Okay, I got tired of editing or trying to find the right format, so here's a huge wall of text about the Garmin Vivoactive HR:
Intro
I was going to review the Fitbit Surge vs. the Garmin Vivoactive HR, but to be honest, there’s really no comparison. For my interests, there are a couple of minor things where the Surge has an advantage, but the $50 extra just gets me *so* much more.
I’ve had the Surge for a few months, but really only used it for a couple of weeks because of my injury and recovery. I just bought the Garmin Vivoactive HR as sort of a treat/incentive as I slowly get reintroduced to activities. So far I really haven’t done much with either. Nothing that would hit max HR for sure.
So this is a casual review of the Garmin, with some commentary about the Surge and Fitbit ecosystem mixed in. I won’t be evaluating HR accuracy or sample frequency or anything fancy like that. You can find that sort of stuff online. I’m not a hard core user - I just have a gear addiction.
TL;DR
I like the Vivoactive HR pretty well. In most ways, it’s leaps and bounds better than the FR60 I bought in 2010 when I first attempted the couch 2 5k (I’ve yet to actually finish the couch 2 5k series - I always hit some sort of joint pain - but I maintain hope!). Weirdly, though, there are some key features that the FR60 had, but that aren’t available with the VA HR. I gather this is because the Forerunner series is running specific and sort of the flagship line, but it’s hard to imagine why any modern sport watch is missing a timer or a stopwatch. That’s just BS.
The Surge is probably the most feature-rich watch in the Fitbit lineup, while the Vivoactive HR is maybe middle of the road for the Garmin lineup.
The Fitbit website and app are much easier to use than the Garmin Connect website and app. Partly that may be because the Connect site does so much. If you are someone passionate about clean UI, I predict you’ll be frustrated by Connect. But if you like an excess of features, lots of configuration options, and being rewarded for digging, Connect may appeal to you. It appeals to me.
Okay, on to some details.
Fitbit Surge: Like
The stair detection seems to work pretty well. It only misses a flight of stairs once every 10 or 20 flights. Close enough for something that is just a “huh, that’s interesting” stat for me, anyway.
It has a stopwatch built in.
You can set an alarm - but you have to do it via the app or the website.
Fitbit Surge: Dislike
The Surge doesn’t have the option of a movement reminder throughout the day. Apparently they are reserving this feature for newer models coming out. Lame.
The charge cable. It doesn’t stick to the watch very well, so I never trust that it’s actually charging. It falls out stupid easily.
The wrist strap. It’s not particularly comfortable.
The green HR monitoring lights stay on *way* too long when I take the watch off or if I accidentally bump it. They are amazingly bright.
Garmin Vivoactive HR: Like
The watch strap is softer and less irritating to my skin than the Surge strap. That being said, both are moderately irritating for me - I bought the Surge primarily to monitor my sleep, but it didn’t really give me any new information. These days I don’t wear either watch to sleep.
The charge cable has a mini cradle. It’s tricky to snap on, but once it’s on, you KNOW it’s going to stay put.
The VA HR auto-adjusts step goals based on your recent performance. I can see this being much better on the upward side than the downward - I feel a little sad as most days, the step goal is lower than the day before.
Movement reminders. The VA has a little power bar thing that fills up with a red line the longer you sit around. When the bar is half full, it vibrates, and the screen shows “Move!” When the bar is full and beyond, it vibrates again, then lets you stew in your own guilt. You get another buzz and “Movement cleared!” when you walk around enough. I’m not sure how it does this math. I’ve never convinced it that I’ve walked enough when in the house (even walking up and down stairs) or in the office. Maybe it requires continuous steps with no pause.
The app store and developer API! There are four types of programs supported: Apps, widgets, watch faces, and data fields. A bit confusing. I think I’ve cracked the code.
Widgets are screens available from the main watch screen by scrolling. After a few seconds, the screen will revert to the watch display.
Apps are available from the right button. This is where you find your different sport programs. When you’re running an app, you stay on that app screen - it doesn’t revert to the watch face.
Watch faces: this should be self explanatory.
Data fields: Custom data that isn’t part of the main system. I’m still not 100% sure how this interacts with the other programs. For example, there’s a % of vVO2 max data field. I think this must come with a widget to display this info. There’s also a data field to show you how many beers you can drink based on how many calories you’ve burned …
Sports. The VA HR supports a lot of sports, including skiing, SUPing, swimming, indoor vs outdoor biking and running … I’m not sure how useful these modes actually are, but they exist. I just used one of the several free hiking apps from the app store today, and it worked great. Except I did accidentally stop it and restart it so that I ended up with two sequential activities in Connect. I suspect I’ll be doing this a lot if I use it under a ski jacket.
GPS. It plots your course on the map if you upload your data to Connect.
Garmin Vivoactive HR: Dislike
It’s terrible at registering stairs. Others have complained about this on the forum - it looks like they tried to fix it in the last firmware update, so at least it’s on the radar. But it’s not fixed yet. I have a two story house (not counting basement), take the stairs from the parking garage to the office, and there’s a flight of stairs to get to my office. Typically it records one or two flights a day. *sigh* …. But I did exceed my stair goal today while hiking! Go figure.
I’ve read that there are issues with recording heart rate when you’re above maybe 135. I haven’t done high heart rate stuff recently to find out.
No alarm or stopwatch or timer built in. (I downloaded a timer app which works great. I downloaded a stopwatch widget that isn’t so great, because it’s a widget, so the screen flips back to the watch face after a few seconds. Thinking of trying my hand at writing a stopwatch as an app.)
I’m not sure why, but some of the widgets are unnecessarily reliant on a bluetooth connection to a phone. I understand why the weather and calendar apps require connectivity, but altitude? The watch has its own altimeter!
While Connect supports “workouts,” which are timed intervals that you can set for yourself - the watch doesn’t support them. So, no intervals on the VA HR. This surprised me and nearly prompted me to return the damn thing. But there’s a third party app,
https://www.geniuswrist.com/workoutbuilder , that does a really nice job of this at $8 / year. Yes, there are roughly one million C 2 5K phone apps out there, I know - but I don’t always want my phone on me, or to rely on my phone for my workout.
Fitbit online/app experience vs Garmin Connect online/app experience
Arguably, this is really where the rubber meets the road - what data is available, and how well is it presented? Can you find what you’re looking for?
Fitbit’s UI is clean, easy to read, modern, and fast. When you dig below the surface, though … well, there isn’t much digging. It’s pretty shallow. Garmin Connect is clunky, complex, looks somewhat dated, and slow.
For me, I prefer the Connect system. Because why? Because when i logged in for the first time in a year, it showed me my most recent run and my most recent bike activity. In fact, I can see every activity I ever did with my old FR60, dating back to 2010. And I can export that data as a CSV. And I can click into each of those to see my pace, heart rate, and cadence (assuming I had the relevant device for shoe or wheel), plus all sorts of summary stats.
Fitbit also stores past activities, although the button for timeframe only goes back a year. It looks like you can go back further by explicitly choosing to do so with the calendar range picker - but then it still only loads 10 events by default. Then you have to choose “Load 10 more.” And again. And again.
I also have trouble figuring out how to navigate Fitbit to see details. More often than not, when I get to the detailed or historical view, I can’t figure out how I got there. I just click around, drilling down and back up again, till I find it.
Do I strictly speaking *need* to look at 2010 data? Maybe not, but it’s interesting.
Data available from an auto-detected walk in Fitbit: Duration, average heart rate, heart rate chart, supposed calories burned, supposed duration of fat burning intensity, supposed calorie burn rate, steps taken.
Data available from an uncategorized event in Garmin Connect in 2015: Duration, average heart rate, heart rate chart, supposed calories burned, distance, average speed, elevation gain (don’t believe my old FR60 could do this), max heart rate, heart rate as percent of max / zones. For an explicit run with a cadence attachment for my shoe, I also get pace and cadence. The Vivoactive HR also shows a map and elevation and temperature. These seem to only work when the watch is connected to your phone via Bluetooth. This I do not understand, as the watch has GPS and its own altimeter (I’ll give it a pass on the weather). Garmin Connect also supports splits, but it sure looks like the only splits that Vivoactive HR supports are auto-detected splits for skiing.
. I know what I like about the Surge so I might have to do this to see if It's just "shiny object" syndrome or if it's truly a better device for me. Worst case I sell it and I'll still have my surge and likely appreciate it more.
