Last week I bought a used Garmin Vivoactive on eBay and just received it from my mail lady. I bought it hoping to replace my current GPS watch, a Garmin 10 that’s been playing up a bit. And not in a “oh, isn’t that fun!” kind of way.
My first impression of the Vivoactive is that the screen is dim but in direct sunlight it’s easy to read. That’s … counter-intuitively unexpected. Good to see outdoors but unexpected that it’s hard to see indoors.
I also couldn’t figure out how to see the current time of day on it — seemed like something a watch — particularly a supposedly “smart watch” — should be able to do. The instructions weren’t in the paper “quick start guide” insert in the box but after pressing and prodding versus buttons and swiping left, right, up and down, I eventually found a way to add the current time of day as a data field displayed on the scrolling face.
I went for a run with it today on a route I know backwards and forwards. It was overestimating the mileage by 0.2 miles per lap mile. That adds up quickly. When I got to the turnaround, I reset it and it seemed to keep better distances on the return trip. Maybe it just needed time to adjust.
The battery life, my big reason for wanting a new GPS watch seems a bit dodgy but again that might be because I didn’t let it sufficiently charge before testing it out.
I’ve got it charging tonight and I’ll see how it does at the Summer Sensation Half Marathon I’m running tomorrow down in Santa Monica. Still, I’m having a bit of buyer’s remorse at the moment. It’s a used item from eBay and I suppose it IS as described… I just wish it were a better Head and Shoulders moment when I unboxed it.
Meantime, here’s an animated GIF from Ishtar to perk up the day:
