It won’t track your heart rate while you’re swimming but you can add the capability by pairing with either an ANT+ or Bluetooth smart chest strap like the Garmin HRM+SWIM. It tracks at around the same level as the Fitbit Ionic and didn’t give me any strange readings when I and a couple of colleagues tested it out while cycling and running in London. There’s even more tweakability when it comes to running and other GPS-based activities, with the ability to download workouts from your training calendar, set alerts, laps, and turn on auto-pause so that your average pace or speed doesn’t tumble while you’re waiting to cross the road or stopped at traffic lights.Īs for accuracy, that seems to be pretty good as far as optical wrist-based heart rate sensors go. ![]() You can choose what’s displayed during the exercise and set alerts selected based on time, distance and calories burned. For example, select a Pool Swim and you’re prompted to select from a number of presets or set your own length. Most of these are tweakable on the watch itself, too. It can estimate your lactate threshold, a measurement that, some say, is a better way to calculate exercise zones that your maximum heart rate. The Vivoactive 3 also supplies a stress score, reports your average resting heart rate and your estimated VO2 max – a measurement of lung capacity and, therefore, your general cardiovascular fitness levels. There’s also sleep tracking, which tracks your movement to indicate when you’ve been in light or deep sleep or awake during the night. The watch keeps tabs on your steps, floors climbed and calories burned during the day, and it continually monitors your heart rate both during the day and the night, recording your heart rate at one-second intervals. You buy one primarily because it’s great for activity and fitness tracking and, on this front, the Vivoactive 3 is very good indeed.įirst up, general activity tracking is excellent. READ NEXT: Samsung Gear Sport review Garmin Vivoactive 3 review: Activity and fitness trackingīut you don’t buy a Garmin watch if all you want are smartwatch functions. However, even without it the Garmin Vivoactive 3 is a credible smartwatch stand-in, especially as it also provides access to a decent selection of third-party apps, widgets and watch faces via the Garmin IQ Connect store. Here’s hoping this changes in the coming months. The theory is that you’ll be able to use contactless terminals to pay for things in shops and restaurants but I was unable to test it out because no UK banks or credit cards currently support the feature. ![]() Garmin Pay – the Vivoactive 3’s other big new feature – is also a disappointment, at least for now. Fortunately, you can put the device into do not disturb mode pretty easily, although enabling an automated schedule for this is a bit of a chore in the Garmin Connect app you have to adjust your “Sleep” time in User settings then dig into Device settings to enable do not disturb during sleep. I found it tended to activate when I wore it in bed, waking me up in the middle of the night. In the dark, the screen lights up when you raise your wrist, but it is rather over-sensitive. Plus, in contrast to regular OLED smartwatch displays, the brighter the sunlight gets the clearer the display. It uses transflective LCD tech so it’s always-on, yet power-efficient because it doesn’t require a backlight to read in normal or bright sunlight. The watch is waterproof to 5ATM (50m) so you can take it in the pool for a swim, and the screen is topped with Gorilla Glass 3 so should be resistant to scratches and scuffs.Īnd, while the colours on the Vivoactive 3’s 1.2in, 240 x 240 LCD are no match for the ultra-vivid Fitbit Ionic, Apple Watch or Samsung Gear Sport, it is a sensible choice. On the rear is an optical heart-rate sensor and inside are GPS and GLONASS positional radios, a barometric altimeter, compass, accelerometer and thermometer. It’s laden with all the sensors you need for pretty much any fitness tracking task you can think of.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |