Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

The Garmin VivoSmart is an okay fitness counter. It really depends on what you're using it for as to whether you'll love it or not. I've used a Jawbone Up (returned due to being a PITA), Misfit Shine (had serious problems syncing, used a point system instead of counting steps, and display had serious issues turning on), LifeTrak C200 (loved it), and a LifeTrack C410 (current tracker that I love, but it feels a bit bulky on my wrist). For information, I use a Samsung Galaxy S4, and it had no issue connecting (aside from set-up note as seen below). I was getting this tracker primarily as the tracker, and as such, I didn't even touch the push notifications feature. I just want a nice activity tracker that displays the information RIGHT on the device. Seems like it'd be easy to find, but it turns out that it's more rare than you'd think. Pros: -Accurate step count for dedicated exercise. Matches up within +/- 400 steps with my current pedometer when doing dedicated exercise. (They were on separate wrists, so some discrepancy was expected) Walked 5 miles, and it counted pretty well. Was within 200 steps of my current (and trusted) pedometer. -Seems to be water resistant. I hate fussing with taking it off for a shower, so yay! -Have not had any problem with the band coming off. It *might* if a grocery bag or something catches on it, but that's to be expected with any watch or accessory. If you use the included "Strap Keeper", you won't even have to worry about that. -Slim profile. Way smaller and way more "techy" than my current pedometer. Love the look of it. -Available in two wrist sizes. The Garmin site has the actual length as well as a piece of paper to print to help you figure out the right size for your wrist. -Doesn't seem to accidentally count steps while driving. -Vibrated to let me know I met my daily goals. That always made me smile and feel accomplished. -Readable in any sun/not sun environments -Once you have the display on, the finger gestures are extremely responsive and feel almost like using an Apple product (yes, that smooth!) Cons: -The BIGGEST problem with this tracker, for me, is that it doesn't do a great job of counting steps when they aren't all consecutive. I get an ALL-DAY fitness tracker to track my fitness from daily activities. I have a running watch for purely-cardio activities. But the VivoSmart doesn't seem to understand that. When I get up every hour and go walk around the house, throw in loads of laundry, sort out items, and spend about 10 minutes walking from place to place, i want it to count. And it doesn't. I counted the steps in my head multiple times, and checked my other pedometer, and it counted them. The VivoSmart? Nope. In fact, after doing that twice (ten minutes of activity every hour), the VivoSmart was still vibrating at my wrist telling me to move because it hadn't counted any steps. Sigh. -At the end of the night, because of it not counting these day-to-day steps, my VivoSmart and my regular pedometer varied by 2,000-4,000 steps. Boo. -Be aware that, by design of these wrist-worn step counters, doing anything that keeps your hand still will negate any step gain. The most noticable example of this I can think of is using a shopping cart. -Set-up was kinda a pain. As in, it took me over an hour. Still can't figure out how to update the firmware since the Garmin firmware updater keeps refusing to install. As a note for anyone that tries to set this up, do NOT let your phone try to connect the Bluetooth and recognize the device itself. You NEED to do this through the Garmin app, and no where does it actually say that. The phone will try to automatically do it, and if you let it (thinking it's part of the set-up), it will get VERY fussy and refuse to connect. Once I figured that out, set-up was done in 5 minutes. -Display doesn't always turn on like it should. It usually takes 3-5 double taps before it turns on. It's WAY better than my Misfit Shine which required 10+ on a regular basis to turn on, but still - I don't want to fuss with looking like a moron trying to turn on the time to figure out the date to write a check. In fact, if Garmin let me leave the display on and sacrifice some of the battery life, I'd take it in a heartbeat. -Pricey. Definitely on the higher end of price for a fitness tracker, but about on-par with some smart watches. -Won't let me change my activity goal. For some people, letting Garmin pick your goal works fine. I'd rather let that be an OPTION. I know exactly how many steps I want to walk, and I find it frustrating that Garmin gets to decide how many I should be walking. I'd even accept letting the user set their initial step count and then Garmin asks how much I'd like to progress per week (100 more steps each week, 200 more steps each week, etc.) -Harder to read in direct sunlight but still can be read -Let the boyfriend try this as well. He had the same problem. Despite both of us doing things around the house throughout the day, his VivoSmart read "10+ hours unactive". That's absolutely insane. During one consecutive time, he went outside, got the mail, took a shower, took out the garbage, and hung an entire load of laundry. And the band still hadn't counted a single step. I want to love it. I do. But it got returned. I wanted to love the "move reminder", but since it doesn't count my little day-to-day things, it never seems to think I'm moving. It seems like Garmin's focus has always been on tracking cardio exercises, and it seems like this lifestyle-tracking device seems to hold onto the same habits of the other Garmin products. Tracking cardio exercises is a-okay for some products and people, but if you're one of those people who wants to make your 5/10 minutes every hour add up to a decent amount of activity at the end of the day, you won't find much use of the VivoSmart.