Garmin Vivoactive 4S Sports Smartwatch Dust Rose / Light Gold Hardware

Does everything l need for keeping fit😀

Love it

I bought this as an upgrade from a Vivomove HR (which I was happy with, but wanted more exercise options).It will take some time to explore all the features. From the 'basics', like all-day HR, pulse ox, respiration rate, stress level, hydration, steps, stairs, through the 'body battery' that reflects rest vesus exertion, all the way to guided, customizable workouts with animations for exercises and yoga.I've used it for walking and running, and some yoga. Prompts and animations are great and the review capabilities via the mobile app and website are very full-featured. The GPS seems very accurate, quick to lock, and can use GPS, GLONASS or Galileo. Tracks can be viewed overlaid on Google or other maps with pace, cadence, heart rate and so on.The watch faces are customizable and third party face can be downloaded from the Connect IQ store as can other apps and widgets.It will sync your own music, or Spotify or Deezer playlists: this works well for me but can be a bit fiddly and needs a wifi connection for Spotify while syncing. After that though, the music is on the watch and it's great to be independent of a phone. Bluetooth headphone connection was trouble-free with a cheap pair of Grundigs.There's the possibility to do an adaptive training program with the 'Coach' feature. Seems to be working well so far.Loads of golf stuff that's wasted on me.Battery life can be disappointing: the Vivomove HR lasted several days, and I think this would too if you set it to replicate just those functions (i.e. steps, HR and basic activities). But the temptation of course is to use all the features and if you turn on GPS, all-day pulse ox, and listen to music, then you are down to a few hours from a charge. I can live with that in exchange for the rich feature set.

I very rarely write a review, but they were really valuable to me when buying my 4s, which took a few weeks and lots of research to settle on. It's my first smart watch and I wanted one that was small enough for my little wrists and that I could use completely independently from my phone. Having Amazon Music, the provider I use, is a bonus for me with Garmin, but so long as the watch had internal music storage (which this also does), I was happy. In fact, also having built-in GPS meant that Garmin was the only one I found certainly within price range that met all of my needs, so narrowing down to the brand was quite easy. However, I spent a long time torn between the 4s and the Venu. The smaller size of the 4s is what swung it for me in the end, however, I wasn't sure I would be happy with the transflective screed over the AMOLED. I actually really like the screen, it's great indoors and outdoors, and I've not felt like I wish I'd got the Venu instead - am I am definitely happy I got the 40mm over the larger 43mm size of the Venu. I've given the watch a 4* rating for accuracy, not because this watch is any less accurate than any others, simply because these watches will never be as accurate as medical equipment (particularly the pulse oxy). I've seen a lot of negative feedback about sleep measurements as well and admittedly, since I've had the watch, mine have been out every now and then, but bearing in mind the fact the watch is relying on a guestimate based on other factors (HR, RR, etc.) it does pretty well - and from reading around the topic it becomes more accurate over time as it builds up vital sign data. I have taken a manual pulse a few times and it does match quite closely if not exactly with the HR the watch is picking up, and RR is pretty spot on too. The in-watch fitness and breathing activities are great and easy to use as well, as is the phone app. The only issue I have had with the watch occurred the day it arrived: The website to pair the Amazon music account with the device directs to the US page, which cannot be accessed in the UK, however I just changed the URL from .com to .co.uk and it worked fine. I also had issues downloading my Amazon playlist onto the watch, but it was likely because it consists of almost 400 songs and while it can store 500 internally, it can't cope with downloading that many in one go. I've had no problem with smaller playlists of up to 40 songs (I've not tried any larger). Definitely a 5* rating to the Garmin tech team; I called them up about the second problem and I got through super quick, the guy I spoke to was really friendly and helpful, and it's reassuring to know that level and ease of supports comes with such an expensive product. Overall, very happy, all of my research has paid off and the good reviews can definitely be trusted!

Great product as expected of with good price! Happy