I bought my Garmin Vivoactive HR about a week ago and have been using it steadily for that week. I have been wearing a Timex triathlon series watch for a long time. I paid $249.00 at Best Buy getting the last one they had in the store. I have not seen another one in any store since. I see a lot of Vivoactive's but not the HR version. So to get one you may have to look online and there are many sources. So far I am not seeing anyone giving a discount from the $249 suggested retail price including Garmin outlet stores. I am seeing that Best Buy will be restocked on Wednesday, May 18.
What can this thing do? Well just about everything. It is good to 50m in the pool or 5 Atmospheres. Not recommended for ocean swimming. It has apps from running, swimming, rowing, walking, skiing, golf and bicycling. Both indoor and outdoor is supported.
The HR part is the fact that you no longer have to have a strap around the chest to measure heart rate. It is measured using lasers on the wrist. So far I found that the only problem with it is when you drive home and the the wheels need balanced, your heart rate may reach 150. Nice to make your watch think you are doing an intense workout. Take the watch hand off the wheel and it drops to 85. Probably where it should be when you drive that fast.
I have taken multiple walks with it. It will tell you the distance you walked, steps taken and the elevation gain made or lost. It counts floors of stairs you have taken in a day. I went up the escalator at Sears actually moving my feet and it gave me credit for a floor climbed. When you get home and sink it with your smart phone or laptop it will give you a gps look at the course you walked, your heart rate and pace throughout the trip. Your overall times and split times at each mile are also recorded.
Don't like the apps and the order they are on the watch. Don't worry. Editing them is very simple. Turning on and off Bluetooth as simple task. It should be done at night anyway. You sleep better without the Bluetooth radio waves in the room. When you turn it back on, it will sink with your smart phone or tablet and post your results to the internet where you can see your results on any other devices you have. I have been able to connect with desktop Windows 7, laptop Windows 8, Android tablet 4.4 Kitkat and Android smart phone 5.0.
The sleep monitoring feature is interesting. If you take a nap in the afternoon, it will try to get you up and moving. At night if you slip and take your watch off, it will think your in deep sleep for that period. It counts sleep time from the time you get still until the time you are fully up. It monitors deep sleep, light sleep and awake periods. Not sure on the accuracy of that but the sleep time is very close. I woke up, took off the watch and took a shower and counted my shower time as deep sleep.
I tried to play a round of golf. I will have to get back with you later on the scorecard feature. The distance to green was very helpful. It shows front and back. It will also tell you what kind of shot you need if you plan to lay up. I plan to play again sometime where I can try the scorecard and swing analysis. I drove a golf cart and it still gave me credit for walking the course.
On the social side, it does let you connect with your friends who use Garmin products. If they use anything else, you are out of luck. It will show them your recorded workouts and steps taken in the day. My wife who uses Fitbit has to tell me how she is doing. If someone knows a solution to that, I would love to hear about it in the comments. The weekly challenge is fun. I finished 5th in the steps taken category for the week, and I didn't have a day and a half on it. Already in second place on week two. I expect to do well since I work on my feet. I am easily seeing 10k steps a day. I saw over 2000 steps taken on my first hour of work on Sunday.
That said, I am not satisfied with the answers I am seeing on the steps. As I walk, I can look down and see 2 to 3 steps click off as I walk 1. I did try using the custom steps but even there it isn't accurate because then you have got to move on the dance floor to get steps. My old fashion pedometer is reading more steps then my watch. Right now it is 1500 steps difference. Maybe the shaking in the car is adding to the pedometer.
The battery life on it is good. I went 5 days without recharging it. The golf took a lot out of the battery. Finding a spare charger cord in a store is a challenge. The only place I have seen one is online for $29.00 at garmin.com. So take care of your cord and don't lose it. You can plug it into any USB port and charge it. Doesn't take long.
Other features is it does play music. I tried to put a book on mp3 onto the watch and it did not have room for it. So manage the space wisely.
Anyway, that is my view on the first week with the product. I have lost a whole pound so far and am looking forward to seeing how active I can be.
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