Anyone planning on buying this watch? It looks like it fulfills all of my needs and has the added bonus of smartwatch capabilities (not my primary requirement, but nice to have nonetheless). DCRainmaker had positive things to say about it.
Training Runs - I need a watch to track my runs and automatically sync with TP without manually entering data / connecting the device. Currently I carry my iPhone using the Wahoo app and this is getting annoying. All I care about is distance and average pace with HR an added bonus (I don’t wear a strap now but the optical HR would be nice to have regardless of accuracy)
Racing - It looks like I could use this as a race watch with 13 hours of GPS battery life (plus HR as a bonus)
Don’t care about bike/swim training with it as I use my bike computer and pace clock respectively
For those of you who don’t wear a watch on the swim/bike of races because of the increased drag, how do you track your OVERALL race time? Sure, I know my bike/run split but if I don’t wear a watch from the start, I have no idea what my overall time is when getting out of the water.
I am about a week and a half into having mine. Its nice for now, we’ll see if the novelty wears off. I bought it primarily to serve as a reminder/kick in the butt to move more, especially at work. The step and stairs aren’t 100% accurate, it will count them off when I’m washing my hair (vigorous hand movement I guess), driving, sometimes even typing at the keyboard…its not alot…but still somewhat off.
I do like the smart watch aspect of it. Being able to read emails or texts while not having to grab my phone is nice. The sleep feature is pretty cool too. Hard to tell the accuracy of it though.
I would recommend it if you find it on sale. I bought mine from Verizon for around $130 I think. If you are planning on using it as a race watch, I’d probably steer clear and invest in another Garmin product.
You must be referring to the Vivosmart HR, the Vivoactive HR hasnt been released yet and will retail for $250. Its a significant upgrade over the Vivosmart HR.
No prob, thanks for the insight anyway… I realize it hasn’t been released yet (was supposed to ship yesterday?) but still wondering if anyone was planning to purchase based on the advertised specs and DCR’s review.
Racing - It looks like I could use this as a race watch with 13 hours of GPS battery life (plus HR as a bonus)
If you are going to use it for racing it doesn’t have a multisport mode, so you would be stuck with using it on the swim/bike only.
No outdoor swim tracking either.
Why would you be stuck using it only on the swim/bike? I realize it won’t change activity types on the fly, but couldn’t you setup your data fields to show MPH on one page and Pace on another? And it still does normal laps, right?
Outdoor swim tracking is kind of faked anyhow. I’m surprised that no one had released an Open Water Swim GPS post processing program yet.
I have the Vivoactive (earlier version), and it’s a great all-around watch. I get HR from a MIO Link that sits under the band, and on the bike I have an ANT+ bike computer that the sensors link to (while also linking to the Vivoactive).
The watch sycs wirelessly to your phone (via BTLE) using Garmin Connect which can then be set to connect workouts to TP, Strava, etc. Basically, when I get back from a run (and in range of my phone) the transfer is automatic.
Racing - It looks like I could use this as a race watch with 13 hours of GPS battery life (plus HR as a bonus)
If you are going to use it for racing it doesn’t have a multisport mode, so you would be stuck with using it on the swim/bike only.
No outdoor swim tracking either.
Why would you be stuck using it only on the swim/bike? I realize it won’t change activity types on the fly, but couldn’t you setup your data fields to show MPH on one page and Pace on another? And it still does normal laps, right?
Outdoor swim tracking is kind of faked anyhow. I’m surprised that no one had released an Open Water Swim GPS post processing program yet.
Thanks all, looking forward to more detailed reviews.
I’ve never understood the value of multisport mode, to be honest. The last few races I’ve done, I’ve worn a cheap $15 timex watch that has worked just fine, because 1) it shows my time after I exit the swim, 2) it shows my overall time so I know if I’m on track for my race plan, 3) My Garmin Edge already takes care of bike metrics including power, and 4) I can do some simple math on the run to figure out my pace (assuming mile markers are all there, sometimes this is not the case…)
As long as the Vivoactive starts tracking laps once I exit the water that’s all I really need to be honest. Doesn’t need to sync exactly with the mile markers.
I am about a week and a half into having mine. Its nice for now, we’ll see if the novelty wears off. I bought it primarily to serve as a reminder/kick in the butt to move more, especially at work. The step and stairs aren’t 100% accurate, it will count them off when I’m washing my hair (vigorous hand movement I guess), driving, sometimes even typing at the keyboard…its not alot…but still somewhat off.
I do like the smart watch aspect of it. Being able to read emails or texts while not having to grab my phone is nice. The sleep feature is pretty cool too. Hard to tell the accuracy of it though.
I would recommend it if you find it on sale. I bought mine from Verizon for around $130 I think. If you are planning on using it as a race watch, I’d probably steer clear and invest in another Garmin product.
I’ve had the same watch for a few months. Sleep is not accurate, neither is h/r. Activity monitoring only works if you tell it you are doing something (I figured it would know if your heart rate went up for an extended period of time) and the distance running is off. Steps do seem “close”, except it thinks you are walking if you are swimming. Novelty quickly wore off, but it does tell time and the reminder to move is nice. The text/call notification is also handy.
I thought about the active h/r, but given the flaws in this, I’ll stick with my 920 for racing and when it gets the h/r built in, upgrade to that one.
DR Rainmaker’s preview is full of comments from people that began receiving the watch about a week ago - scroll down toward the bottom of the comments, there are a lot of good mini-reviews in there:
Indeed, likely the review out next week (as in, the week of May 16th).
That said, fwiw from a triathlon standpoint…having done at full swim/bike/run brick today and actually tried to use it in that:
Swim: It has no openwater swim mode, so you have to fake it. I put it into running, but then you have to lock the screen because of the water pressure. From the moment I entered the water until I dried it off afterwards, the screen is basically useless in fake-OW swim mode, because it’ll have a unlock message on it (because it thinks your trying to unlock it with water pressure). So just a timer. Distance on wrist also quite a bit off of course, lacking OW swim mode algorithms. I haven’t analyzed the HR data yet, feeling lazy today. It normally shuts off the HR sensor in the pool, but in fake-OW mode (running), it still records.
Bike: Fine. No power meter support of course, but HR/cadence/etc… I see better performance than in the past on Garmin optical HR sensors, but still kinda iffy depending on road/temp conditions.
Run: Good. It tends to handle this the best, which is logical.
Note that as someone else said above, it has no multi-sport mode. So that means you need to end/start each leg manually. Which wouldn’t normally be an issue per se…except…that I see extreme slowness on HR lock during sport mode (initial lock). I suspect that’s because they’re holding off longer to get a solid lock which improves in-sport use, but it’s not ideal in T1/T2, because running around would just make it a million times worse to get lock. It’s taking me 1-2 mins to get HR lock standing perfectly still.
As an all-around non-triathlon watch though, it’s not too shabby.
Any updates yet? I’m not happy on the 735XT price of $450
Now that I’ve recovered from sticker shock, (these use 'em & toss 'em toys are getting pricey), I am still eagerly waiting for their shipment to my workplace.
