Garmin, the maker of our favorite fitness trackers, has a number of sequence of entry-level hybrid trackers. Sorting through them may be complicated. The Venu series is the costliest, the premium tracker with extra smartwatch options (full-screen AMOLED, microphone, and many others.). The Vivomove series has a hidden show and no onboard GPS. Proper within the center sits the Vivoactive sequence. The newest Vivoactive 6 has an AMOLED show, a couple of week of battery life, and naturally, entry to Garmin’s top-of-the-line health software program.
I wrote beforehand that the $100 Amazfit Lively 2 (6/10, WIRED Recommends) made me rethink what a health tracker’s worth proposition ought to be, and $300 now appears very costly for an entry-level tracker. Nevertheless, not like Amazfit’s, Garmin’s trackers and software program really work. In an unsurprising flip of occasions, I attempted Garmin’s new AI-powered Lively Intelligence, and it’s the primary AI-powered health service that supplied me with helpful insights. Thus far, Garmin’s supremacy stays unvanquished.
{Photograph}: Adrienne So
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Like all of Garmin’s life-style strains, the Vivoactive 6 is straightforward to put on, with a silicone strap, an aluminum bezel, and a light-weight, 42-mm polymer case. It isn’t really lighter than my Apple Watch Sequence 10, but it surely feels lighter, as a result of it is plastic. The show is a touchscreen AMOLED that I discovered readable in daylight and conscious of my contact, though it was simple to print the display with my sunscreen-y fingers. There are two buttons on the facet of the case, an exercise button and a again button. You too can scroll up and down and faucet to get stats and notifications.
Garmin touts 11 days of battery life, however with a number of tracked actions per day I obtained a couple of week. It makes use of the Garmin proprietary plug charger, which is extra annoying than it ought to be, on condition that Garmin launched wi-fi charging years in the past with the Vivomove Trend (though the corporate is much from the one one that also depends by itself proprietary chargers as a substitute of wi-fi charging or USB-C).
Screenshots Supply: Adrienne So
It has onboard satellite tv for pc connectivity (GPS, Glonass, Galileo, QZSS, and Beidou) to make it extremely correct when monitoring your outside actions, and the standard suite of onboard sensors—coronary heart price monitor, blood oxygen monitoring (an necessary consideration if you wish to swap from an Apple Watch)—a compass, a gyroscope, an accelerometer, a thermometer, and an ambient gentle sensor. It’s additionally rated for water resistance at 5 ATM, you may monitor swimming.
