Garmin vivomove 3S, Smaller sized, Hybrid Connected GPS Smartwatch with Real Watch Hands and Hidden Touchscreen Display, Rose Gold with Light Sand Silicone Band

Product Information

Even during some intense five-day periods, where we reached tens of thousands of steps, and logged a couple of runs via our phone's GPS and a few gym exercises, the Vivomove was still standing. Now, we won't get bogged down in the different variations of the Vivomove 3 - as we mentioned up top, they largely do the same thing. However, we will say this particular model, the 42mm Vivomove 3 Style, was very light to wear on the wrist - just 35g. Our only real criticism is the responsiveness of the raise-to-wake. During exercise, this works perfectly, but it very rarely responds to wrist movements outside of that. On one hand, this is good, because it means the watch can conceal itself as a regular watch unless you double tap, but we do wish you could adjust the sensitivity in the app (like you can with screen brightness) rather than rely on it to respond when turned on. Garmin Vivomove 3: Activity and sleep Either way, once the battery is run down, you do get a further week from the Watch Mode. However, a little annoyingly, at least from what we can tell, you can't switch between the two.

The hybrid smartwatch isn't what it used to be. What was once a smartwatch masquerading as an analogue timepiece has now been replaced by a new crop of hybrids that sprinkle the smarts around mechanical hands - and the Garmin Vivomove 3 is up there with the best at doing this we've tested. Since originally writing this review, Garmin has got in touch to say it’s working on improving the tap sensitivity, so hopefully this will become a non-issue in the not-so-distant future. Functionally speaking, we’ve seen this approach falter on other smartwatches. But here it works beautifully, with no lag or glitching. And this means you can enjoy the benefits of a good-looking traditional watch for occasions you dress up for, and a smartwatch for your runs and gym visits, in one device. What features does the Garmin Vivomove 3 offer?As we mentioned earlier, the Garmin Vivomove 3 shouldn’t be considered to be a fully fledged sports watch. However, for pursuing casual exercise, health and wellness goals, it provides all the features you’re likely to need. The nylon-style band isn't the comfiest, but it's still comfier and cheaper than the Luxe's steel clasp strap (though, admittedly, not as good-looking), and it has the bonus of being useable in exercise, sleep, and everyday wear. Anyway, read the full review for more on the above, or keep reading for the original Vivomove 3 review.

The Garmin Vivomove 3 is a hybrid watch, with both an analog dial and digital display (Image credit: Garmin) Design As for the added features, they’re harder to justify paying extra for. The additional screen makes things a lot clearer and easy to read, but it doesn’t add a great deal. There’s also an added chronograph and Garmin Pay – the latter of which may sound useful but, given the shortage of banks that support it in the UK, it’s really not all that. It also has many more activity profiles than the Vivomove 3, including a raft of options specifically for golfers (digital scorecard, hazards and course targets, Garmin Autoshot etc). For cyclists, there's compatibility with Varia rear-facing radar and lights, and support for speed and cadence sensors. The Vivoactive 4's display measures 33mm in diameter, and has a resolution of 260 x 260 pixels. The Vivomove 3's 8.90 x 18.30mm digital display has a resolution of 64 x 132 pixels. All in all, we aren't blown away by what Garmin has been able to achieve in the charging department, but it's certainly nothing to whine about.

Garmin's Body Battery metric is really useful for gauging when you might be overworked, while respiration, stress, and heart rate measurements are a good way of keeping an eye on longer trends. The Garmin Vivomove 3 also has Luxe and Style versions, if you want to go for something a little more luxe. As we say, these massively underreported awake and deep times were consistent over a space of roughly two weeks. However, this is more of a problem with Garmin's algorithms, rather than the Vivomove 3 itself.

In summary, the Garmin Vivomove 3 is by no means the most powerful or feature-rich smartwatch on the market, particularly when it comes to sports and activities. So if you’re serious about your training, and need accurate performance figures, you should look elsewhere. You'll find a good range of general smartwatch features here too, including a calendar, a weather app, ‘find my phone’ and ‘find my watch’ tools, and the ability to respond to, or reject, a call via text (Android only). There’s no onboard storage for music, but you do get the ability to control music from your phone. ConclusionWe'll get into the accuracy below, but, as this was the first time we encountered any software issues, we will say that we had a complete nightmare trying to start a run initially. Essentially, when we selected 'Run' as our exercise, the watch would freeze and show a muddled screen before resetting itself after around one minute. It did this countless times before we tried resetting the watch entirely. It didn't fix the issue when we did this twice from within Garmin Connect but did eventually solve itself when we reset the watch settings. Disaster.