Garmin Vivosport Watch Faces
- Approach® S60
- Approach® S62
- Captain Marvel
- D2™ Air
- D2™ Bravo
- D2™ Bravo Titanium
- D2™ Charlie
- D2™ Delta
- D2™ Delta PX
- D2™ Delta S
- Darth Vader™
- Descent™ Mk1
- Descent™ MK2, Descent™MK2i
- Descent™ Mk2S
- Enduro™
- First Avenger
- Forerunner® 245
- Forerunner® 245 Music
- Forerunner® 645
- Forerunner® 645 Music
- Forerunner® 745
- Forerunner® 935
- Forerunner® 945
- Forerunner® 945 LTE
- fēnix® 3, quatix® 3, tactix® Bravo
- fēnix® 3 HR
- fēnix® 5, quatix® 5
- fēnix® 5 Plus
- fēnix® 5S
- fēnix® 5S Plus
- fēnix® 5X, tactix® Charlie
- fēnix® 5X Plus
- fēnix® 6
- fēnix® 6 Dual Power
- fēnix® 6 Pro, fēnix® 6 Sapphire
- fēnix® 6 Pro Dual Power
- fēnix® 6 Pro Solar
- fēnix® 6 Solar
- fēnix® 6S
- fēnix® 6S Dual Power
- fēnix® 6S Pro, fēnix® 6S Sapphire
- fēnix® 6S Pro Dual Power
- fēnix® 6S Pro Solar
- fēnix® 6S Solar
- fēnix® 6X Pro, fēnix® 6X Sapphire, fēnix® 6X Pro Solar, tactix® Delta Sapphire, quatix® 6X Solar, tactix® Delta Solar, tactix® Delta Solar Ballisitcs
- fēnix® Chronos
- MARQ™ Adventurer
- MARQ™ Athlete
- MARQ™ Aviator
- MARQ™ Captain, MARQ™ Captain: American Magic Edition
- MARQ™ Commander
- MARQ™ Driver
- MARQ™ Expedition
- MARQ™ Golfer
- Mercedes-Benz Venu®
- quatix® 6
- quatix® 6X, quatix® 6X Solar, quatix® 6X Dual Power
- Rey™
- Venu®
- Venu® Sq.
- Venu® Sq. Music
- vívoactive® 3
- vívoactive® 3 Mercedes-Benz® Collection
- vívoactive® 3 Music
- vívoactive® 4, GarminActive
- vívoactive® 4S, GarminActive S
- vívolife
If you spend a lot of time outdoors exploring, this is the kind of free face to have loaded up onto your Garmin. Compatible watches: Fenix 5/6 series, Fenix Chronos, Marq, Vivoactive 3/4, Venu. Forerunner® 245 is a running watch that includes training status to indicate if you’re under training or overdoing it, and training plans from Garmin Coach.
Garmin Vivosport review
I’ve been using a Vivosmart HR for a while now. While I had my Fenix 3 I would use the Vivosmart to broadcast my HR to the Fenix 3 since my Fenix 3 had no heart rate sensor. Now that I’ve upgraded to a Fenix 5 I don’t need this anymore. I also use the Vivosmart for playing hockey. The idea of having a large expensive Fenix 5 on my wrist while playing hockey is unappealing both from the perspective of damaging the watch, but also damaging me when my arm/wrist inevitably get munched … In upgrading to the Fenix 5 I got introduced to a number of new as well as improved health stats. This includes true all day heart rate, all day stress, better sleep tracking and the like, none of which the Vivosmart HR can do. So I saw that the GPS City had the Vivosport on refurb for $109 so that seemed like a small price to pay for a new gadget to play with and potentially get all these new metrics. The thing about these all day metrics is taking the device off or switching to device that doesn’t support them for sleep or playing hockey for example looses not one but two days worth of data. Now I know this is getting a bit obsessive, but for such a small price … The other reason to where one of these devices is to be able to wear a non smart watch every now and then and not loose the data. I know more OCD.
I briefly looked at Vivosmart 4 but for less money I also get a GPS with the Vivosport so why not … Size wise the Vivosport is 21×10.9mm Vs the Vivosmart HR I am replacing is 21×12.3mm, so slightly less thick. There are two sizes of Vivosport Small/Medium and large. The Small/Medium should really be called Small, because it is really small. I have small 160mm wrists and the band fits with 5 holes left but not a lot to spare. I find this unit catches on the shirt sleeves more than the Vivosmart HR.
Display wise it goes from an always on, backlit black and white LCD display that was easy read to a color always on backlit display that looks a lot more like the one on the fenix. The display is small and grainy and not the easiest thing to read. There are absolutely NO buttons on this device, so your navigating it using the touch screen. A series of tap, double tap, and press and hold. It works ok but is a bit finicky to get use to and get good at. The menus seem similar to the Vivosmart HR so for me it didn’t take a lot of getting use to. As with the Vivosmart HR the battery level is hidden between a LOT of swipes, and it’s the only place you can find it (Tap and hold, 8 swipes to settings, 4 swipes to wrench, 4 swipes to about battery status is there phew). The menus often guide you when you need to double tap to unlock or start/stop etc. The display can not be turned off something Garmin seem to forget. It would allow you to make it even more innocuous when you want to use it with a normal watch.
Speaking of battery it’s rated at: Smartwatch mode: Up to 7 days, GPS mode: Up to 8 hours Vs Up to 5 days for the Vivosmart HR. So you can see they’ve made good progress at improving battery life all the while adding better more detailed metrics with more data points. What you can also see … using the GPS has a profound affect on battery life. And this is super noticeable. After 1 day and a half of non GPS and 1 hr and 10 mins of GPS the battery was already down to 54%. So while it has a GPS, beware … Recharging the device takes a mere hour from dead according to Garmin and uses the same cable as the Fenix 5. To put the GPS power draw in perspective 1 hr on GPS would draw down 12.5% of the battery, or put another way 1 hr of GPS is the equivalent of 21 hours of normal use.
And now you bump into a rub … it turns out Garmin decided no one would ever need to power off their Vivosport so if your using the Vivosport as a secondary device as I intend to, you risk it being dead the next time you need it unless you leave it plugged in anytime it’s not on. STUPID …
Speaking of GPS, the first time I tried to use it I had to try three times to get it to GPS lock, it kept wanting to put it to sleep. First time GPS locks are usually longer, but it seems Garmin didn’t think of that. This is worth noting so your not waiting around trying to get first lock before doing an activity.
Garmin have been super smart in that when you go to track an activity like walking/running you can choose an indoor or outdoor (ie with or without GPS). (Cycling can only be outdoor). This is perfect for me, because that way I can use it for hockey and not smoke the battery.
The Vivosport can not talk to any kind of sensors, not chest strap, not wheel sensors, nada, zip … Likely why cycling only has an outdoor more. The Vivosport can broadcast your heart rate to other Ant+ devices.
Sport wise it can be used to track walk/run/Cycle outdoors/Cardio (Inside or Outdoor)/Strength (indoor only)/Other (whatever that means) (Indoor and outdoor). The device can not be used for tracking skiing/snow boarding. Screens for each activity can be customized on Garmin Connect on the phone (More, Garmin devices, Garmin Vivosport, Activity options). You can set heart rate alarms in the same place for each activity.
The device mentioned that calorie count requires calibration, on first use I noticed the calorie count for an indoor walk (how I record hockey) seemed quite low compared to the Vivosmart HR. So on my second time out I wore both my older VivoSmart HR and the VivoSport. The results are dismal, the vivosport totally missed the boat even on average heart rate and the resulting calorie count is ridiculously low.
Now to be totally sure it’s the Vivosport missing the boat, I wore a chest strap and used my trusty old FR70 to capture it. Again you can see clearly (focus only on heart rate) the Vivoport in hockey missed the boat by 31 bpm even on average, and by 27 on Max heart rate. BAD.
It doesn’t seem to be relative to temperature, because it did fine on a cold day’s hike, seems something specific about hockey. While the Vivosport missed the boat on hockey, it does fine from a day to day resting heart rate.
Garmin Vivosport Watch Faces &
Here’s a comparison of a hike I did with the Vivosport/Garmin Fenix 5. As you can see they agree in some areas, and not at all in others. Fortunately the average heart rate and calorie counts are pretty close. Interestingly the Vivosport totally missed ANY elevation change, now while there was not a lot, there was some. Certainly not 9M the Fenix saw, but then again the barometric altimeter on the Fenix has NEVER been good.
I did a hike and compared it to RunGPS on my iPhone 8 which uses GPS only.
As you can see it did not bad.
Biking is one place wrist mounted heart rate monitors can do badly. So I headed out on a fairly smooth gentle ride and compared it with a chest strap (paired with my Fenix) and was shocked how well it did. And thrilled to see the Fenix 5 and Vivosport count calories similarly!
So in all cases except hockey where it consistently misses the heart rate and thus calories, it does fine.
You can have the device auto lock the screen, but this REALLY becomes problematic. So I decided to use the alarm on the watch along with the auto lock. So the alarm goes off … I need to double tap to unlock the screen then select cancel not snooze (and it turns out green is snooze and red is cancel?, somehow this seems backwards), all the while my brain is barely functioning, I don’t have my glasses on and I’m trying to not wake the other person in the bed 😦 FAIL. I would suggest you only use auto lock within activities.
You can set a max heart rate alarm for everyday use, something that is not even in the manual …
Garmin Vivosport Clock Faces
They do include a relax timer, something that takes you through a guided breathing exercise and then measures your HRV/Stress. HRV or heart rate variability is on the device but hidden behind Garmin algorithms and called all day stress. So the ability to use HRV to avoid over training is not possible.
Garmin have added MoveIQ which attempts to detect activities automatically, but MoveIQ events can not be converted to activities and don’t show in your news feed. In fact you have to go looking for them. I’m really not sure I get the point of MoveIQ.
The Vivosport does complete notifications, much better than Fitbit, however there is no ability to respond in anyway. The vibrate is good and strong/noticeable even on medium.
Sleeping wise, if the device is your default activity tracker, it can do full Garmin sleep metrics, which even includes an attempt to detect REM sleep. Unfortunately if your using this device and say the Fenix 5 you keep having to swap which one is your default tracker manually. Which take a lot of clicks on the Garmin Connect app on the phone (more, Garmin devices, vivosport, Device settings, preferred activity tracker). While sleeping you have to manage a compromise. Too tight and the band isn’t comfortable while sleeping. Too loose, and given how narrow this device is, the more light comes out from the heart rate monitor disturbing your sleep …
Garmin Vivosport Watch Faces
There are a couple of watch faces you can choose from, they are a little clumsy to change and can only be done on Garmin Connect on the phone (More, garmin devices, vivosport, device settings, orientation and watch face).
They have added a count down and count up timer, something that was missing on the Vivosmart HR. I use this feature of my devices ALL the time!
Overall given the price this unit is not bad. I’m disappointed and at a loss for why it does so badly on hockey, and really disappointed about them removing power off.