Orange Rabbit Runner: Garmin vìvofit 2 Review

I began using the Garmin vìvofit 2 on Monday, October 5, 2015.

Monday, 10/12/2015 - the device missed the sleep status again

Sunday, 10/11/2015 - missed the sleep stats 23:19 - 07:23

Saturday, 10/10/2015 - it missed the sleep stats 21:47 - 07:53

Garmin vìvofit 2 Review

Positives

1. The back-light works nicely and it easy to read and is used each morning and night.

2. The new soft beeping to remind me to move is nice.

3. The lazy red bar is a great motivator to stand-up and move around the office.

4. The display is crisp and easy to read even in direct sunlight.

5. The new stopwatch mode is very handy and is great for tracking workouts and activities.
6. There is a beeping notification and the screen animates a bid when your daily step goal is reach, very cool!
7. New iOS app released on October 21, 2015 was wonderful - the interface is smoother and easier to navigate. The method of data presentation (reporting) is much more organized and more useful.
8. Leaderboard - most fitness trackers only have one leaderboard and it is about steps. Garmin thought this through and they have four leaderboards (steps, running, cycling, and swimming).

New Garmin iOS app leaderboard view

Calendar view in the new app - a view of my activities back when I was using the Garmin vìvofit back in 2014.

Negatives

1. The hardware button can be difficult to push.

2. The back-light should be connected with a light sensor and turn on automatically when used at night or low-light environments. After spending $99.00 on a fitness tracker this feature should be included.

3. There is no auto-synchronization feature even when using the Bluetooth Ant USB dongle on a Mac or Windows PC. It would be really nice if a customer could configure the device to auto-sync every four hours...

4. There is no vibration alert.

5. There is no alarm and for the price, yeah, there needs to be an alarm with a text label (something many fitness tracker programmers fail to include).

6. There is no configuration to switch the direction of the tracker to left or right depending on where you want the button to be placed.

7. Similar to the Fitbit Surge, the vìvofit 2 auto-detects your sleep and doesn't require the user to enter a sleep mode prior to sleep. Fitbit uses algorithms, your movement, previous patterns, and perhaps heart rate to determine sleep and naps. The programmers at Garmin decided differently... When you setup your vìvofit profile you have the opportunity to enter in your sleeping window. Over the past two weeks when I am way outside the window the lines of code clash and when I sync the following morning, nothing! No sleep stats. I waited another three hours and did a sync in the afternoon thinking, "okay, maybe there was an error and the data did not transfer, nope, not the case. The fix is the manually enter in the start and finish time if you recall them. This year has occurred 7 out of 10 nights.

Thursday, October 15, 2015
16:50 - tried to sync via the long-press feature on the vìvofit and... error. Waited a minute, checked my iPhone and the Bluetooth was connected. Tried a second time, nope, closed the app, and tried a third time - synchronization success! Over the past ten days of use this is the first sync error I have had. During my first trial of the first gen vìvofit the sync errors was one of the primary reasons I returned the device.

Friday, October 23, 2015
There was an Apple iOS Garmin Connect app update, and wow, was it ever an update! Their website still has a the old look and feel. I discovered a new feature, okay, I was reminded of a cool feature I forgot about. When you're logged into https://connect.garmin.com you can go to Steps and then click on breakdown:

This is the full breakdown of 10/22 after reaching all my goals. Perhaps, I stayed up too late for it was nearly 22:30 when I looked down at the vìvofit screen and it read 2,500 more steps to reach my goal- yes, neighborhood watch, Peter was on duty last night patrolling the sidewalks!