5 Reasons I love my Garmin Vivofit…& why we converted from Jawbone

I’ve had a couple people ask me here and there about what kind of watch I use while running – and if I wear a Fitbit. Yesterday I posted about my Garmin Forerunner 10 and why I love it. (you can read the post here)

But it seems like people are always asking me…is that a Fitbit? Which one?
Well…it’s not a Fitbit! It’s my Garmin VivoFit (nope..we don’t wear Fitbits) I’ll tell you today why I love it so much!

First I have to back up a bit….Last year for Father’s Day I was trying to find something to get my husband. Husbands are so hard to buy for sometimes! Then I saw an awesome one day deal for a Jawbone Up fitness tracker and I thought he would love to try something like that out. He was (still is) having a hard time sleeping and I thought a fitness tracker would allow him to see his sleep cycles and maybe help him figure out some ways he could sleep better or wake up feeling better in the morning. Neither of us had a fitness tracker before this – a fitbit, or anything like that. So this was a new adventure and I wasn’t sure he would like wearing it or tracking anything. But he ended up really liking it!
(Although it really didn’t do much for helping him figure out out to get better sleep – expect it proved that he is getting way more sleep than me – and not just light sleep, but he is sleeping like a rock, it’s a lot of deep sleep…if only he could feel like it when he woke up though!)

Back to the Jawbone. He really liked his Jawbone. He could upload the information to his ipad. He could easily switch to sleep mode, he could keep track of his steps. But there were some things that he didn’t like too. He is a minimalist. And he said if he was going to wear something on his wrist, it might as well have a watch too. The Jawbone did not. Also the battery life. He would often wear it for a week or so at a time, and then find out it had died sometime a day or two back. He would try and remember to charge it..but then you had the question of when to charge it? While you are sitting…of course not while you are busy and walking around and not counting all those steps! 😉 It is water resistant - but not water proof. We learned that the hard way, after getting our new bands we loaned this one out to his brother, who wore it to a 4th of July water party and we have never got it to work since. 🙁 We can’t say for sure, but that’s what happened, but we do know the Jawbone was not made for 4th of July water parties.

I really started to love the idea of a fitness tracker after watching him with his Jawbone for a couple months. But I really wanted one with a watch. I really didn’t want to have to learn another app or program either. I wanted it to all work together with Garmin. So when Amazon had their big sale this last summer, I combined some deals with some gift cards and got us both Garmin VivoFit watches. And we REALLY love them.

1. I love the display. I love that I can see the watch. With one button I can see the date, how many steps I’ve done, how many towards my goal, how many miles it converts to, and calories burned for the day. When I sit too long there is a red line that appears on the watch – that will only go away if I get up and MOVE!

2. It can sync to your phone or your computer. So easy – just one button and a few seconds. I really think it’s so fascinating to see the reports I can pull up – when did I take the most steps during the day, when did I sit. How well did I sleep. I’ve always known I was a pretty light sleeper..but now I have the app to prove it! I never get much more than 2.5 hours of deep sleep each night. Then we went to Moab over a weekend, we hiked and played hard, and the night we came home – I slept like a ROCK. Over 6 hours of deep sleep! I hardly moved at all and felt so good the next day! I love that my husband and I can challenge each other with the steps we take. The Vivofit will adjust your step goal to your age/height/weight/activity level or you can manually set it to a certain number. My husband has his adjust to his activity levels. I did that for a few months and then changed it.

I hit 30,000 steps in one day a couple weeks ago. I was pretty dang proud of that. It was a day I did a long run…and then kept going all day long too!

3. I LOVE how waterproof this watch is. Like seriously waterproof. When we went to San Diego this summer my husband wore it in the ocean and he never had a problem once. (Although I was SO worried it would come off!). Not only did he not lose it (phew!) but it kept working too. He surfed and played and the Vivofit never skipped a beat! I never have to take it off – even to shower. I love this because we don’t have to ever think about it. Or we don’t take it off places and lose it! My husband did that often with his Jawbone.

4. The battery life. We have had these watches for a couple months now – and guess what…we have NEVER had to charge them. The battery life is supposed to be around 12 months. I LOVE that we don’t have to worry about charging them every few days.

5. I love that my Garmin watch and my Garmin Vivofit all hook together and I can log into Garmin Connect to see all the information all in one place. I really love the ease of having these apps go together.

Bonus:
I love the little band that holds the band on. My husband was always losing his Jawbone because it could easily slide off his arm when he was carrying items (like kids!) I also love that there are so many cute bands you can get to change in and out…super cute ones I’ve spied at Target lately. Just saying.

I really had a hard time narrowing it down to 5…really six reasons that we love our Garmin Vivofit. I can’t say enough good things about it. I never thought I would like wearing one as much as I do, but I love it.

Do you wear a fitness tracker?
Which one?
Do you like it, why or why not?

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By myreadingspot.com

3 Comments

Birthday Month: Some of my Favorite Running Gear! (& Giveaway!) – My Reading Spot
March 17, 2016
[…] my Garmin VivoFit and my Garmin Forerunner 10. You can read some of my earlier posts about them here and here. I did a little experiment a few weeks ago and wore a fitbit for a day too. I was so […]
Amanda Baker
August 1, 2016
Ok I totally love my garmin vivofit for all the above reasons. But I have been noticing that it is tracking my arm movement not my steps. Do you know a way to correct this? I have changed the batteries. I have adjusted my stride to be more accurate. I just don’t know what else to do.

myreadingspot.com
August 3, 2016
I have noticed it too, and I’m not sure there is a way to correct it. 🙁 I do think if you are getting 9,900 steps then you shouldn’t give yourself a hard time for not hitting 10,000…it’s just an approximate and you should be proud of your steps! I just recently upgraded to the VivoActive and love it.

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