Gadgetory

Garman now has the answer to the Fitbit surge and maybe the answer to what many consumers are looking for the vivoactive is one-half a SmartWatch and the other half an activity band but regarding the health aspect there are some features on here that we haven't seen before on any other product but before going deep into the details here's the current pricing information as of this video I personally paid $300 for the vivoactive and it does come with a chest strap for heart rate tracking and without the strap you're looking at two hundred and fifty dollars for the abandoned by itself so for now sit back and relax I'm here to help you make a purchase decision welcome everyone to another review by Jim's review going over the physical experiences first this is the thinnest activity band that I've tested and I love the fact that it's thin for those who work at the office wearing this does not snag those long-sleeve shirts but wearing this in general it doesn't look huge on their wrists either now of course the look is subjective for everyone but this has to be the closest thing that looks more like a SmartWatch rather than a ruggedized activity band now the view of active uses a buckle like many traditional watches and it's secure when worn daily and during workouts now moving to the strap it's indeed slightly stiffer than the Fitbit surge and it's not elastic but regarding comfort the strap is very smooth the watch is very light overall it's still been a pleasure to wear now one thing I personally test for are for those who lift weights either doing military presses or overhead extensions and similar movements it doesn't clench the back of my wrist like some other bands on the market same thing for cyclists and other demanding sports that requires a lot of wrist movements now regarding the all plastic housing it's again light but everything from my analysis is built tight with no flexing and squeaking and you would hope so considering I did wear this in the shower but Garmin does claim to have a 580 M water resistant rating meaning you can go swimming with us and that's something that fitbit surge cannot do per their website although they have the same 580 m certification and I'll show you the swimming part of the app a little bit later in the video now looking at the back again the vivoactive has your charging syncing and firmware updating ports for use with the garments proprietary charging cradle now speaking of charging battery life is up to an astonishing three weeks in its best case scenario that's without using the GPS at all now I'm glad I waited a bit here before posting the review the Garmin released an update recently updating the bantoom version 2.6 now prior to updating with my battery test I had drained the battery by 50% in just three days in 23 hours to be exact now I would assume if I continued here I practice of battery life but with this new update the better life looks to at least double in its performance from what I can tell so far now I have to test this for the rest of the month just to see truly how long the battery will last but there's one more thing that I wanted to point out now when I first bought this I fully charged it and didn't do any runs yet but only after one day and nine hours to be exact the Garmon died it appeared that the band continued to search for these smartphones Bluetooth connection when a phone was too far away again this was prior to the update and if you have read or seen others mentioning poor battery life before my review came up here they might have been using the older firmware version so just a heads up on that but getting away from batteries here let's take a look at the display now overall it works well in bright and direct sunlight situations if anything the numbers and the display looks to reflect the light that's hitting it but oddly enough not necessarily in dark areas just not bright areas the screen doesn't pop enough for a quick glance it's still readable but it does take more efforts and you wouldn't think you need the backlight on at that moment considering the room you're in is just fine for everything else now it's an odd phenomenon and it is something that people will notice but I believe it won't be an issue where it would be a deal breaker if you need that backlight that you can press that left button on the watch by going through the factory display here that comes with the band first you receive this huge clock here with the partial date at the bottom swiping right at one time reviews your notifications such as missed calls text messages emails etc and going to the right again is your calendar for upcoming events now next are meteor controls which I found volume to work for all the apps that I've tested but oddly enough every time I press skip or back or even pause slash play here my NFL app opens after deleting the NFL app pressing skip doesn't do anything at all I couldn't find a fix for this but if you can help me let me know in the comments below I would think then hopefully this is a one-off situation I was swiping to the following screen provides a very beneficial weather widgets telling me the high and low for that day with current temperatures but tapping the screen offers a four-hour window of incoming weather and swiping a write one more time here from there offers a four day outlook and last year which I always loved about the Garmin products is yes you do have your step counter and a bar to illustrate how close you are to your goal but the move bar is returning and included with the vivoactive now the first bar fills up here after you've been inactive for for the first hour the band will also vibrate to get your attention and tell you to get up and move around a little bit now every bar after that will fill at 15-minute intervals to show you how lazy you not this time but also yours miss it's really a great way to remind you when you're so focused on work just sitting around for too long to get up and take a walk very few bands currently offer this similar feature now one thing that I found odd here was the sleep function was nowhere to be found it's actually hidden and the gold screen that we were just at tap the menu button below and then you can tap sleep then when you wake up you hold the right button down for several seconds to get it out of sleep mode and that's basically it now to the meat here and why this band is different from the others now pressing the right button brings you to your activity screen for the time being Garmin can record your specific activity for running and walking like most bands but the three unique modes are biking swimming and golfing and this is what other bands don't do at the moment swimming for example you tell this band how long the pool is 25 meters 30 meters you can even customize the length here and of course this will calculate the calories burned from swimming but this provides lap counts length pace stroke count including the number of strokes per length and session and interval averages and you can see how deep the metrics go just for swimming alone now as for a biking this counts the basics but with GPS your trails are logged your distance is calculated by GPS and your speed is also recorded and last year for golfers the GPS will pick up your actual golf course that you're standing on now looking online and I'll provide the link here and also in the video description there's over 17,000 golf courses in America that's registered and 38,000 worldwide in total now what the vivoactive can do for you is tell the whole numbers and pars measure layup and dogleg distances as well as measure distance from the front back and middle the green there's much more information and Garmin's of website as I know majority of my audience doesn't really golf but quickly looking into the running profile actual time pace distance and lap times are all measured and with most of these activities if you have the heart rate chest rep these activities will record and display your heart rate zones with both real-time heart rates and average heart rate information so overall before showing you what the app looks like my experience with the watch itself has been for the most part and very positive now from my testing and different parts of the city to the suburbs and last in the local park off of the main trail here I was able to have the GPS locked on in about 15 or 20 seconds each time it's about 10 to 15 seconds faster than other bands that I've tested now the GPS has been practically identical as well to that of my GPS on the phone even down to the distance and pace and as you've seen in the video so far the screen doesn't perform as smooth in transitions as some other devices today it's clearly not as smooth as your phone as well it doesn't hinder the experience negatively though it doesn't necessarily feel like it's going to slow you down at least not for me but overall the touchscreen has been very responsive through swiping back and forth and the vibrating alarms which you can only set to go off on a daily basis and not on individual days is strong enough to wake me up or alert me of notifications and a last bit here before looking at the app I did test the heart rate monitor and this is why I personally prefer chest straps in general it's that much more accurate and a consistent tool across the board regardless of brand for the most part now wearing the h7 from polar proven an accurate ban on my channel here and wearing the garment at the same time both straps were practically identical both chefs were always within one or two heartbeats of each other but to further provide proof here I perform some basic interval training and even with a stop and go workout method every beat was very much spot-on even the average heart rate at the end with all this up and down in heart rate calculations were eventually the same so let's now take a look at the Garmin Connect app here and see what it has to offer starting on the main page here on top I have my step counter with my daily goals shown in the middle now one feature I love about Garmin and not every band does this it's an automatically adjusting goal based on your previous day's performance it goes up when you're being active in days where you just caught off guard there the number lowers itself just to make it more obtainable the next day now of course you can change that number easily with just a tap on the pencil icon but moving to the next tile is a combination of calories burn for that day based on my general activity and workouts logged but also a calorie intake log as well by tapping on details it does offer you to add foods via the very popular app I fitness pal there you can login your food and drink intake and it will basically bring the data back into the garment app for viewing now moving back here is the sleep tile offering how much time you've slept but more importantly how much movement was measured during your sleep so it's pretty much self-explanatory now the next tile here offers activities or workouts that you've recorded so far tapping on each activity opens tons of information that you can review starting with a map to run the following here is a very detailed summary lap times are also presented although I didn't have do any lap times here and last are all your detailed charts for viewing again very impressive very detailed all together and that's basically it from a home page and I'm sure it will look different from what you may have as every owner can add widgets by just pressing this top upper button right here basically you click on add widget and you can add courses workouts badges or basically achievements and record your own weight over time but backing out real quick here also wanted to mention four steps calories and sleep you can always click on details and swipe left or right to view previous performances and pretty standard but it's still pretty useful you can compare weeks and months to see if you're doing better or worse and make adjustments now one thing before I let you go here government has this thing called Garmin Connect IQ it's their website that houses all the third-party apps that are available to use with the government people active now for example the watch only comes with one digital time display but downloading and singing to my band I'm able to have new watch faces widgets and other very useful features at hand and it's ridiculously easy to do now not to mention the Garmin Connect website alone is very detailed and offers even more customization but customizing is so deep for Garmin products that's seriously for another review or video so how this video helped you in some way I know heads tons of information and this video is long enough here but to help out please add me gyms review room onto your social media either Facebook Twitter or Instagram and if you enjoyed my work please share this video on forums and with your friends all help would be greatly appreciated so this is Jimmy wood Jim's review room you guys take care and I'll see you in the next one bye