Garmin Vivoactive 3 released

As predicted a few weeks Garmin has released the Garmin Vivoactive 3 sports watch. The watch looks amazing in terms of design and the feature set also stacks up well. The Garmin Vivoactive 3 will be the first Garmin wearable to offer Garmin pay to allow you to pay for items contactless. It will also include multiple sports profiles, stress tracking and a built in heart rate monitor.







Essential reading: Garmin Vivosmart 3 review

Garmin Vivoactive 3 pictures

1 of 9

Garmin Vivoactive 3 key features

Garmin has released the Edge 1030 today and it will start shipping towards the end of the year, I think before Christmas.

First Garmin wearable that is Garmin Pay ™ ready, so customers can pay for purchases with their watch

Personalise your watch with thousands of free watch faces, apps and widgets from our Connect store

More than 15 preloaded GPS and indoor sports apps, including yoga, running, swimming and more

Monitor your fitness level with VO2 max and fitness age estimates, plus keep an eye on how you handle stress 2

Bluetooth Smart and ANT+ for connecting sensors to the Vivoactive 3

Get connected features 3 such as smart notifications, automatic uploads to Garmin Connect ™ , LiveTrack and more

Battery life 4 : up to 7 days in smartwatch mode; 13 hours in GPS mode

Garmin Vivoactive 3 video overview









Garmin Vivoactive 3 design

Garmin has changed the design of the Vivoactive 3 from a square to a circle design. The Screen will be a full-colour chroma screen that will work well in sunlight and will be a touch screen. The Vivoactive 3 also features a design that allows you to turn the wearable 18 degrees to have the home button in the right place depending on the wrist you choose to wear it on. The other feature I am looking forward to trying out is the new Side swipe that allows you to navigate menus and screens

Garmin Vivoactive 3 with Garmin Pay

The Garmin vívoactive 3 is our first Garmin wearable that is Garmin Pay ready; with many major banks, Garmin Pay will work like Apple Pay and many others and you simply use it just about anywhere you can pay with contactless. I think this will be really good for cyclists or people out running that want to make a cafe stop and not have to worry about taking a wallet or some cash to pay for the coffee or energy drink.

Essential reading: Garmin Vivosmart 3 review

Garmin Vivoactive 3 with more sports profiles

Garmin is promising more than 15 preloaded sports apps, from running, swimming, yoga and indoor sports. The built in GPS will also track activity that is outside and give you information like pace and distance which will be useful for cycling people. The Vivoactive 3 will not include triathlon mode or open water swimming and it won’t work with Garmin’s HR run or HR Tri to give you running dynamic data. You will also be able to configure the Vivoactive 3 to have 4 data fields on the screen like you can with the Garmin Fenix 5.

Garmin Vivoactive 3 smart messaging

The Vivoactive 3 will also feature a number of smart features, but the one of particular interest I suspect to lots of people will be the smart notifications. Whilst this has been included in a number of Garmin wearables already, the new functionality will allow you to respond to those messages, but at this stage, it will be Andriod phones only. You will also be able to access music controls on your smartphone, but it won’t have the ability to sync music.

Garmin Vivoactive 3 daily fitness and stress

With the built in Elevate wrist based heart rate tech, the Vivoactive 3 lets you monitor specs of your fitness and stress like you can with the Vivosmart 3. You can also estimate your VO2 max and fitness age which is a good indication of your fitness profile and how you are performing. The Stress tracking is not new to Garmin wearables as its featured in the Vivosmart 3, but it’s a good feature to have on this device and something I certainly welcome.

Garmin Vivoactive 3 pricing and availability

The Garmin Vivoactive 3 is expected to ship before Christmas 2017 at a price starting at £279.99 / $299 but I suspect the release will happen maybe in mid-October to try and compete with the recently announced Fitbit Ionic Smartwatch





