I want to start this off by saying that this is the first fitness tracker I have owned. I would consider myself an athlete and have been one for basically my entire life. The sports I've played have changed over the years, but I've always been pretty active. I looked at other devices in the past like Fitbit, Polar, Nike, and even other Garmin devices, and nothing was appealing enough for me to finally buy into the whole activity tracking craze. A few months back, a friend showed me his Garmin Vivosmart HR during a volleyball tournament and showed me everything you can do with the Garmin Connect app. I play a lot of volleyball, so I was also a little concerned about wearing something on my wrist while playing since you pass with your arms, but he claimed that he didn't really notice it while playing. The Garmin ecosystem seemed pretty cool, so I decided to jump on Amazon and search for something for myself.



I landed on the Vivoactive HR. Unfortunately, this was in March and it hadn't been released yet. Because of this, I wasn't able to find many hands on reviews. But the feature set had everything I was looking for. The main features I was looking for were activity tracking, sleep tracking, wrist-based heart rate sensor, built-in GPS, and decent battery life. The golf features and touchscreen were added bonuses. I golf a couple times a month during the warmer months of the year, and having a rangefinder on my wrist seemed pretty convenient. So I ordered it way back in March, but I didn't receive it until May 2. However, shortly after receiving mine, I noticed that the screen seemed to be crooked. It was like the display (under the glass) was turned slightly counterclockwise. I ended up calling Garmin directly and arranging for a replacement to be sent out. They sent one while allowing me to keep my current Vivoactive HR which I would send back when receiving the new one. After receiving the new one, I saw that the screen was mounted correctly. I will note that the device itself seemed to function normally otherwise except for one small problem which I will note later when talking about golf.



APPS AND FEATURES:



Heart Rate Monitoring: So I've had this thing for about 3 weeks now. I feel like for the price point it is at, it is truly awesome. Heart rate monitoring seems to be pretty accurate. I am not the type of person to care about perfectly exact HR numbers, but I've measured my pulse by feel and it seems to be pretty close. It does seem like doing things (like weightlifting) where you are tensing up your forearm does seem to mess with the HR sensor a bit, but it's not bad enough for me to really complain about.



Step Counter: The step counter appears to be fairly accurate. I am not too concerned about it being perfect. I just use it to get an idea of how much I've actually been on my feet any given day. I have noticed that it doesn't seem to count as many steps as I think it would when I am mowing the lawn with a push mower. Not a huge deal but a little disappointing. Otherwise it seems to keep track of my step count pretty well.



Sleep Tracking: Sleep tracking is neat. In my experience, the Vivoactive HR does a solid job of figuring out when I fall asleep and when I wake up. I am a little bit skeptical about the periods of "light sleep" and "deep sleep" that it records in the Garmin Connect app. Also, it doesn't always seem to see when I wake up during the night. I know that I woke up to go to the bathroom the other night and it didn't seem to notice the movement at all. You'd think if it saw steps in the middle of the night, it would assume you are awake. I will say that it has picked up other times that I've simply woke up in bed and fallen back asleep, but it doesn't seem to be perfect in this regard. Nonetheless, I am happy that it seems to pick up on when I'm actually falling asleep and waking up every night.



Activity Tracking: The only activities I've played with so far are walking, running, and a custom activity that I created for volleyball. I only use the GPS for walking and running, and it has been very accurate. Also, it has never taken more than a few seconds to get a good GPS lock. It's just nice to have GPS because I'd rather have my distance/pace calculated based on something accurate like GPS as opposed to the activity tracker counting your steps and estimating your stride distance. It's also really nice not having to take my phone with me to use GPS.



Golf features: As I said before the golf features were an added bonus. I downloaded some local courses and have used the golf app a few times now. The yardages have been accurate for the three courses that I have played. The app itself will show you distance to the hole when the pin is in front, middle, or back of the green. It will show you yardages to doglegs and layups. You can also measure the distance of your shots if you are into that kind of thing. You can even see (albeit primitive) the layout of the green on one of the screens. I did run into one problem with the golf app. On the layup screen, numbers would occasionally go "missing". There was a par 5 where I know it was about 150 yards to layup to 100 yards out, and the screen would display 50 instead of 150. This seemed to happen fairly often, and since I was familiar with the courses I was playing, it wasn't a big deal. But I called Garmin about it anyway, and they were actually able to reproduce it. They said that a software update should fix it. A new software version came out just the other day, so I will try it again this weekend and report back if it is fixed.



THE OTHER STUFF:



Battery life: For something that has a decent sized display and 24/7 HR monitoring, I think the Vivoactive HR has great battery life. Obviously if you are a heavy GPS user, the battery will drain much faster than normal. I charged to 100% just over 5 days ago, and none of the workouts I've done in the last 5 days have required GPS. I'm currently sitting at 50%. I guess if you go off this, you should get about 10 days of battery without GPS usage. During my last 25-minute run with GPS on, the battery level dropped about 2-3% which didn't seem unreasonable. Golf appears to suck the most out of the battery since GPS is turned on for a few hours at a time. During a normal 18-hole round (a little over 4 hours) with GPS on the whole time, the battery percentage dropped by about 20%. I know the Vivoactive HR is rated for about 8 days without GPS and 13 hours with GPS on. So the battery actually appears to perform better than what it is rated for.



Touchscreen: I've seen the touchscreen readability as a topic of debate on some other websites. It is actually more readable in direct sunlight than in any other circumstances. It is very readable with normal indoor lighting. It is impossible to read in the dark unless you have the backlight on. In most situations, I don't really feel like I need the backlight. But it does its job when it is needed. The screen isn't the highest resolution thing you'll ever seen, but it still looks nice. The touchscreen is responsive and accurately responds to touches, and I feel like it has actually gotten more responsive and fluid with the latest update.



Comfort, size, and looks: I have never worn watches. I was a little worried about having something on my wrist all day, every day...especially while sleeping and playing volleyball. After wearing the Vivoactive HR for a few days, I don't really even notice it anymore. I find it to be very comfortable. I can see how it might be too large for some people who are accustomed to wearing smaller activity trackers. But I think it's the price you pay for something that has a decent sized touchscreen with HR monitoring built in. I am wearing the version with the regular band (not XL), and I would say I have slightly smaller than average wrists for a guy. I wear it fairly tight and still have 9 notches to work with on the band. As far as looks go...you're not going to trick anyone into thinking it's some kind of luxury watch. It looks like an activity tracker, but I actually prefer the design over the design of the original Vivoactive. It still looks pretty sleek, and I have had a lot of people ask me about it. Also, I work in IT, so no one really cares if I'm wearing something real fancy looking. If you want to spruce things up a little bit, there are quite a few downloadable watch faces available, and the band can also be switched out.



Durability: This one is still up in the air. The Vivoactive HR is mostly plastic, but to me, it doesn't feel cheap. The two buttons underneath the screen feel pretty solid. I did buy a screen protector for the glass, but I haven't put it on yet. I'm debating whether or not I actually need to put it on. I have always taken care of my electronics, but I don't take most of my electronics running or play a volleyball tournament with them attached to my wrist. It feels like it will hold up, but I don't think I will truly have an idea for at least a few months.



Other stuff: The smart notifications feature works well. I am able to pick and choose what notifications I want relayed from my cell phone. You can't really do a whole lot with the notifications other than view them, but I have found that I actually look at my phone a lot less now because of this. The notifications turn off during your designated sleeping schedule, so they won't annoy you when you're lying in bed. However, the alarm feature has a strong enough vibration to wake me up every morning. This is nice because I no longer need to blare audio from the alarm on my cell phone and wake up my wife at the same time. Also, there are a decent amount of watch faces/apps/widgets available. So far I've only touched the watch faces, but it is nice that quite a bit can be customized to fit your needs.



Overall, I'm very happy with the Vivoactive HR. The reason I gave it 4 stars is because of the bugs in the golf app. I'm taking it out to the golf course a couple times this weekend, so I'll see if the update fixed the problem. If so, I may come back and re-rate it as 5 stars. And if I think of anything else I want to add in, I will do so.