Vivoactive 3

chris_in_cal

Hello, I have ordered one and it is expected tomorrow. Any reports yet?

chris_in_cal

It arrived and yesterday was my first full day of use. Because it tracks flights of stairs I opted to walk up 2 flights to go to a birthday party rather than take the elevator. A small NSV.

tinkerbellang83

Might get more response on this from one of the Garmin groups

chris_in_cal

Let's just put your hypothesis to a test.

chris_in_cal

The Groups I found were: "Garmin Connect," "Garmin Connect Users," "Connect via Garmin Connect," and "Garmin Group." After a couple days there were no responses in any of them. I don't think Groups are are way to engage fellow MFPers who have Vivoactive's. It is possible no MFPers actually have them.

Anyone get their Vivoactive 3 yet? I have two day with mine now and I'm both impressed and still trying to figure out some of the basics.

frontjab

I have a Vivoactive 3. Prior to that, I had an Android Wear for 1.5 years, before that a Pebble for a year or so, and before that a Fitbit Flex.

The Android Wear is definitely a great smart watch (not an Apple guy here). I decided, however, that I wanted a watch with some more fitness chops, and an ecosystem that's better than Google Fit.

I had high expectations for the VA3 given Garmin's reputation and my eventually settling that I wanted a fitness first watch. I am totally blown away with how awesome the VA3 is. I do a lot of activities - running, lifting, boot camp (pseudo HIIT), medium rate cardio, etc. The VA3 tracks these things very well and gives me information far and beyond the other trackers and above my expectations. It's still a pretty new watch and there are some acknowledged bugs, but I'm pretty confident based on what I read that they'll get them ironed out and this will be a fantastic multi-activity watch.

I've had it for almost a month now. I think the integration with MFP is pretty good. I have the whole section in Garmin Connect that syncs with MFP, and works perfectly for syncing activity, calories consumed, etc. I have the Fitbit scale from many years ago. All I do is step on the scale in the morning and it automatically enters my weight in MFP because I have the Fitbit and MFP apps syncing. When I first got the VA3, it would also push from FB --> MFP --> Garmin Connect. This was awesome. Now, I'm having trouble with syncing weight. The previous days weight from Gamin seems to override anything from MFP and my weight stays the same for day after day. In looking at the Garmin forum, it appears as though it's an issue Garmin and MFP are working out, so I have some hope it will be fixed.

Anyhow, there is at least one more VA3 and MFP user out here.

chris_in_cal

With the VA3 -> MFP integration...I see my daily steps on the MFP page. I went on a run yesterday with my VA3 and that sync'd to MFP.

Yesterday I tried a Garmin activity 'Yoga' for an hour. it it showed up in Garmin Connect, and listed a a couple hundred calories burned. The activity didn't sync over to MFP. Garmin sport activities getting sync'd is still a bit of a mystery.

It's said there are 15 pre-loaded activity sports modes, I can't find the full list. Some are yoga, running, treadmill running, swimming, bicycling, etc. I think they are broken down into "outside" sport activity and "inside" sport activities. I think it means GPS is either on or off...

For fitness so far it is great. I've never had a smartwatch so I can't compare, but it does other non-fitness stuff too.

Tacklewasher

So, the VA3 has Yoga? The VAHR doesn't. I can buy the app but I'm just not sure how useful it is.

I've looked at the VA3 as an upgrade to my VAHR, but I'm thinking of breaking the bank and going with a Fenix or Forerunn 935. Be spring before I upgrade.

jpburcham

Hello, I'm considering purchasing the Vivoactive 3. . . . I'm also looking at the fitbit ionic or possibly the blaze. . . . did you consider the fitbit choices, and if so, what was the tipping point that moved you to the garmin VA3

chris_in_cal

I didn't, sorry. I had "runner" watches from Garmin and the VA3 allowed me to have a lot of basic understanding of the Garmin world. I have had two other "running" watches from Garmin and from day one I had basic issue with both of those. I used them, and just worked around stuff.

Though I am still learning some of the little things about using the VA3, from day 1 I am still satisfied and more and more convinced I found the one that will meet all of my basic fitness/tracking/running needs.

Good luck and let us know what you get.

stanmann571

jpburcham wrote: »

Hello, I'm considering purchasing the Vivoactive 3. . . . I'm also looking at the fitbit ionic or possibly the blaze. . . . did you consider the fitbit choices, and if so, what was the tipping point that moved you to the garmin VA3

the fact that garmin has been in this industry for over 20 years, and has been improving the quality of their watches and algorithms over that entire period. I've used several of their products before and the reliability and durability is what drove me to garmin when it came time to buy an every day fitness tracker/watch.

frontjab

jpburcham wrote: »

Hello, I'm considering purchasing the Vivoactive 3. . . . I'm also looking at the fitbit ionic or possibly the blaze. . . . did you consider the fitbit choices, and if so, what was the tipping point that moved you to the garmin VA3

For me, it came down to a very close battle between the VA3 and the Ionic. Honestly, probably the biggest reason I chose the Garmin is because I thought the Fitbit looked terrible. I mean aesthetically. My Android watch was square, and I wanted a round watch. Plus, with the Garmin accepting standard bands (of 20mm), I can quickly swap in a metal band and it looks nice. Even though you can buy different (propriatary) bands for the Ionic, you can't change the fact that the Ionic looks like a fitness tracker no matter what you do.

Otherwise, they were very close and I would have put up with the looks of the Fitbit if it offered something much greater, but it doesn't, at least not for me. On the Garmin, the granularity of details for workouts is great, and it has some nice features like calculations for VO2 Max. It's not accurate to any medical device standards, but it updates and let's you compare. Another really big plus for the Garmin is that it connects to peripherals, like HRM chest straps. The Ionic doesn't. The oHRM on both watches are not great for interval type training, and every once in a while I like to use the chest strap to see how I compared to the past. The oHRM on the Garmin is spot-on for things like steady state running, and not really too bad for even running intervals like 800s. No idea how good the Ionic oHRM is.

The Ionic has the coaching workouts, which is probably a great feature that will grow out. But I specifically don't want it. I don't want to pay extra for the workouts and I don't want the watch or software nagging me to buy it all the time. I'm pretty good at coming up with stuff to torture myself all on my own.

The Ionic also stores and plays music. The Garmin does not. This isn't important to me, but I'm sure it is to a lot of people.

The Ionic will inherit apps from the Pebble acquisition, and probably get developers to build it out. Remains to be seen, but I bet they get a lot of good apps. Garmin already has a decent app catalog. Not great, but some useful stuff depending on what you want.

They both have the doodads like compass, altimeter, wireless payments, etc.

Garmin has golf courses you can download and display distances to the pin, hazards, supposedly count your strokes, etc. I'm looking forward to giving this a try next spring.

I'm sure there's a few other reasons I chose the Garmin over the Fitbit, but I can't remember then now. I love the Garmin, and I'm sure the Ionic is very nice, too. Like I said, they are very close and it was a difficult decision. Sounds stupid, probably, but the fact that the Garmin looks like a real watch got it a lot of mileage on my book.

bellaesprita000

My Fitbit Charge HR2 broke last month so I was also trying to decide between an upgrade to the Ionic or the Vivoactive3. I ended up getting the V3 and have had it for 3 weeks now.

@frontjab covered the same pros and cons I found in my comparisons. To add:

1) Garmin syncs exercises, exercise calories, and step calories separately. This is great for tracking trends over time. My weekly reports are so much more meaningful now.

2) The Garmin Connect app isn't as pretty or intuitive as Fitbit's. But there's many more features and customizations for both the app and the watch. I learn something new every time I open the app.

3) I like the built-in strength training features that allow you to track sets and reps. Instead of carrying pen and paper, you can just use the watch and make modifications in the app after your workout. I am also looking forward to seeing my trends over time and keeping track of my sets and weights in a more systematic way.

Ultimately it was DesFit's comprehensive reviews that led me to make my final decision. Check it out if you're considering the V3.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eu4jLSxW4_s&list=PLnlKYBIBtW8zDPuD8u7ZIcl_fnYj1XlrD

AnvilHead

frontjab wrote: »

...Garmin has golf courses you can download and display distances to the pin, hazards, supposedly count your strokes, etc. I'm looking forward to giving this a try next spring...

I've been using the Forerunner 935 for golf for several months on a number of different courses and it works great. If the VA3 works similarly, I'm sure you'll like it. In addition to getting yardages and keeping score, you can get distance to layups, measure shot distances, track fairways hit, etc. And the post-round summary in the Connect app shows your round shot-by-shot and you can edit which clubs you used to track yardages by club, etc. It also gives you a number of other game tracking metrics. Pretty cool. I use my laser rangefinder a lot less out on the course since I've been using the 935.

Just be aware that it eats a lot of battery in golf mode because it's running the GPS full time throughout the round. No worries about making it through a round, you can do that easily - but make sure you're charged up before you head out. If you start your round with 10% battery, you're going to have a dead watch before you finish (don't ask how I know this, lol!)

jpburcham

Thanks folks for your input and thoughts. . . I've still struggling with spending nearly $300 on either one though. . .

Wheelhouse15

If the Vivoactive 3 is anything like the Vivosmart HR+ I wouldn't buy it. I went from the Vivoactive 2 to the Vivosmart HR+ because I wanted a more accurate caloric estimate but the algorithm seems to have been written by a high school junior and Garmin hasn't fixed it in over 3 years even though the issue is widely known. How they released it out of development is beyond me since it's obviously way off. I'm hesitant to purchase another Garmin product because of how bad the Vivosmart HR+ is.

stanmann571

jpburcham wrote: »

Thanks folks for your input and thoughts. . . I've still struggling with spending nearly $300 on either one though. . .

There are less expensive offerings in both Fitbit and Garmin's portfolio.

Honestly, the built in HRM is still very much a gimmick.

chris_in_cal

jpburcham wrote: »

Thanks folks for your input and thoughts. . . I've still struggling with spending nearly $300 on either one though. . .

VA3 are on sale for the next couple of days for $250. Still not cheap, and I am still glad I got mine.

SmithsonianEmpress

I have a vivosmart HR. Researched it for MONTHS. Got it on Black Friday sale. LOVE. IT. TO PIECES!

My Fitbit Surge kept dying...the band falling apart, the HRM not working, the touch screen not swiping. I researched Garmin and Polar and made an informed decision.

chris_in_cal

Any new VA3 users who also log foods in MFP....and have both running and weightloss goals? I am fishing for motivation partners.

chris_in_cal

bump