Tempted to get one. Any real world experience of them you’d like to share?

Checking in. As interested as a possible upgrade to my first generation one (solely due to cosmetics).

Similarly, I’ve had my vivoactive hr for 6 months or so and it’s been fantastic so far. I’m definitely interested in the 3 as it looks more watch like.

My Wife has the Vivoactive HR – first one died after a couple of months, but the replacement has been trouble free (bought from Halfords so no problem exchanging).

I see the new one does swimming also – not many smart watches do, hence my wife wanting one for swimming.

the contactless payments thing is ace for a post run coffee

Had my Vivoactive 3 since end of October and I’m really happy with it, it’s barely left my wrist since it arrived.

For swimming it measures lengths, gives calcs for strokes per length/per minute, stuff like that, but isn’t set up for open water swimming.

GPS works well for walking, cycling (& I guess running but not tried that) plus it has loads of downloadable apps available as well.

The only thing I’ve found a bit iffy sometimes is the level counts going up stairs – usually works well but occasionally misses a flight.

Battery life is really good, without using GPS I’ve got 8 days between charges and it normally takes less than an hour to get back up to full power.

Controls are simple and the ‘find my phone’ feature has been a lifesaver on more than one occasion.

It also takes a standard 20mm watch strap which a lot of smart watches don’t, so if there are any issues with it you can swap it out easily.

I’m torn between this and Apple Watch. Are there any big differences?

Looks for a start. I think there Apple watch is hideous, but that’s a taste thing really.

I know very little about the current Apple watch but from what I’ve heard about earlier models I’d think battery life may be better with the Garmin and possibly built in GPS.

I think they’re aimed at different markets though.

So the contactless payment works Bigrich? The reviews I’ve read said it’s not available in the UK, they may be out of date

I’m torn between this and Apple Watch. Are there any big differences?

Apple Watch is smarter. I quite fancy one other than the styling.

I’ll keep my garmin 235 until they make the Apple Watch look like a decent watch.

I like mine – didn’t think the contactless payments were working in the U.K. yet though. I use it for cycling, running and gym mainly. Tend to charge it every 3 days or so (usually a minimum of 50 minutes gps use per day plus some inside stuff).

I like mine.
I’ve had the original Vivoavtive then the Vivoavtive HR. The new 3 is streets ahead of the other two models.

Mrs JAG got one at the end of November 2017.

She’s very happy with it. She uses the GPS most days and still gets 4-5 days between charges. Sinc’s well via the Garmin Connect App’ on her iPad too. Heart Rate monitor works well. She’s discovered that she has a resting HR between 45-55 so she’s decided she must be very fit already 😆

Seems like a nice device 8)

My Wife has the Vivoactive HR – first one died after a couple of months, but the replacement has been trouble free (bought from Halfords so no problem exchanging).

I see the new one does swimming also – not many smart watches do, hence my wife wanting one for swimming

All 3 of the Vivoactives do pool swimming.

Just got one of these £184 from halfirds or Amazon.

Seems great.

Tried HRM for ant+ bike and generally pretty good if tight.

Garmin pay all set uo too.

As stated by others the vivoactive 3 is really good.

Looks good and I get a week of general wear or 11 hours of hillwalking with GPS.

Garmin Pay is available in the UK but not from all banks. I use Santander and it works.

Highly recommended.

Looking at upgrading from the original Vivoactive too. The 3 with ability to also play music seems great. I’ll just need to wait until there’s a deal on them.

The VA3 is excellent. Let’s be honest – who actually installs apps on their watch for anything more than the novelty.

From the Apple Watch to FitBit people use them for activity / health monitoring and notifications to see if it’s worth fishing the phone out of the pocket.

Best thing about the Garmin range over Apple is battery life. You’ll get a week out of a VR3 and a couple of days out of an Apple Watch.

The sports tracking is miles better on the VR3 also and as others have said it actually looks like a watch.

I’m not quite sold on you’ll get a week out of it, assuming you’re using it.

Mine is more like 3-4 days.

The software is great and really interesting.

I’d echo pretty much everything Pinkster said. Mine’s been excellent so far (3 months). I wear mine pretty much all the time and use the GPS for running and cycling. I’ve even used it in the gym for the treadmill and weights, which actually works OK. It’s doesn’t recognise all of the weight exercises but you can manually input those it misses.

For the money, I don’t think there is better out there. If you spend a fair chunk more you can get the Samsung S3 Frontier, which is “smarter”, but I didn’t see the point and I’m happy with the choice I made.

I get almost a week out the battery if I don’t use the GPS, but it’s rare that I go through weeks without using it. The GPS does cane the battery life, but it’ll easily do a 4 hour ride and still last a couple of days.

It’ll do about nine hours transmitting heart rate to a separate device.