Fitbit Charge 2 vs Garmin Vivosmart 3
With my new post-retirement life, I find myself going to the gym several days a week. Unfortunately, just going there doesn’t make you buff. There have been a few classes where I’ve felt unwell, or simply unable to keep up. To see what was going on, I needed a heart rate monitor. Unable to decide between the better looking Fitbit Charge 2, and the drab but waterproof Garmin Vivosmart 3, I decided to be a consummate consumer and buy both with intent to return at least one. Here’s Day 1 of competitive analysis.
Packaging- Fitbit’s is flashy, and Garmin’s is understated. The Garmin was much easier to unpack, while Fitbit had to be cut around the hanging loop.
Inside the box, the Garmin just had the wearable & its charger. Fitbit had another nested container, much like the high end phones of the day.
You can see right away that the Garmin Vivosmart 3 (in front) is thinner than the Fitbit Charge 2. It is lighter too. Per my kitchen scale, the Garmin is 20g while the Fitbit it 33g. That’s quite a whopping difference. In fact, I can barely feel the Garmin on my wrist. Garmin’s wristband has a nicer feel to it, though their rendition of “Plum” color leaves something to be desired.
Speaking of wrists, mine are pretty small. Both of these trackers look a little overwhelming on me. If not for how common huge smartwatches are, I would shy away from wearing anything so large. You can also tell right away that the display quality of the Fitbit is way superior to that of the Garmin. I accept that waterproof devices come with baggage, but this seems a bit too much. The Garmin looks like it has already been for a swim & fogged over.
On the software side, both apps installed easily. I haven’t used either, but I got a TON of annoying notifications from the Garmin app asking for various permissions one at a time. Really? The answer is still no, for whatever you want access to. Fitbit’s app only asked for location access, and only once. It appears neither app will work on the Android platform with location disabled. I’m not quite sure why, since neither tracker has a built in GPS.
Lastly, I did a heart rate check on each device, and both were within a small margin of error. I did notice though that the Garmin takes a while (close to half a minute) to ramp up if you go from moving to not moving, or not moving to moving. I got some odd 100bpm readings when my heart rate was close to 70, but it eventually settled at the right number.
Based on preliminary analysis, I’m coming out in favor of the Fitbit. I will be wearing them both on a walk tomorrow, and hopefully trying the Garmin out on a swim over the weekend. I’ll report back on how they do with tracking heart rate, sleep, steps, etc. I’ll be using my phone as the control device, so don’t be expecting anything measured with the accuracy of vernier calipers 😛