The second rating is with a standard Footpod that is available quite cheaply. This is probably the most common way runners use their watch, but you miss out on a lot. Firstly, you can use a watch on its own, without any kind of Footpod. I evaluate running watches in three distinct ways. The blue lap markers are surprisingly tightly clustered given the overall GPS accuracy. It seems that watches do much better with a sharp change in direction than a series of curves. The sharp turn on the right side of the picture is better, again something that's common. You can see the lines jump off track near the bridge, and some of the tracks wander after the bridge. You can also see there are problems going under the bridge where the VivoactiveHR sometimes struggles to reacquire the GPS signal. The only green line is where it gets a bit lost and goes wide, offsetting the otherwise short reading. Notice that the VivoactiveHR has red lines here, indicating that it's consistently getting this segment wrong. You can see the problems where the path curves in the middle section, something that most watches have problems with. To help visualize the quantitative assessment, I've included the image below of the GPS tracks from one part of the testing course. The VivoactiveHR has rather poor GPS Accuracy, and it's slightly worse than the Garmin Vivoactive on which it's based. The chart of the weeks intensity minutes might be useful, but it shows how much better the ActiFace user interface is. The display looks different between the two, but actually the VivoactiveHR display is just the Vivoactive display rotated through 90 degrees. I've found the VivoactiveHR is distinctly less comfortable to wear all the time than the Vivoactive. The VivoactiveHR may look a little smaller, but it's thicker and taller. The VivoactiveHR is relatively small (19cm 3), but it's quite a bit larger than the Vivoactive (13cm 3) which is the smallest GPS watch on the market. I can charge the VivoactiveHR while I take a shower and it will keep it topped up, where the Vivoactive seems to need a little longer. The VivoactiveHR seems to charge about twice as fast as the original Vivoactive, and this is probably the biggest reason for buying the VivoactiveHR over the Vivoactive. The biggest difference is actually in how fast the battery charges, with the VivoactiveHR charging much faster. The battery life of the two is surprisingly similar given the VivoactiveHR has Optical Heart Rate Monitoring. The stairs climbed seems way too inaccurate for it to be of value to me, and the "active minutes" ignores intensity. The VivoactiveHR will track the number of flights of stairs climbed and the number of active minutes which are better in theory than practice. It provides a lot of data on the small screen, and the graph of the last week's activity is a great motivator. It's small and comfortable so I don't mind wearing it all day and all night, and the ActiFace watch face that's available on all Garmin watches that support Garmin's Connect IQ is outstanding. The Vivoactive has become my favorite activity tracker. I was expecting the OHRM to influence the estimate of calories burned, but it doesn't appear to. The continuous OHRM is a little misleading as the watch only periodically polls your heart rate, but that would be okay if the reading were right. It's a case of misleading information is worse than no information, and the VivoactiveHR is inaccurate all too often. Sadly, ORHM works rather poorly in practice and I believe you're better off with no heart rate monitor than one that's inaccurate. The ability to monitor heart rate continuously would be an even bigger advantage, giving insight into sleeping heart rate and overall activity levels. If OHRM worked, it would be a great convenience over using a chest strap. Pretty much everything I mention in the Vivoactive review applies to the VivoactiveHR, so I'll focus on the important differences. This is not a clear cut choice, and buying the VivoactiveHR is not unreasonable. In this review I'm going to argue that you're probably better off with the Vivoactive than the VivoactiveHR. The Garmin VivoactiveHR is an upgraded version of the Garmin Vivoactive, the main addition being Optical Heart Rate Monitoring (OHRM). The VivoactiveHR is an upgraded version of the Vivoactive, but I prefer the original.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |