Garmin, the maker of our favorite fitness trackers, has a number of sequence of entry-level hybrid trackers. Sorting through them will be complicated. The Venu series is the most costly, the premium tracker with extra smartwatch options (full-screen AMOLED, microphone, and so forth.). The Vivomove series has a hidden show and no onboard GPS. Proper within the center sits the Vivoactive sequence. The most recent Vivoactive 6 has an AMOLED show, a few week of battery life, and naturally, entry to Garmin’s top-of-the-line health software program.
I wrote beforehand that the $100 Amazfit Energetic 2 (6/10, WIRED Recommends) made me rethink what a health tracker’s worth proposition ought to be, and $300 now appears very costly for an entry-level tracker. Nonetheless, not like Amazfit’s, Garmin’s trackers and software program truly work. In an unsurprising flip of occasions, I attempted Garmin’s new AI-powered Energetic Intelligence, and it’s the primary AI-powered health service that offered me with helpful insights. To this point, Garmin’s supremacy stays unvanquished.
{Photograph}: Adrienne So
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Like all of Garmin’s life-style traces, the Vivoactive 6 is straightforward to put on, with a silicone strap, an aluminum bezel, and a lightweight, 42-mm polymer case. It isn’t truly lighter than my Apple Watch Collection 10, but it surely feels lighter, as a result of it is plastic. The show is a touchscreen AMOLED that I discovered readable in daylight and attentive to my contact, though it was simple to print the display screen with my sunscreen-y fingers. There are two buttons on the aspect of the case, an exercise button and a again button. You can too scroll up and down and faucet to get stats and notifications.
Garmin touts 11 days of battery life, however with a number of tracked actions per day I acquired a few week. It makes use of the Garmin proprietary plug charger, which is extra annoying than it ought to be, provided that Garmin launched wi-fi charging years in the past with the Vivomove Trend (though the corporate is way from the one one that also depends by itself proprietary chargers as an alternative of wi-fi charging or USB-C).
Screenshots Supply: Adrienne So
It has onboard satellite tv for pc connectivity (GPS, Glonass, Galileo, QZSS, and Beidou) to make it extremely correct when monitoring your outside actions, and the same old suite of onboard sensors—coronary heart fee monitor, blood oxygen monitoring (an vital consideration if you wish to swap from an Apple Watch)—a compass, a gyroscope, an accelerometer, a thermometer, and an ambient mild sensor. It’s additionally rated for water resistance at 5 ATM, you’ll be able to observe swimming.
