Garmin Vivomove HR – An Elegant Hybrid Smartwatch

Garmin Vivomove HR is a fine-looking smartwatch and fitness tracker, a hybrid designed to fit seamlessly into everyday life.

An array of colours and band styles, almost invisibly smarts, and more features than its price tag suggests make it a clever accessory to pair with business or casual attire. Is it the right smartwatch for you?

Read our review to find out all you need to know about this timepiece.

Background

The Vivomove HR is Garmin’s Vivomove fashionable makeover; a hybrid smartwatch designed to match with your daily style.

Instead of the utilitarian or geometric look of a sports watch, it combines the soft lines of a classic analogue timepiece with discreet smart functionalities that don’t interfere with the its aesthetics.

It’s not GPS enabled but delivers an array of exciting fitness tracking and daily activity monitoring features. An elegant smartwatch designed with fashion junkies in mind.

Features

Garmin Vivomove HR might not pack the fitness and sports tracking features other Garmin watches have, yet it still delivers a highly appealing mix of affordability and functionality.

Its fans appreciate the smart features this timepiece comes with. Smart notifications on your wrist can truly make a difference when you’re drifting through rush hour traffic or if you want to read that text without drawing attention when you’re in a middle of a business meeting or conference.

Apart from smart notifications, the Vivomove HR works as an upscale analogue watch. Useful features include automatic daylight saving time, timer and stopwatch function, as well as a daily alarm.

Compatible with iPhone and Android devices, it also retrieves and displays weather forecasts and gives you the ability to control your phone’s music.

Design

The Vivomove HR features the elegant lines of a classic timepiece. It comes in a wide range of colours suitable for ladies and gents alike, including the fashionable, unisex rose gold.

Various band options include silicone, suede, or Italian leather straps. The gorgeous design comes in two main styles, sports or premium.

The HR’s sports version features a fiber-reinforced polymer case and comes with silicone band as standard.

The premium variant has a stainless steel case and bezel and comes with either silicone, suede, or leather strap.

We like that it comes in two sizes suitable for smaller or larger wrists, as well as a one-size-fits-most version.

At first glance, nothing betrays the smart nature of this timepiece, but the display hidden in the background activates itself to show smart notifications on your wrist.

Activating the two-line monochrome display to access fitness tracking or smart functionalities is easy by double-tapping the glass or flicking your wrist.

One of the downsides is that you can only interact with the watch through the touchscreen, which isn’t the fastest or most responsive.

Another slight flaw is the brightness of the screen. Staying true to the classic watch design, it doesn’t become particularly bright, and it’s near impossible to see in direct sunlight.

Apart from these downsides, Garmin Vivomove HR is a capable smartwatch suitable for those who want to wear a fashionable timepiece.

Fitness Tracking

The Vivomove HR doesn’t have the fitness tracking and activity monitoring features other Garmin smartwatches have. Yet, it can be the right choice for the fitness-savvy individuals who’re not loyal to a specific sport nor want to monitor their performance 24/7.

Undeniably, this watch’s best feature is the MoveIQ functionality that recognizes and records your workouts automatically.

You won’t have to start and stop a timer when starting an activity; whether you’re taking the stairs instead of an elevator or casually turned into an airport sprinter to make sure you reach the boarding gate on time, Vivomove will detect and record your movement so that you can monitor and meet your daily fitness goal even when you’re too busy to hit the gym.

Smart and sophisticated, Vivomove HR also monitors your heart rate, stress level, and sleep, offering a comprehensive overview of your health and fitness status.

Due to the lack of a GPS, it can only return estimates of your travelled distance, but it does a great job in counting steps, stairs climbed, and daily calorie burn.

The smartwatch is also waterproof and resistant to a pressure of up to 5 atmospheres; a great choice regardless of whether you prefer swimming or running.

Main Advantages

• Elegant, classic design suitable for everyday wear
• Subtle touchscreen and digital display
• Accurate wrist heart rate data and fitness monitoring
• Stress level monitoring throughout the day
• Decent battery life; up to 2 weeks in timepiece mode and 5 days in smartwatch mode

Main Disadvantages

• Display hardly visible in sunlight
• No GPS

Competition

	Garmin Vivomove HR	Fossil Q	Withings Steel HR Sport	Skagen Connected
Display size	43 x 43 x 11.6 mm	45 x 45 x 14 mm	39.5 x 39.5 x 13 mm	42 x 42 x 12 mm
Display type	Chemically strengthened glass	Glass	Mineral glass	Glass
Resolution	64 x 128 pixels	N/A	Not specified	N/A
Weight	40.8 g	Not specified	49 g	Not specified
Band material	Silicone / suede / leather	Leather	Silicone / Leather	Leather
Water resistance	5 ATM	5 ATM	5 ATM	3 ATM
Connectivity	Bluetooth Smart and ANT+	Bluetooth Smart	Bluetooth Low Energy	Bluetooth Smart
GPS	No	No	No	No
Heart rate monitoring	Yes	No	Yes	No
Smart notifications	Yes	Yes – vibration only	Yes	Yes – vibration only
Sleep tracking	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Stress level monitoring	Yes	No	No	No
Multi-sport profiles	No	No	No	No
Battery life (smartwatch mode)	Up to 5 days	Up to 1 year	Up to 5 days	Up to 1 year

How We Tested

Garmin Vivomove HR is a stylish timepiece suitable to wear on all occasions. We tested by wearing it uninterruptedly for two weeks, at work, at home, during leisure or sports activities, as well as while sleeping.

Sleek and elegant, it surely didn’t pass unnoticed. Notifications are discreetly displayed and don’t distract. Interacting with it is easy, albeit the touchscreen is not the most responsive.

It’s hard to use in sunlight, but we didn’t have major issues using it outdoors in cloudy London.

All in all, this is a gorgeous timepiece for the fitness butterflies who care about looks.

Summary

The Vivomove HR by Garmin is perhaps the best hybrid smartwatch on the market. It impresses with the elegant looks of a classic analogue timepiece while seamlessly incorporating smart functionalities.

Whether you want to receive smart notifications on your wrist or monitor your overall fitness level, the Vivomove HR has it all.

Sure, it’s not for the fitness junkies. Nevertheless, it’s an accurate and convenient watch that knows how to marry fitness functionality with classic elegance.