Garmin Vivoactive 4 Review: The Best Fitness Smartwatch Gets Better
Our Verdict
This well-rounded, fitness-focused smartwatch improves upon the Vivoactive three with more bells and whistles for tracking health stats and workouts, plus offline Spotify playback.
For
- Comes in two sizes
- Congenital-in music storage with Spotify back up
- Two-button navigation
Against
- Occasional syncing issues
- Convoluted app installation process
Tom's Guide Verdict
This well-rounded, fitness-focused smartwatch improves upon the Vivoactive 3 with more bells and whistles for tracking health stats and workouts, plus offline Spotify playback.
Pros
- +
Comes in 2 sizes
- +
Built-in music storage with Spotify back up
- +
Two-button navigation
Cons
- -
Occasional syncing issues
- -
Convoluted app installation process
Garmin's lineup of GPS watches offers something for everyone. The Vivoactive line's niche is taking on Apple with wellness and fitness features and a touchscreen display.
The 45-millimeter Garmin Vivoactive 4 and forty-mm 4S, both $349, include almost every feature y'all could want from a smartwatch — music, GPS, heart rate — plus all of the excellent fettle-tracking capabilities that Garmin does best.
The Vivoactive iv has its flaws. For iPhone owners, the Apple Watch Series 6 is second to none. Simply for many people, the Vivoactive 4 is 1 of the best fitness trackers and the best Garmin watch with advanced features yous tin can purchase.
Garmin Vivoactive four review: Design and display
In that location are two major design differences betwixt the Vivoactive four and its predecessor, the Vivoactive 3. The first is size: Garmin's newest smartwatch comes in two sizes, a 40-mm choice and a much larger 45-mm model. The Vivoactive three was offered in just ane size, 43-mm. That makes the Vivoactive 4 more appealing to a wider variety of people. I tested the 40-mm version, which Garmin calls the Vivoactive 4S, and found it to be the perfect size for my modest wrist.
This is the best fettle smartwatch you can buy.
The second design change is the addition of second side button. This button is a shortcut for your preferred exercises, and also acts equally a start/finish button so you don't have to jab at the touchscreen with sweaty fingers to intermission or end your workout.
The lower side button acts equally a dorsum push button when you're in an app. A long press of this button also gives you quick access to lookout man faces, clocks, your activity history and the settings menu, which is where your apps and widgets live. I wish that push served every bit a shortcut to the watch'southward app drawer. Instead, Garmin's watches and the Garmin Connect app that pairs with them offer then many options that figuring out where they are tin can be an do in frustration.
The circular LCD touchscreen remains unchanged from the Vivoactive 3. It'south still plenty bright plenty to see when running outside, and the touchscreen is responsive. If you're looking for a mid-sized, 43-mm Garmin smartwatch with an AMOLED display, the $399 Garmin Venu, besides out now, is the Goldilocks between the Vivoactive iv and 4S. However, that lookout offers shorter bombardment life due to its more power-hungry display.
Garmin Vivoactive 4 review: Fitness features
The Vivoactive iv comes with 20 pre-loaded exercises that y'all can launch and track past pressing the upper side button. The watch is especially useful for distance runners, because you lot tin create customized grooming plans in the Garmin Connect desktop app and meet advanced metrics. Information technology's one of the best running watches right now.
But the Vivoactive 4 is besides useful for those who prefer other types of workouts. Garmin added on-screen yoga, Pilates, cardio and forcefulness-grooming exercises to the scout, so you lot tin follow guided animations. This is peculiarly useful for Pilates and yoga, considering you tin each pose modeled. The animations are more helpful than the stick figures you lot usually see on a smartwatch exercise app. You can besides create your own yoga and Pilates workouts in the Garmin Connect app. Every bit a person whose Pilates practise has been lacking in contempo months, I'm hopeful Garmin can ease me back into it so I don't have to shell out actress cash for pricey boutique classes.
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Otherwise, the Vivoactive four is just as advanced equally other Garmin watches when it comes to tracking outdoor running and biking. The sentry took less than 30 seconds to lock onto a GPS indicate — sometimes less than 10 seconds — and afterward you can see a map of your route logged in the Garmin Connect app. Yous tin can also follow coached running plans if you're grooming for a race, which is why many people buy Garmins. This is the best fettle smartwatch you can buy.
Garmin Vivoactive 4 review: Health and sleep-tracking features
Garmin is taking the Apple tree approach to its Vivoactive line by making its newest watch more of a personal health companion. With the addition of respiration tracking and a pulse oximeter for tracking blood oxygen saturation levels, the Vivoactive 4 offers a level of detail yous don't get from older Garmin watches, peculiarly well-nigh sleep.
If you lot turn on the pulse ox sensor in the Garmin Connect app, you'll see SpO2 readings as role of your slumber log every forenoon. After a few nights of tracking my blood oxygen saturation levels and getting similar numbers (I averaged ninety-95%, which is normal), I decided to turn off the sensor to extend the lookout man's battery life.
The Vivoactive four doesn't have clearance from the U.Due south. Food and Drug Administration to diagnose whatever atmospheric condition based on the data information technology collects, simply maybe one day Garmin volition be able to tell you if y'all take sleep apnea or other serious health atmospheric condition using the data on your centre charge per unit, respiration and blood oxygenation levels.
Given all of the Vivoactive 4'south sensors, I constitute it strange that the spotter would log a night of slumber even when I didn't wear it to bed. One night I forgot to put the device back on later on a shower, and when I woke the adjacent morning and synced the watch to my phone, it calculated eleven hours of deep slumber. The device should be able to tell when I'm not wearing it. But when I am wearing the spotter to bed, its sleep-tracking dashboard in the Garmin Connect app accurately breaks downward my sleep and wake times, plus fourth dimension spent in calorie-free, deep and REM sleep. I found it comparable to Fitbit's sleep-tracking functionality.
Garmin Vivoactive 4 review: Battery life
Garmin has always prioritized battery life more than other smartwatch makers, and the Vivoactive 4 continues in that tradition. The Vivoactive 4s lasted about 4 days with music playback and GPS activated during multiple three.vi-mile runs in my testing, and can concluding up to 7 days in smartwatch mode. The larger Vivoactive 4 lasts about viii days on a accuse, Garmin says. (I didn't exam that version.) The Apple Sentry Series five lasts just 18 hours on a charge, so if battery life is important to yous, the Vivoactive 4 is worth a wait.
The pulse oximeter sensor severely affects battery life. If y'all let the sensor to run solar day and night through split up settings in the Garmin Connect app, the watch dies after two days.
It'south cool to see the pulse ox data in the app, especially logged every bit part of your sleep data in the app every morning, simply unless you're concerned that you might accept a sleep disorder that affects your animate, such as sleep apnea, it's not worth the battery hitting to keep it on.
Garmin Vivoactive 4 review: Spotify's a bright spot
Unlike the Vivoactive iii, the Vivoactive 4 includes on-board music storage without having to pay a premium for a special edition. Spotify is one of music services that allows you to download playlists to the watch (with a paid Spotify Premium account).
But if you've used whatsoever other smartwatch, you'll find the process of installing apps, widgets or scout faces on the Vivoactive 4 a little unintuitive. Downloading Spotify on the watch took several minutes — not the actual download time, but the procedure itself. First, you accept to open up the Garmin Connect app on your phone. Then y'all have to select your device by tapping the image of it at the height of the app. And so select Music. From there, yous can cull from Spotify, Deezer or Amazon Music (if anyone out at that place uses the latter two). Then you accept to install Spotify on the watch.
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Simply the app doesn't simply pop up on the lookout after downloading. You then have to press the lower side button, tap the Settings carte du jour (behind the gear icon), coil down to Music, select Music Providers and pick Spotify. Simply you're not done yet! And then you accept to bound back over to your telephone, log into your Spotify account via the Garmin Connect app to link the two, and then you'll be able to download your playlists to the Vivoactive four. Perchance. I had to log into Spotify 4 times, then close the Garmin Connect app twice, before information technology finally stuck.
To find and install other third-party apps on the watch, from maps to fitness, you have to download a separate app, Garmin's Connect IQ Shop, on your phone. In that location you can scan from a curated selection of bachelor apps, widgets and watch faces. There are few big names to cull from, specially compared to the Apple Scout app store, and the fact that you lot demand two smartphone apps to gain total functionality of this watch is cumbersome.
Garmin Vivoactive 4 review: Verdict
Garmin continues to improve on what it does best, which is track fitness. It doesn't offer quite as seamless an integration to your smartphone as the Apple tree Sentinel does with iPhones or the Galaxy Watch Active 2 does with Samsung's Milky way phones, but it'due south more advanced than both those watches at tracking workouts.
But the Apple Watch Serial 6 is merely $50 more, and tin diagnose atrial fibrillation, take phone calls, send texts and has a well-stocked app store. The Milky way Sentinel Active 2 is $50 less and volition eventually be able to detect irregular heart rhythm in addition to making calls, sending letters and tracking workouts (though its GPS isn't equally spot-on every bit Garmin'south).
The Vivoactive iv is a little pricey for what it offers compared to its competitors. But if fitness-tracking is your highest priority, and smartphone integration secondary, Garmin'south watches tin can't exist vanquish. The Vivoactive 4 is more useful as a lifestyle smartwatch than Garmin's Forerunner lineup, which lack touchscreens. For a more than premium smartwatch wait, the $399 Garmin Venu takes directly aim at the Apple Scout Serial 5 with an AMOLED display and all of the fitness features that the Vivoactive iv offers (though the screen chugs more than battery than the Vivoactive'south transflective display).
The Vivoactive 4 is a solid GPS scout with a better combination of features than its predecessor. In an increasingly competitive market, Garmin is playing to win.
Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/reviews/garmin-vivoactive-4
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