– Tracking steps, daily distance walked, calories burned It still does all the same jazz as last year such as: – Does NOT connect to external ANT+ HR strap (like the original Vivosmart did) – Does NOT connect to ANT+ cycling sensors (like the original Vivosmart did) – Rebroadcasting of your HR over ANT+ (so other devices can pick it up) – Slightly reduced battery life – 5 days instead of 7 days on original Vivosmart
– Displays intensity minutes (against a goal of 150min/week) – 24×7 heart rate recording (continual resting HR, and average resting HR) Here’s what’s new/different on the Vivosmart HR: And then I’ll go through each new item later in the post.
Since time’s limited (I’ve got 57 minutes until announcement!), and thankfully the feature-set is pretty similar to last year, we’re going to cook right into bulleted points of what’s new. And for fun, here’s the Vivofit with the Vivosmart HR:Īnd just for fun, here’s two shots of the front/back as worn on my wrist: If you see anything looking like the right, it’s not the new unit. To the left is the Vivosmart HR, to the right is the old Vivosmart not-HR. So, for comparison purposes, here’s the two units side by side: Whereas this year, the Vivosmart HR is truly an optical HR sensor inside the Vivosmart. In theory, the official product name then should have been something like “Vivosmart with old-school bundled HR strap”, but alas, it was shortened to ‘Vivosmart HR’ by some retailers.
That’s because many retailers used ‘Vivosmart HR’ as the name of the product last year when they included the bundled heart rate (HR) strap. Now it’s important to note the device name and what each one looks like, especially if purchasing. The Vivosmart line isn’t new, and actually started last year with the original Vivosmart, which blended the activity tracking features of the Vivofit with many of the smartphone connected features of newer devices, like notifications. Along the way it got a fancy new crisp display and a few new features. This new wrist-bound device takes the Vivosmart band that they announced slightly over a year ago, and adds in an optical sensor. Today Garmin rolled out their latest wearable, the Vivosmart HR. Update! See my in-depth review of the Vivosmart HR – now located just one click away here!