I have been humming and hawing as to if I should get the new Apple Watch since it looks like it could be the best Smart Watch and Fitness Tracker on the market and I am sure in many ways it may in fact just be. That said I have come to the conclusion that the Apple Watch is just not right for me.
One of my main focuses for having a Fitness Tracker Smart Watch combination is to monitor my workouts as accurately as possible so I know to near precision how many calories I am burning and how much effort I am putting in. So this means I need to go with the most accurate heart rate monitoring available and that is still going to be a chest strap based Heart Rate Monitor. Believe me I have tried many variations of wrist based Optical Sensor heart rate trackers and none of them cut it, including the new Fitbit Surge. I am still waiting to see how the Apple Watch stacks up in this department but I am not optimistic to say the least.
The other concern I have with the Apple Watch is... Well it's just too nice and too expensive to be worn on my wrist while I beat the living crap out of it during my weight training and other fitness activities.
So that brings us back to the Garmin VivoActive. How did I get to this point and why did I go with the Garmin VivoActive? I have used many Fitness Bands and Fitness Watches in the past including some from Fitbit, Polar, Jawbone, Mio and Basis. Many of these Fitness Trackers worked well for me but once I tried the Polar Loop with its super accurate chest strap based Heart Rate Monitoring, I decided that this combination was the way to go at least for me. That led to trying out the Garmin VivoFit with HRM, which led to the Garmin VivoSmart with HRM, that led to what I am using now which again brings us back to the Garmin VivoActive Activity Tracker and Smart Watch bundled with a chest strap based Heart Rate Monitor.
Each new rendition of Garmin products has offered more built in technology and connectivity making each device more and more useful to me. At this point the Garmin VivoActive does what I need it to do, no more, no less and it does it really well.
Here is a breakdown of what I find most useful about the Garmin VivoActive Activity Tracker and Smart Watch:
So for now I am sticking with my Garmin VivoActive over going with an Apple Watch. Well at least until the Apple Watch 2 comes out ;)