Garmin vivoactive 3 (White with Stainless Hardware)

The Garmin Vivoactive 3 Music packs all the best features from running watches and fitness trackers into a timepiece you can wear anywhere.

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  Holds up to 500 songs locally. Measures steps, stairs, sleep, continuous heart rate. Includes advanced fitness metrics: VO2 max, fitness age, stress. Contactless payment and smartwatch features.

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  Can only reply to messages from watch when paired with Android. No women's health tracking.

A weak vibration alert cripples the otherwise powerful Garmin Vivoactive 3.

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  Connects to ANT+ sensors, Smart Notifications, Garmin Pay

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  Weak vibration alert, Easy to miss notifications

The Garmin Vivoactive 3 Music is the phone-free sports watch the Vivoactive 3 always wanted to be. Not only that, but on balance this is Garmin’s best smartwatch right now, and it finally looks the part.

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  New design looks the part, Music works like a breeze, Packed to the gills with sports modes

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  Lacking in design options, Only one music service, Basic health stuff behind the competition

The biggest complaint that we heard from consumers with the Garmin vivoactive HR was that it looked too much like a sport watch with its boxy design and plastic/silicone materials. Garmin clearly heard the same story and has now totally redesigned the vivoactive 3 with a round face.

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  Lightweight, sleek design with full-color display + fully waterproof, Activity and sleep tracking + sport tracking + smart features, New Garmin Pay feature for mobile payments, Ambidextrous design for right or left wrist, Increased training features + VO2 Max estimates

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  Expensive at $300, No native storage for music, Limited app support in Connect IQ, Side Swipe feature is not very helpful, No open water swimming

The Vivoactive 3 is one of the best fitness-focused smartwatches available, but the Fitbit Ionic has music storage and the Apple Watch Series 3 has more apps.

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  Always-on watch face, Round design, Advanced workout-tracking

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  Garmin Pay supports few cards at launch, Inaccurate sleep-tracking, No onboard music storage

"The Vivoactive 3 is an activity tracker that's perfect for the rider who's not necessarily interested in picking apart data with a fine-toothed comb but wants to keep track of their rides and monitor fitness"

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  Built-in sensors, Bluetooth and ANT+ connectivity, battery life

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  Optical HR struggles riding on bumpy surfaces, app integration could be improved

It’s hard not to think about our overall impressions of the Vivoactive 3 without comparing it to the other recently announced smartwatches. It directly competes with the Fitbit Ionic because of price, tracking functions, and features.

Overall, the Vivoactive 3 is a very solid and fitness-focused watch. It’s likely the iteration that many folks have been waiting for in terms of a more stylish unit than the Vivoactive HR was in the last version, and more functional than the super-slim original Vivoactive was a few years back.

In the end, I think the Garmin Vivoactive 3 Music is the kind of device aimed primarily at athletes and then at smartwatch fans. This is exactly the opposite of the Apple Watch, no matter what Apple says.

The Garmin Vivoactive 3 is light, comfy and packed with features — what’s not to like?

I bought this to monitor my training over the winter on the turbo, club runs and the odd run. It syncs well with strava although the elevation figures are far lower thanthe strava figures recorded using an iphone. I bought a cheap cadence monitor, which again was easy to sync up with it.

I am very happy with this purchase. I was able to download different watch faces, and customize it. It took a few tries to iron out the kinks but if you stick with it it isn’t that bad. Watch works very well and I found the vibration alerts to be plenty strong.

I bought this watch about 2 weeks ago it's an outstanding product the only issue is I wish they made it a little more rugged or they had watches that were a little more rugged such as outdoor I've had many watches I actually have many expensive watches and no matter where I go what I do this watch...

I bought 2 watches, one for me and one for my boyfriend. The watch has all the features we wanted but the heart rate monitor is so off when my boyfriend wears it. Both watches work fine on me but the HR is super high and inaccurate on him and I have read other review about this same problem

It was about time for Garmin to enter the market with a touchscreen fitness/smart watch. Tracking is accurate so far. A lot of preloaded activities. You can also create your own. Some improvements can be made in the strength training but I understand is kind of hard to track all exercises in a gym.

I purchased this Garmin for my wife. She's loving it for all of it's functionality. She wears it all day for complete motivation. I own the Garmin Fenix 5. The comparison is about the same and the vivoactive 3 edgeing it out with the touch screen.

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  All the functionality!

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  Non

I bought it a week and a half ago, and it has been very helpful with my runs, and I can't wait to try it for skiing. The customizable watch faces are really although you can't do much. The battery life seems to be not as good as they say, but I have not worn it till it died.

I needed a true running GPS running watch to track my miles and workout intensities. I was using an Apple Watch (which was good, but not exactly what I wanted) prior. The Vivoactive is exactly what I was looking for! It's a great watch and unbelievably light weight.

Have owned the Vivoactive 3 for one month now and am really impressed.Tracking of Mountain biking, running, walking and treadmill work is spot on with good information on the Garmin connect app.Have owned a Tomtom spark 3 for a while andhave to say that the Garmin is a lot better in every way.