I’ve a rising checklist of expectations from my health tracker or smartwatch. Does it observe coronary heart price repeatedly, present notifications from my telephone, and supply superior stats about my well being? Can I put on it to mattress, within the pool, on the workplace? Can I depend on my watch as a lot as my telephone as a result of it has GPS, contactless funds, and music onboard? The Garmin Vivoactive 3 Music checks all these bins and extra. It is the direct descendant of the Garmin Vivoactive 3, solely beefed up with storage for music and audio information, which you’ll be able to take heed to by way of Bluetooth headphones. And it is a sturdy contender if you would like a watch that does all of it.
What’s New within the Vivoactive 3 Music?
For those who’re already acquainted with the Garmin Vivoactive 3, not a lot within the Music model might be new to you, until you have not run any firmware updates shortly (a number of sleep monitoring enhancements rolled out earlier in 2018). The colour choices are barely completely different for this launch, and it prices $30 greater than the older model.
The first distinction is that this model performs music, podcasts, and audiobooks by way of Bluetooth headphones. The innards of the watch are completely different from the prior model, too, to accommodate the extra 3.5GB of storage (sufficient to carry as much as 500 songs). For those who’re extra into music from streaming companies, you can too hook up with iHeartRadio and Deezer, which now provide downloadable playlists to appropriate Garmin units.
To place music, podcasts, or different audio information onto the Garmin Vivoactive three Music, it’s important to set up the Garmin Specific app on OS X or Home windows. You possibly can’t load audio information out of your telephone. You possibly can, nonetheless, use your telephone to arrange a connection to iHeartRadio and different supported third-party music streaming companies to snag music from them. However observe that the Vivoactive 3 Music must be linked to Wi-Fi to obtain songs.
As soon as your music is loaded and your headphones are linked, you’ll be able to hear from the watch. Seeing because the Garmin Vivoactive three Music additionally has GPS, this implies you’ll be able to run, bicycle, stroll, swim, and do loads of different actions while not having your telephone in any respect.
Fashion, Consolation, and Battery
The Vivoactive 3 Music is available in two colour choices: black with silver (the buckle), and granite blue with rose gold. I examined the black-and-silver mannequin, which has a easy and unassuming look, bordering on sporty. I would not describe it as premium or luxurious by any stretch, however it’s stable.
The watch ships with a quick-release silicone band in an ordinary 20mm dimension, which suggests you’ll be able to simply swap it out for any strap you want, whether or not it is made by Garmin or not. A spherical, colour face appears sharp and shiny even in daylight. When customizing the watch face, you’ll be able to select a readymade possibility or choose the precise information factors you wish to see at a look.
The 1.2-inch diameter contact display screen enables you to swipe via settings and stats, resembling steps and flights of stairs climbed. A crown on the periphery provides you fast entry to start out recording a brand new exercise and again out of menus.
The heft of a wristwatch all the time provides me pause. I’ve but to discover a gadget that encourages 24/7 put on that additionally feels gentle and comfy on my wrist on a regular basis. The Vivoactive 3 Music weighs 1.38 ounces, which does not really feel heavy throughout on a regular basis put on, however coupled with its zero.54-inch thickness, I want to take away it whereas sleeping. I managed to maintain it on lengthy sufficient to check the sleep-tracking options, nonetheless.
Garmin watches are likely to have distinctive battery life, and that holds true right here. A totally charged Vivoactive 3 Music lasts as much as seven days in smartwatch mode and 5 hours utilizing the GPS and enjoying music by way of Bluetooth concurrently. Contemplating how a lot it presents—Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and Ant+ connectivity; information storage for music and exercise stats; coronary heart price monitoring; GPS; to not point out no matter apps you load onto it from the Join IQ retailer—that is an actual feat.
To cost the watch, you join it to any USB energy supply by way of an included cable. A magnetized finish attaches securely, and whereas it is a proprietary charger, not less than it is the identical one used for a number of different Garmin merchandise. All the information the watch collects syncs to the Garmin Join cell app (for Android and iOS), which in flip syncs to the net app of the identical title. There, you’ll be able to view and analyze your whole stats in higher element and with extra ease than on a cell gadget.
Selection in Actions and Music
Although some sports activities watches focus on one exercise, resembling diving or mountain climbing, selection is the secret for the Garmin Vivoactive three Music. With the push of a button, you’ll be able to document greater than 15 completely different sorts of exercises, resembling operating, strolling, stand-up paddle boarding, yoga, indoor biking, and rowing. There’s additionally a function you’ll be able to allow in order that walks and runs are mechanically tracked every time the watch detects that you just’re doing these actions. For those who’ve used the Garmin Join cell app earlier than, your prior information carries ahead while you arrange the Vivoactive 3 Music. The app even suggests customized objectives based mostly in your historical past, and you’ll change these objectives at any time.
Along with monitoring your coronary heart price day and evening, the Vivoactive 3 Music screens stress. Garmin partnered with the corporate Firstbeat to investigate coronary heart price variability and different elements in figuring out stress ranges, which you’ll be able to see on the watch or within the app on an easy-to-read graph.
Garmin additionally crunches the information it collects out of your day by day well being and exercises to estimate your health age, VO2 max, and coronary heart price variability. To get a few of these readings, it’s essential use the look ahead to not less than per week whereas recording rigorous actions, and it helps to have an correct most coronary heart price within the settings, too. For those who’re into this sort of well being evaluation,
Garmin makes it really accessible.
One other side of the Vivoactive 3 Music that health fanatics will respect is the flexibility to each obtain and create exercises to comply with, resembling interval coaching or energy coaching. The watch helps you observe and document the exercise whereas following reps, units, and interval instances.
Superior Metrics
Relating to gathering and reporting superior health metrics, Garmin has all the time been beneficiant, and the Vivoactive 3 Music offers the information that health fanatics have come to count on.
Once you document a run, for instance, you get a abstract of typical information, together with distance, time, common tempo, elevation acquire, and energy burned. You additionally get detailed graphs of coronary heart price, tempo, run cadence, and even the out of doors temperature. Curious for extra? You possibly can view your most pace and common, or dive right into a breakdown of the period of time you spent in numerous coronary heart price zones. You possibly can view information over splits, or in case you want to create a customized breakdown, segments. As talked about, in case you use the watch typically sufficient for exercise monitoring, you may additionally see VO2 max (the utmost price of oxygen consumption measured throughout incremental train) and different wealthy stats.
A determine the Vivoactive three Music would not observe is one for menstruation and contraception. Only a few health trackers embrace it, Fitbit being the notable exception.
Accuracy
To get a way of accuracy in step rely and coronary heart price, I used a treadmill and the Wahoo Health Tickr X chest strap coronary heart price monitor and in contrast their information with these reported by the Garmin Vivoactive 3 Music. I additionally ran open air with the watch to get a way of how effectively the GPS labored, and the ensuing route and distance matched Google Maps to a tee.
For the common individual, a one-mile stroll includes round 2,000 steps. I’ve used a click on counter to substantiate that my gait matches this normal fairly exactly. After a one-mile treadmill stroll with the Vivoactive 3 Music, I clocked 1,998 steps.
As for coronary heart price, the vary and common have been spot-on with what the Tickr X reported. In real-time, nonetheless, I observed some lag. At the start of the exercise, my coronary heart price was almost 20 seconds behind the Tickr X’s readouts, and by as a lot as 10bpm. The longer I labored out, the nearer the readings grew to become. For those who’re doing extremely exact coronary heart price coaching or interval coaching, you may be higher off utilizing a chest strap coronary heart price monitor that makes use of electrical reasonably than optical elements.
Smartwatch Options
This Vivoactive 3 Music has a lot packed into it that I’ve but to say it has a compass, or that it could possibly double as a distant management for a Virb motion digicam, or that it shows a climate report. I briefly talked about that it has contactless cost, which is a boon in case you reside someplace with good help for that possibility (it is ubiquitous the place I reside, and I take advantage of it for the whole lot).
After all, it additionally delivers notifications out of your telephone. You possibly can even reply to textual content messages straight from the watch, however provided that it is paired with an Android gadget.
Conclusions
Discovering the options you need in a health tracker or smartwatch is important, however it’s equally necessary that it checks a number of different bins, too: reliability, ruggedness, accuracy, and stable battery life. Relaxation assured the Garmin Vivoactive 3 delivers on all of these fronts. For those who’re looking for a high-quality wearable that provides a little bit of the whole lot, from smartwatch performance to in-depth well being stats, the Vivoactive 3 Music needs to be on the prime of your checklist. I would even argue that it is a greater buy than the Apple Watch if health options are crucial ingredient of your watch. The Vivoactive combines a lot of our favourite components from health trackers and smartwatches into a flexible gadget that earns our Editors’ Alternative. For those who’re trying to avoid wasting cash, take a look at the Fitbit Charge 3, which delivers a ton of performance for $150.