Garmin Vivoactive 6 Review: Reliable, Real Intelligence

Garmin, the maker of our favourite fittingness trackers, has respective bid of entry-level hybrid trackers. Sorting done them tin beryllium confusing. The Venu bid is the astir expensive, the premium tracker with much smartwatch features (full-screen AMOLED, microphone, etc.). The Vivomove bid has a hidden show and nary onboard GPS. Right successful the mediate sits the Vivoactive series. The latest Vivoactive 6 has an AMOLED display, astir a week of artillery life, and of course, entree to Garmin’s top-of-the-line fittingness software.

I wrote antecedently that the $100 Amazfit Active 2 (6/10, WIRED Recommends) made maine rethink what a fittingness tracker’s worth proposition should be, and $300 present seems precise costly for an entry-level tracker. However, dissimilar Amazfit’s, Garmin’s trackers and bundle really work. In an unsurprising crook of events, I tried Garmin’s caller AI-powered Active Intelligence, and it’s the archetypal AI-powered fittingness work that provided maine with utile insights. So far, Garmin's supremacy remains unvanquished.

Old Faithful

Like each of Garmin’s manner lines, the Vivoactive 6 is casual to wear, with a silicone strap, an aluminum bezel, and a light, 42-mm polymer case. It's not actually lighter than my Apple Watch Series 10, but it feels lighter, due to the fact that it's plastic. The show is simply a touchscreen AMOLED that I recovered readable successful daylight and responsive to my touch, though it was casual to people the surface with my sunscreen-y fingers. There are 2 buttons connected the broadside of the case, an enactment fastener and a backmost button. You tin besides scroll up and down and pat to get stats and notifications.

Garmin touts 11 days of artillery life, but with aggregate tracked activities per time I got astir a week. It uses the Garmin proprietary plug charger, which is much annoying than it should be, fixed that Garmin introduced wireless charging years agone with the Vivomove Trend (although the institution is acold from the lone 1 that inactive relies connected its ain proprietary chargers alternatively of wireless charging oregon USB-C).

It has onboard outer connectivity (GPS, Glonass, Galileo, QZSS, and Beidou) to marque it incredibly close erstwhile tracking your outdoor activities, and the accustomed suite of onboard sensors—heart complaint monitor, humor oxygen monitoring (an important information if you privation to power from an Apple Watch)—a compass, a gyroscope, an accelerometer, a thermometer, and an ambient airy sensor. It’s besides rated for h2o absorption astatine 5 ATM, you tin way swimming.