Garmin Vivoactive

cgfw201
cgfw201 Posts: 680
edited April 2015 in Road general
Anyone got one of these yet?

Looks like does a good job on cycling, running & swimming as well as having decent smartwatch functionality and a good battery life.

Tempted at £180 on Amazon...

Comments

  • grahamcp
    grahamcp Posts: 323
    Haven't got one yet but I am very tempted indeed - primarily as a running GPS but some of the other features do look interesting. Whether it would take over from my Garmin Touring for rides I'm doubtful - perhaps so when I'm just wanting to record a ride but obviously not when I was using the mapping.

    Reviews all look good (apart from one that was ridiculous as the guy didn't appear to do any sports/use any of the main features) battery life seems to be impressive also. If you're going to get an activity tracker, I'd say this is definitely the one to go for.
  • cgfw201
    cgfw201 Posts: 680
    Grahamcp wrote:
    Haven't got one yet but I am very tempted indeed - primarily as a running GPS but some of the other features do look interesting. Whether it would take over from my Garmin Touring for rides I'm doubtful - perhaps so when I'm just wanting to record a ride but obviously not when I was using the mapping.

    Reviews all look good (apart from one that was ridiculous as the guy didn't appear to do any sports/use any of the main features) battery life seems to be impressive also. If you're going to get an activity tracker, I'd say this is definitely the one to go for.

    Similar, think Garmin 500 will remain for long rides, but Vivoactive would do a job on daily commute, running, swimming and even the odd round of golf.
  • tangled_metal
    tangled_metal Posts: 4,021
    Just looked it up on the Garmin site and it all read like the HRM component was part of the watch as in optical HRM. It was looking like a no brainer until I went to their shop and sw the options included Black with HRM bundle. Once selected it jumped to £229 and a conventional chest strap appeared in the photograph of the device.

    How disappointing. Garmin seem dead set against a built in HRM I think.
  • cgfw201
    cgfw201 Posts: 680
    Tangled Metal wrote:
    Just looked it up on the Garmin site and it all read like the HRM component was part of the watch as in optical HRM. It was looking like a no brainer until I went to their shop and sw the options included Black with HRM bundle. Once selected it jumped to £229 and a conventional chest strap appeared in the photograph of the device.

    How disappointing. Garmin seem dead set against a built in HRM I think.

    Nails the battery life doesn't it though?
  • grahamcp
    grahamcp Posts: 323
    Regarding HRM, I think optical sensors are worthless on a serious sports tracking device, which is what I see the Vivoactive as. Yes, wearing (and paying for) a band is a pain, but it's the only way you're going to get accurate data. I think Garmin have done the right thing here - you can buy the device with a strap, or without and have the option of buying one separately at a later date.

    Take a read of this article...
    http://www.cnet.com/uk/news/how-accurat ... -monitors/
  • cgfw201
    cgfw201 Posts: 680
    Tried one on in John Lewis yesterday and then ordered one online afterwards. Will report back, impressed with size, look & feel when I tried it on though.
  • AllanES
    AllanES Posts: 151
    Got one yesterday from my wife.
    Early observations re:cycling after one ride.
    I missed not having my Garmin Edge 500 on my handlebars to view speed, distance, time etc. It was a bit inconvenient to have to keep looking to my wrist.

    I can also see me missing not having a route to follow (even if it is just the line on the 500's screen) when on longer rides.

    When I got back and checked Garmin Connect and Strava, it had been WAY off on the GPS. General direction had been fine but nothing like the actual roads I'd been on. May just be something in the settings I need to adjust. However, I'd used it at lunchtime when out walking and it had been spot on when tracking my route along park paths.
    So, the jury is out as yet on its GPS tracking.

    Also, no Strava segments had been recorded but that might've been because it thought I was cycling through fields rather than the roads I was actually on.
    :-)

    Other functionality - steps tracker, mail/text/call notification, controlling iPhone music and....errrr.... telling the time, all seem good. But as I said, only had it 24hrs so I'm still at the setting up (without viewing the manual of course!) stage and I'm sure it'll prove to be a useful gadget when set up properly.
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  • Anonymous
    Anonymous Posts: 79,667
    AllanES wrote:
    I missed not having my Garmin Edge 500 on my handlebars to view speed, distance, time etc. It was a bit inconvenient to have to keep looking to my wrist.

    Get a watch mount and put it on your handlebars
  • AllanES
    AllanES Posts: 151
    Carbonator wrote:
    AllanES wrote:
    I missed not having my Garmin Edge 500 on my handlebars to view speed, distance, time etc. It was a bit inconvenient to have to keep looking to my wrist.

    Get a watch mount and put it on your handlebars

    Good idea.
    I hadn't realised there was such an accessory. Thanks
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    Giant Defy 1
  • tangled_metal
    tangled_metal Posts: 4,021
    DC Rainmaker and people commenting on his review say 3 - 5 days with an hour of GPS per day and limited bluetooth use. Nailed the battery life? I suppose that is a lot better than charging every day. I would be doing just over an hour of GPS a day 5 days a week and at least another day of about 2 or 3 hours. Think I would need at least 2 possibly 3 charges a week.

    Heart rate strap round the chest only though. I think I will need a Scosche rhythm will be needed personally rather than the chest strap. Better comfort.

    BTW for those who do not believe an optical HRM is any good you should read a few reviews from DC Rainmaker site. The Scosche Rhythm is his go to HR sensor I believe. IIRC he uses it as a comparison to some of the HRM and activity trackers. You get spikes and drop offs but I believe he says that this and other optical HR sensors are no worse and in some cases better than the traditional chest strap ones from the main players and secondary makers. Ruling them all out on the basis of the early versions is cutting yourself off from some good products. I do agree there are a lot of rubbish but also an increasing number of optical HR sensors out there worth having and indeed are better than chest strap options. Just got to read reviews and be discerning. Or let DC Rainmaker do the testing and decide based on his excellent reviews (can you guess I am a fan of his in depth reviews, much better than the commercialised CNET and TechRadar or Guardian reviews on this tech you see).
  • cgfw201
    cgfw201 Posts: 680
    24 hours in.
    - 1 swim in a 25m pool which it got bang on for distance, speed, strokes etc
    - 1 5k run which GPS was correct, pacing info on wrist all really useful
    - 1 7 mile commute GPS all good. Don't think will be swapping for Edge 500 for long rides on nice bike but this is ideal for commuting where data & maps not important.

    Really like how it syncs seamlessly with Phone > Garmin Connect > Strava with no prompting which was a big factor in me getting one.

    Getting texts/whatsapps/emails pop up on wrist is handy. if you get a lot of notifications it could get annoying but I have turned most off on phone so not an issue.

    Seems to do everything I got it for really well. Battery is on 91% after 24 hours with 15 min swim, 20 min run and 35 min cycle and bluetooth on all the time.

    So far so good anyway.
  • AllanES
    AllanES Posts: 151
    cgfw201 wrote:
    - 1 7 mile commute GPS all good. Don't think will be swapping for Edge 500 for long rides on nice bike but this is ideal for commuting where data & maps not important.

    Did you alter any of the settings "out of the box"? As I said, I'm happy with everything so far, apart from the GPS tracking on my bike ride last evening.

    I agree with you re:Edge 500. Still think I'll use that on longer rides and yep, sync with Connect and Strava was seamless. Apart from it being the wrong data of course :)

    And yes, the battery seems quite good to me too.
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  • cgfw201
    cgfw201 Posts: 680
    AllanES wrote:
    cgfw201 wrote:
    - 1 7 mile commute GPS all good. Don't think will be swapping for Edge 500 for long rides on nice bike but this is ideal for commuting where data & maps not important.

    Did you alter any of the settings "out of the box"? As I said, I'm happy with everything so far, apart from the GPS tracking on my bike ride last evening.

    I agree with you re:Edge 500. Still think I'll use that on longer rides and yep, sync with Connect and Strava was seamless. Apart from it being the wrong data of course :)

    And yes, the battery seems quite good to me too.

    was fine for me. i get issues with edge 500 every now and again thinking im 20 yards from the road im actually on so prepared for it not to be perfect.
  • tangled_metal
    tangled_metal Posts: 4,021
    Where did you buy yours? Any good deals for them yet?

    Reading more into them I think this product is good enough for me to take the plunge. It seems to be like I hoped the Basis Peak was going to be except without a HR function built in.
  • cgfw201
    cgfw201 Posts: 680
    Tangled Metal wrote:
    Where did you buy yours? Any good deals for them yet?

    Reading more into them I think this product is good enough for me to take the plunge. It seems to be like I hoped the Basis Peak was going to be except without a HR function built in.

    Amazon, was £176 I think.
  • AllanES
    AllanES Posts: 151
    cgfw201 wrote:
    Tangled Metal wrote:
    Where did you buy yours? Any good deals for them yet?

    Reading more into them I think this product is good enough for me to take the plunge. It seems to be like I hoped the Basis Peak was going to be except without a HR function built in.

    Amazon, was £176 I think.

    Ditto
    Red Triban 3
    Giant Defy 1
  • tangled_metal
    tangled_metal Posts: 4,021
    Was that with the HR strap or without?

    I'm wondering if I should get it with or buy a Wahoo, 4iiii or Scosche Rhythm+ one instead.
  • cgfw201
    cgfw201 Posts: 680
    Tangled Metal wrote:
    Was that with the HR strap or without?

    I'm wondering if I should get it with or buy a Wahoo, 4iiii or Scosche Rhythm+ one instead.

    Without, have a Garmin from the 500 anyway.
  • jasonbrim
    jasonbrim Posts: 105
    Very tempted as a replacement to my normal watch and my running watch. Would be good for short rides as well, but disappointed it uses smart GPS for recording (hence you probably having issues with it not following your path exactly) and you can't change that yet, and it doesn't support power meters out of the box (need additional apps). But I suppose for commuting I don't have a PM...yet, so that's fine.
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  • APIII
    APIII Posts: 2,010
    Watchshop.com has them for £179.99, but with a 6% discount code "OFFER6" it's £168.26. You can get another 2% cashback through Quidco too.
  • cgfw201
    cgfw201 Posts: 680
    1 week update.

    4 swims - all bang on in terms of distance, strokes & speed
    3 runs - GPS spot on, tweaked the display fields which is easy to do to get right pacing info on display
    8 rides (commutes) - again GPS spot on. Takes a couple of seconds to get GPS signal, compared to Edge 500 which takes a couple of minutes quite often.

    The sync with the phone is the best bit for me. Press the button to end the activity on the watch and a couple of seconds later it magically appears on Strava.

    The screen is a bit low res and cheap looking but doesn't bother me, got a phone and tablet to look at high res pictures on if I want to. As a fitness watch it's bang on the buck for me.

    And the battery life is really good. I think I'll get about 5 days out of it no trouble based on 10x40min commutes a week + a couple of runs + a couple of swims that I'm doing at the moment.
  • grahamcp
    grahamcp Posts: 323
    Just ordered one through Argos - £179.99 and I can get a further 8% off with a works voucher scheme so pretty good deal.

    What phones are you lot using? I'm sometimes on-call for work, so having call alerts will be very handy if I decide to go for a ride as I never hear my phone ring from my jersey pocket. I have an iPhone 4 but the Bluetooth Smart only came in with the 4S I believe. Now I'm on a sim only deal paying about £8/month I'm struggling to justify several hundred quid on a new one or an expensive contract (although I can get 20% off a contract with Vodafone).

    So I'm considering a Samsung Galaxy "something" - no idea what the best value one to go for is.... any suggestions? I'm not too bothered about a big screen or anything so perhaps one of the "mini" ones.
  • tangled_metal
    tangled_metal Posts: 4,021
    My partner is happy with her Galaxy mini. I think it is the S4 mini. Tiny screen though when I've used it but then I'm on the likes of LG G2 for about 18 months (at 5.2" it has a nice sized screen, not too phablet because it had edge to edge screen with almost no bevel = almost the same width as my old 4.3 or 4.6" Galaxy S2!).

    The latest Galaxy S? mini should be good as are the similar ones from Sony and HTC. There are a wider range of cheaper and smaller smartphones these days for Android running at least 4.4 I think. Also you can look at the newer Chinese ones coming through (Huaiwai (sp) led the way over here I think).

    Is it the oneplusone phone that has a good rep right now? A cheaper top end phone.

    BTW with the latest Galaxy out and the new LG G4 coming out soon and no doubt to be followed by other big names you should get a reduction in the old "latest and greatest" smartphones and their smaller versions. Perhaps hold out a bit if you can??
  • cgfw201
    cgfw201 Posts: 680
    Tangled Metal wrote:
    My partner is happy with her Galaxy mini. I think it is the S4 mini. Tiny screen though when I've used it but then I'm on the likes of LG G2 for about 18 months (at 5.2" it has a nice sized screen, not too phablet because it had edge to edge screen with almost no bevel = almost the same width as my old 4.3 or 4.6" Galaxy S2!).

    The latest Galaxy S? mini should be good as are the similar ones from Sony and HTC. There are a wider range of cheaper and smaller smartphones these days for Android running at least 4.4 I think. Also you can look at the newer Chinese ones coming through (Huaiwai (sp) led the way over here I think).

    Is it the oneplusone phone that has a good rep right now? A cheaper top end phone.

    BTW with the latest Galaxy out and the new LG G4 coming out soon and no doubt to be followed by other big names you should get a reduction in the old "latest and greatest" smartphones and their smaller versions. Perhaps hold out a bit if you can??

    I'm on the OnePlus One. £230 for top of the range device, recommend it. Can confirm it has bluetooth capabilities that work with the vivoactive too.

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