The Garmin Vivoactive 3 Music packs all of the exceptional capabilities from running watches and health trackers right into a timepiece you can wear anywhere.
PROS:
- Holds up to 500 songs locally.
- Measures steps, stairs, sleep, continuous heart fee.
- Includes advanced health metrics: VO2 max, fitness age, stress.
- Contactless fee and smartwatch capabilities.
CONS:
- Can simplest respond to messages from watch whilst paired with Android.
- No women's health tracking.
I actually have a developing list of expectancies from my health tracker or smartwatch. Does it track heart fee continuously, display notifications from my smartphone, and provide advanced stats approximately my fitness? Can I put on it to bed, within the pool, at the office? Can I depend upon my watch as lots as my cellphone as it has GPS, contactless payments, and track onboard? The Garmin Vivoactive 3 Music assessments all the ones containers and greater. It's the direct descendant of the Garmin Vivoactive 3, only beefed up with storage for music and audio documents, which you can listen to through Bluetooth headphones. And it's a robust contender if you need a watch that does it all.
What's New within the Vivoactive three Music?
If you're already acquainted with the Garmin Vivoactive three, no longer an awful lot within the Music version might be new to you, unless you haven't run any firmware updates in a whilst (some sleep tracking enhancements rolled out in advance in 2018). The coloration options are slightly special for this launch, and it costs $30 greater than the older model.
The primary distinction is that this version plays track, podcasts, and audiobooks through Bluetooth headphones. The innards of the watch are different from the prior version, too, to house the additional 3.5GB of storage (enough to preserve as much as 500 songs). If you're more into track from streaming services, you can also connect with iHeartRadio and Deezer, which now provide downloadable playlists to well suited Garmin devices.
To put music, podcasts, or different audio documents onto the Garmin Vivoactive 3 Music, you have to deploy the Garmin Express app on OS X or Windows. You can't load audio files from your cellphone. You can, however, use your phone to set up a connection to iHeartRadio and different supported third-celebration music streaming services to snag song from them. But observe that the Vivoactive 3 Music needs to be linked to Wi-Fi to down load songs.
Once your tune is loaded and your headphones are related, you may concentrate from the watch. Seeing as the Garmin Vivoactive 3 Music additionally has GPS, this means you can run, bicycle, stroll, swim, and do plenty of other activities while not having your phone at all.
Style, Comfort, and Battery
The Vivoactive three Music comes in two color options: black with silver hardware (the buckle), and granite blue with rose gold. I tested the black-and-silver model, which has a easy and unassuming look, bordering on sporty. I wouldn't describe it as premium or luxury via any stretch, but it's strong.
The watch ships with a brief-launch silicone band in a fashionable 20mm size, which means you can easily switch it out for any strap you like, whether it's made by using Garmin or now not. A round, coloration face seems sharp and sleek even in sunlight. When customizing the watch face, you may choose a readymade option or select the exact information factors you want to peer at a glance.
The 1.2-inch diameter touch screen lets you swipe thru settings and stats, together with steps and flights of stairs climbed. A crown at the outer edge offers you brief access to start recording a new pastime and returned out of menus.
The heft of a wristwatch constantly gives me pause. I've but to find a device that encourages 24/7 wear that also feels mild and cushty on my wrist all the time. The Vivoactive three Music weighs 1.38 ounces, which doesn't feel heavy during everyday put on, however coupled with its 0.54-inch thickness, I favor to take away it even as sleeping. I managed to preserve it on long enough to check the sleep-tracking functions, however.
Garmin watches tend to have superb battery life, and that holds actual here. A completely charged Vivoactive three Music lasts as much as seven days in smartwatch mode and 5 hours the usage of the GPS and playing tune thru Bluetooth simultaneously. Considering how a whole lot it offers—Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and Ant+ connectivity; records storage for track and hobby stats; heart fee monitoring; GPS; now not to say some thing apps you load onto it from the Connect IQ store—that's a actual feat.
To rate the watch, you connect it to any USB electricity source via an blanketed cable. A magnetized cease attaches securely, and at the same time as it's a proprietary charger, at least it's the identical one used for some different Garmin products. All the data the watch collects syncs to the Garmin Connect cell app (for Android and iOS), which in flip syncs to the web app of the equal call. There, you can view and analyze all your stats in greater detail and with more ease than on a cellular tool.
Variety in Activities and Music
Though some sports activities watches specialize in one hobby, consisting of diving or hiking, range is the call of the game for the Garmin Vivoactive three Music. With the frenzy of a button, you may record greater than 15 one of a kind styles of workouts, along with strolling, walking, stand-up paddle boarding, yoga, indoor cycling, and rowing. There's also a feature you may allow in order that walks and runs are routinely tracked each time the watch detects that you're doing those activities. If you've used the Garmin Connect cell app before, your prior records contains forward while you installation the Vivoactive 3 Music. The app even suggests personalized goals based totally for your history, and you could trade those dreams at any time.
In addition to monitoring your heart rate day and night, the Vivoactive three Music monitors stress. Garmin partnered with the corporation Firstbeat to research heart fee variability and other elements in determining strain levels, which you could see at the watch or within the app on an easy-to-examine graph.
Garmin also crunches the facts it collects from your daily health and workout routines to estimate your health age, VO2 max, and heart rate variability. To get a number of those readings, you need to use the watch for at the least a week at the same time as recording rigorous activities, and it enables to have an accurate most heart price inside the settings, too. If you're into this sort of fitness analysis, Garmin makes it in reality accessible.
Another element of the Vivoactive three Music that health lovers will admire is the ability to both download and create workout routines to follow, inclusive of c program languageperiod schooling or electricity education. The watch helps you tune and file the interest even as following reps, sets, and c programming language times.
Advanced Metrics
When it comes to accumulating and reporting advanced fitness metrics, Garmin has constantly been generous, and the Vivoactive 3 Music affords the records that health lovers have come to expect.
When you file a run, for example, you get a precis of typical statistics, consisting of distance, time, average pace, elevation gain, and energy burned. You also get special graphs of heart fee, pace, run cadence, and even the outdoor temperature. Curious for extra? You can view your maximum velocity and common, or dive right into a breakdown of the amount of time you spent in exceptional heart charge zones. You can view statistics over splits, or in case you favor to create a custom breakdown, segments. As mentioned, if you use the watch often enough for pastime tracking, you'll additionally see VO2 max (the maximum fee of oxygen intake measured for the duration of incremental exercise) and other rich stats.
A parent the Vivoactive three Music doesn't tune is one for menstruation and birth manipulate. Very few health trackers encompass it, Fitbit being the super exception.
Accuracy
To get a experience of accuracy in step depend and heart fee, I used a treadmill and the Wahoo Fitness Tickr X chest strap heart fee screen and as compared their facts with the ones reported through the Garmin Vivoactive 3 Music. I also ran outside with the watch to get a sense of how well the GPS labored, and the resulting direction and distance matched Google Maps to a tee.
For the common person, a one-mile stroll contains around 2,000 steps. I've used a click on counter to confirm that my gait fits this wellknown quite precisely. After a one-mile treadmill walk with the Vivoactive three Music, I clocked 1,998 steps.
As for heart fee, the range and common have been spot-on with what the Tickr X reported. In real-time, however, I observed a few lag. At the beginning of the activity, my heart fee was nearly 20 seconds in the back of the Tickr X's readouts, and by as a great deal as 10bpm. The longer I worked out, the nearer the readings became. If you're doing highly precise heart charge schooling or c language schooling, you is probably better off the use of a chest strap heart price screen that makes use of electrical as opposed to optical componentassethis Vivoactive three Music has a lot packed into it that I have but to mention it has a compass, or that it is able to double as a remote manipulate for a Virb action camera, or that it shows a weather report. I briefly mentioned that it has contactless fee, which is a boon if you stay someplace with good assst for that alternative (it's ubiquitous where I live, and I use it for everything).
Of course, it additionally grants notifications from your cellphone. You can even respond to textual content messages immediately from the watch, but best if it's paired with an Android tool.
Conclusions
Finding the functions you want in a fitness tracker or smartwatch is essential, but it's equally crucial that it tests some different boxes, too: reliability, ruggedness, accuracy, and stable battery life. Rest confident the Garmin Vivoactive three supplies on all of these fronts. If you're shopping for a wonderful wearable that offers a chunk of everything, from smartwatch capability to in-depth health stats, the Vivoactive three Music should be on the pinnacle of your list. I'd even argue that it's a better purchase than the Apple Watch if fitness features are the most critical element of your watch. The Vivoactive combines a lot of our favorite factors from health trackers and smartwatches.
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