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Created page with "{{DISPLAYTITLE:Garmin Vivoactive 3 Notes}} I'm still testing the Vivoactive 3, and normally I wait until I've completed my evaluation before writing anything up. This time I t..."
{{DISPLAYTITLE:Garmin Vivoactive 3 Notes}}
I'm still testing the Vivoactive 3, and normally I wait until I've completed my evaluation before writing anything up. This time I thought I'd publish my ongoing thoughts for those that are interested, and it should morph over time into a full review.
* I find the way that Garmin have intentionally crippled the VA3 to be rather mean spirited. They've gone beyond the typical limitations of not supporting all sensors and restricted the data that can be displayed while running. The first Vivoactive (and the Vivoactive HR) had some of this, with only a few screens of up to three fields, but this could be overcome by [[Connect IQ]] apps like "Single Field Run" that display lots of data by taking up the whole screen as a single field display (hence the name.) Garmin have made it far harder to use this type of data field by forcing all screens to have the same number of data fields. I think that's just nasty and petty.
* There's no way of recording a lap manually, which I think is less about intentionally crippling the VA3 and more about bad design. The manual says the single button will record a lap, but it doesn't work, and it's not clear how it could work given the button is used for start/stop. They could use the Suunto approach and have a press record a lap and a long press perform the stop, but that's not something Garmin typically does on their user interfaces and it's a little unfriendly.
* The touchscreen is nicely responsive, though sometimes it does its own thing, with the display scrolling mid run for no obvious reason.
* I'm not a big fan of touchscreens as they're tricky to use while running and even harder with gloves. Unlike the original Vivoactive which had four buttons and a touchscreen, the VA3 only has the single button. This makes the user interface far more challenging and complex.
* The display is lovely, and it's really big given the form factor of the VA3. The display is the same as the [[Garmin Fenix 5X]], but the watch itself is about half the volume. This move towards smaller bezels is something that's occurring on TVs, phones, laptops, and it's good to see it happening in watches.
* The [[Stryd]] support quite limited. You can get the Stryd estimate of running power through the [[Connect IQ]] app, but you can't use Stryd for accurate pace and distance unless you're in treadmill mode (no GPS.) In addition, I could not get Stryd to work as an Ant+ footpod, only via Bluetooth. The Garmin Ant+ [[Footpod]] works fine.
* The battery life is worse than claimed. I got only 8 hours under optimal conditions, rather than 13 hours claimed. The claim of up to 7 days in watch mode also seems rather optimistic.
* Because there is no lap button I can't test [[GPS Accuracy]], but it appears rather poor.
* I've not gathered enough data to understand the accuracy of the [[Optical Heart Rate Monitoring]], but superficially it seems no better than I'd expect.
=Comparison Table=
{{:Best Running Watch-table}}
I'm still testing the Vivoactive 3, and normally I wait until I've completed my evaluation before writing anything up. This time I thought I'd publish my ongoing thoughts for those that are interested, and it should morph over time into a full review.
* I find the way that Garmin have intentionally crippled the VA3 to be rather mean spirited. They've gone beyond the typical limitations of not supporting all sensors and restricted the data that can be displayed while running. The first Vivoactive (and the Vivoactive HR) had some of this, with only a few screens of up to three fields, but this could be overcome by [[Connect IQ]] apps like "Single Field Run" that display lots of data by taking up the whole screen as a single field display (hence the name.) Garmin have made it far harder to use this type of data field by forcing all screens to have the same number of data fields. I think that's just nasty and petty.
* There's no way of recording a lap manually, which I think is less about intentionally crippling the VA3 and more about bad design. The manual says the single button will record a lap, but it doesn't work, and it's not clear how it could work given the button is used for start/stop. They could use the Suunto approach and have a press record a lap and a long press perform the stop, but that's not something Garmin typically does on their user interfaces and it's a little unfriendly.
* The touchscreen is nicely responsive, though sometimes it does its own thing, with the display scrolling mid run for no obvious reason.
* I'm not a big fan of touchscreens as they're tricky to use while running and even harder with gloves. Unlike the original Vivoactive which had four buttons and a touchscreen, the VA3 only has the single button. This makes the user interface far more challenging and complex.
* The display is lovely, and it's really big given the form factor of the VA3. The display is the same as the [[Garmin Fenix 5X]], but the watch itself is about half the volume. This move towards smaller bezels is something that's occurring on TVs, phones, laptops, and it's good to see it happening in watches.
* The [[Stryd]] support quite limited. You can get the Stryd estimate of running power through the [[Connect IQ]] app, but you can't use Stryd for accurate pace and distance unless you're in treadmill mode (no GPS.) In addition, I could not get Stryd to work as an Ant+ footpod, only via Bluetooth. The Garmin Ant+ [[Footpod]] works fine.
* The battery life is worse than claimed. I got only 8 hours under optimal conditions, rather than 13 hours claimed. The claim of up to 7 days in watch mode also seems rather optimistic.
* Because there is no lap button I can't test [[GPS Accuracy]], but it appears rather poor.
* I've not gathered enough data to understand the accuracy of the [[Optical Heart Rate Monitoring]], but superficially it seems no better than I'd expect.
=Comparison Table=
{{:Best Running Watch-table}}