot to like with the vivoactive there's still a lot that needs to be fixed the Garmin app is dated especially when it comes to sleep tracking and the selection of third-party apps in the connect IQ store is lacking I also found that the watch software to be rather sluggish and my phone randomly disconnect and on occasion the watch would completely freeze forcing me to restart it the music controls are also disappointing while you can pause play and skip songs it doesn't show you the title or the artist of the song playing which most smartwatches do these days all in all the vivoactive has potential but it still has a ways to go luckily a lot of these problems can be fixed with feature software updates the garmin vivoactive is available now for $250 in the US for more information be sure to check out my full review over at cnet.com I'm Dan Graz never seen it and that was a first look at the garmin vivoactive