Happy with Garmin VA3M!

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Jthanmyfitnesspal
Jthanmyfitnesspal Posts: 3,521 Member
in Fitness and Exercise
Got the Garmin Vivoactive 3 music smart watch for Christmas and it has been great so far! The least important feature is the music capability (which is equivalent to an old time-y MP3 player). Love the life monitoring, swim mode, bike mode, run mode, hike mode, weights mode, silent alarms, notifications, app, and web site. The integration with MFP is also very good.

I have to say, I was pretty hesitant...

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  • Jthanmyfitnesspal
    Jthanmyfitnesspal Posts: 3,521 Member
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    Battery life is also very good. I get about 5 days.
  • chris_in_cal
    chris_in_cal Posts: 2,197 Member
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    Jthanmyfitnesspal wrote: »
    Got the Garmin Vivoactive 3 music smart watch for Christmas and it has been great so far! The least important feature is the music capability (which is equivalent to an old time-y MP3 player). Love the life monitoring, swim mode, bike mode, run mode, hike mode, weights mode, silent alarms, notifications, app, and web site. The integration with MFP is also very good.

    I have to say, I was pretty hesitant...

    Me too. I had the VA3 (non music) and foind it worked great. I gave it away and upgrade to the 645 Music, which is very similar, but of course WITH music.

    I really like the fitness/activity tracking of them both, and though I was deeply skeptical at first, the music has worked out well too.


  • iSneakers
    iSneakers Posts: 90 Member
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    Agreed, the VA3 is a great fitness tracker. I used it for a while before I got my Apple Watch series 4. I would have kept it but I needed a Sport Watch that would allow me to make and receive calls and texts so I could leave my iPhone at home while doing outdoor workouts.
  • NorthCascades
    NorthCascades Posts: 10,970 Member
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    How is the music quality? Doesn't drop out or anything? This is probably the future if most (high end) Garmin watches.
  • RunnerGrl1982
    RunnerGrl1982 Posts: 412 Member
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    Great to hear! I have the VA3 without music. I haven’t had any relatively big issues with it. The occasional bug hiccup, but nothing that any other fitness tracker doesn’t have at some point. Very happy with mine. 🙃
  • chris_in_cal
    chris_in_cal Posts: 2,197 Member
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    NorthCascades wrote: »
    How is the music quality? Doesn't drop out or anything? This is probably the future if most (high end) Garmin watches.

    It is tough getting earbuds to work. I ended up with a old standard "Plantronics BackBeat Fit" They have been around for several years, and they have sold millions of them, so I ended up paying $15 USD for them.

    They fit my ears, they don't block all sound, and though the whole 'earbud while running' thing is weird, I have no discomfort or fussiness with them.

    Sound quality? It's fine. It is not crackly mono, coming out of an old telephone sound, and it is not audiophile, but talking on podcasts is perfectly understandable, and the music quality is not remarkable...just running and listening. Simple.

    A weirdness is that most bluetooth transmitters are located on the right hand side of the user, and most Garmin watch users have it on their left wrist so there is often a problem with sound dropping out. After being upset, and committed to finding a solution (which I didn't) I just gave in and wear the Garmin on my right wrist. I have no bluetooth dropouts at all now. @NorthCascades
  • Jthanmyfitnesspal
    Jthanmyfitnesspal Posts: 3,521 Member
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    chris_in_cal wrote: »
    A weirdness is that most bluetooth transmitters are located on the right hand side of the user, and most Garmin watch users have it on their left wrist so there is often a problem with sound dropping out. After being upset, and committed to finding a solution (which I didn't) I just gave in and wear the Garmin on my right wrist. I have no bluetooth dropouts at all now. @NorthCascades
    NorthCascades wrote: »
    How is the music quality? Doesn't drop out or anything? This is probably the future if most (high end) Garmin watches.

    Sorry, I ignore my own thread. chris_in_cal hit the nail on the head. The VA3m uses the low-power version of bluetooth, so you have to have the receiver on the same side of your (big fat) head as the watch, and every set of bluetooth headphones I have places the receiver on the right side, therefore, you have to wear the watch on your right wrist to get reasonable performance. Even then, you get some drop outs. This is not the best feature of the watch! (It's a lot of trouble to put content on the watch, anyway. It's back to the old-school method of hooking the watch to your PC and copying files over using Windows Media Player.
  • scorpio516
    scorpio516 Posts: 955 Member
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    VA3 was supposed to have Spotify by now. No online capability though, so you've got to download playlists onto the watch and have Spotify premium
  • Jthanmyfitnesspal
    Jthanmyfitnesspal Posts: 3,521 Member
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    Spotify is here! I think it works pretty well. You install and validate your account, then you can pick from your and other playlists and download the tracks. It's fairly slow, your watch has to be on WiFi, and it needs ample battery for the download (recommend to be attached to the charger and near the router). But, great cooglie-mooglie, it works! They seem to have fixed the Bluetooth issues as well, so the playback is smooth. I'm pretty darned happy with it, overall.
  • Silent_Soliloquy
    Silent_Soliloquy Posts: 237 Member
    edited February 2019
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    In case you did want a reasonably priced upgrade... The sony SP700n have the left as the master. And have very pleasant noise canceling, with "aware mode" at the touch of a button. Also they respond to Google voice, so you just say "okay google skip this song" "okay good turn it up" which is nice.

    I am thrilled with them. Better audio quality than the Bose soundsport free, no where near as good as my sennheiser's, but its a bud not a full over the ear monitor set.

    I couldn't recommend them highly enough

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