Garmin vívosmart HR: Fitness band with GPS and heart rate

The activity tracker is one of the phenomena of our time. Parties a bit 'on the sly now we see them in their different variations on the wrist of every category of people: from sports to seniors, from housewives to students. Garmin seemed to be playing a little 'later in the sector, presenting his first vívofit in 2014, when already brands like FitBit and Jawbone had gained good market share: the US brand is, however, trying to catch up fast and your ads have in recent months followed at a brisk pace. Vívofit the series, it has joined the vívosmart with monochrome display, VivoActive, more like a smartwatch and finally the recent vívomove, which hides the activity tracker in the guise of a traditional analog clock. Some of the products also arise in HR version, ie with the optical sensor for the detection of the heartbeat. Today comes a very interesting novelty for vívosmart family, vívosmart HR +.

The HR model was presented last October, and then it is newly introduced, but the new model hides in the '+' several features that make it a real new model and not just a small evolution. We find first of all an integrated GPS receiver, news that clearly breaks away from the competition of the same size. The overall dimensions of a bracelet are now a real SportWatch entry level, with the ability to keep complete track of your sports performance without having to bring along your smartphone. In addition to the GPS track (with useful features such as auto-lap and virtual pacer) vívosmart HR + records the heartbeat. Thanks to Garmin Move IQ, the device is able to automatically keep track of the sports activities, without requiring you to boot from button.

Pairing with a smartphone then allows you to load data directly to Garmin Connect online platform, but also to receive the wrist incoming notifications from it, on a monochrome display and horizontal display offers three lines of text. The display is instead set to portrait view when it operates as a clock or a simple activity tracker, informing on the key data collected during the day, such as I number of steps. Of course vívosmart HR + tracks the heartbeat of the whole course of 24 hours, using an intelligent sampling to record the most important changes, but also to preserve the battery.

Another interesting feature is the ability to be worn while doing swimming (water resistance up to 5 atmospheres), while some competitive units you ask to be taken off before entering the water. The battery has a separate declaration of five days in normal mode (using GPS) and 8 hours with GPS always on. It is an interesting fact, as much bulky SportWatch arrive about 10 hours of battery life with GPS always on. In terms of connectivity provides wireless ANT + and Bluetooth Smart.