Vivoactive 3

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.

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 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.

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.

FWIW, I got a VA3 a couple of weeks ago, and am just getting used to it. I'm using an ANT+ chest strap during intentional exercise.

Not really planning on using the training planning features - not running structured training programs any more, and I'm not sure how compatible Garmin's approach would be with my rowing training plans anyway. Since I don't/can't run, I'm not a good motivation buddy candidate - sorry.

All day wrist-based HR tracking seems plausible (relevant periods comparable to past devices). Stairs tracking and some of the estimated rowing-specific stats are . . . imaginative, sometimes. Others seem plausible. Its sleep tracking, for me, is pure theater of the absurd - as I expected of pretty much any such device based on pre-purchase reading.

I won't be synch-ing calories to MFP. It, like other sources, underestimates TDEE materially for me, no idea why.

Fun gadget, though!