Garmin Vivoactive 4 – Review 2020
If you’re looking for a fitness tracker that really balances form and function, the $349.99 Garmin Vivoactive 4 should be at the top of your list. This feature-rich GPS fitness tracker/smartwatch hybrid boasts a stylish design, more than 20 preloaded sports apps, onboard music storage, and support for Bluetooth headphones. It builds on its excellent predecessors with the addition of on-screen workout animations, Pilates support and enhanced yoga metrics, pulse oximeter readings, respiration tracking, and underwater heart rate monitoring. It’s expensive, but it offers tremendous value for the price, earning our Editors’ Choice for high-end fitness trackers.
Vivoactive 4 vs. Vivoactive 4S
The Vivoactive 4 comes in two sizes. The 40mm model, somewhat confusingly named the Vivoactive 4S, is for wrists measuring 4.3 to 6.8 inches in circumference and comes in gold/pink, rose gold/white, silver/gray, or slate/black color options. The 45mm model, the Vivoactive 4, is for wrists 5.3 to 7.8 inches and comes in silver/gray or slate/black.
Garmin sent me the rose gold/white 4S for this review, but I’ll refer to it as the Vivoactive 4, since the models are mostly identical aside from battery life, size, and weight. The 4 has a 1.3-inch screen and weighs 1.7 ounces, while the 4S has a 1.1-inch display and weighs 1.4 ounces.
In terms of battery life, Garmin says the Vivoactive 4 lasts up to 8 days in smartwatch mode, 6 hours in GPS mode, or 18 hours in GPS mode without music. The 4S has an estimated battery life of up to 7 days in smartwatch mode, 5 hours in GPS mode, or 15 hours in GPS mode without music.
In testing, the battery went down just 23 percent in 24 hours. During that time, I tracked a short run with GPS enabled and a 55-minute yoga session. After nearly three days of regular use, including another GPS-tracked run, the battery had less than 20 percent remaining.
Design and Specs
The Vivoactive 4 features a color touch screen with a durable Corning Gorilla Glass 3 lens, a comfortable textured silicone strap, a fiber-reinforced polymer case and polymer rear cover, and a stainless steel bezel. It’s rated 5ATM for water resistance, meaning it can withstand pressure equivalent to a depth of 164 feet. It has an always-on display, and you can tap the screen to trigger the backlight. The interface has a sleek and simple look, with a dark background, mostly white text, and color icons.
As for aesthetics, it has a classic round watch design I like. It’s compatible with standard quick-release bands, so you can swap out the silicone strap for something fancier if you prefer. It looks a lot like the Vivoactive 3 and Vivoactive 3 Music, but with two buttons on the right side instead of one. The secondary button (the one on the bottom) lets you easily mark a new lap, set, or pose during an activity. When you’re not tracking an activity, you can press it to return to the previous screen, or hold it down to view a menu of settings and options for the screen you’re on.
In terms of sensors, the Vivoactive 4 features an accelerometer, a barometric altimeter, a compass, GPS with GLONASS and Galileo satellite systems, a gyroscope, a heart rate monitor, and a pulse oximeter that gauges oxygen saturation in the blood. It tracks your calories burned, distance traveled, floors climbed, intensity minutes, sleep, steps, stress level, and more. In the Garmin Connect app (available for Android and iOS), you can even enable Abnormal Heart Rate Alerts, so it will notify you if your heart rate is unusually high or low.
Setup and Navigation
To set up the Vivoactive 4, you first need to download the Garmin Connect app and create an account if you don’t already have one. After downloading the app and turning on your Vivoactive 4, you enter a code on the watch’s screen to connect it with the app via Bluetooth.
From there, you can opt to enable notifications and give the watch location and calendar access. When I first enabled notifications, a bunch of old ones came through at once, so I had to clear each one, which was kind of annoying.
You then enter your gender, height, weight, and birth date. Based on your answers, Garmin sets goals for floors climbed, intensity minutes, and steps. If your goals are too hard or too easy, you can edit them in the app’s User Settings menu.
The app then takes you through a quick tutorial on how to navigate the watch. You can swipe up or down to view widgets like a Hydration tracker that lets you easily log each cup of water you drink throughout the day. From the watch face, you can swipe right to set a specific control as a shortcut, a new feature on the Vivoactive 4. Garmin says it built this feature for users who asked for faster access to Garmin Pay and Music controls.
The Weather widget displays the current temperature and forecast
To start a timed activity, just press the top button, use the touch screen to scroll through the list of options, choose what kind of workout you plan to do, then press the top button again to get going. When you’re done working out, press the top button to end your workout. For access to the controls menu, press and hold the top button.
When setting up the watch, you can select your favorite workouts from a list in the app or on the watch itself. I like that Garmin offers a specific category for SUP, or stand up paddleboarding, because as a Floridian, that’s one of my favorite things to do. I also added bike, breathwork, cardio, Pilates, run, strength, walk, and yoga. Other options include bike indoor, cross-country ski, elliptical, golf, indoor track, pool swim, row, row indoor, ski, snowboard, stair stepper, treadmill, and walk indoor. Unlike its predecessor, the Vivoactive 4 even optically tracks your heart rate while swimming.
A look at the Connect IQ app
Garmin has a separate app called Connect IQ, which is basically an app store for the Vivoactive 4. There, you can download apps like Find my Car and Maps, data fields like estimated body temperature, watch faces, and widgets. While I like having these options, it’s a bit frustrating that they’re housed in a separate smartphone app.
A new Health Stats widget displays your heart rate, stress level, Body Battery, respiration, and Pulse Ox.
I really like the stress level stats. Garmin uses a metric called heart rate variability, or the time between each heartbeat, to estimate when you are under stress and at rest, and gives you a score from zero to 100. A stress score between 0 and 25 indicates you’re at rest, 26 to 50 is considered low, 51 to 75 is medium, and 76 to 100 is high. In the Garmin Connect app, you can see how much time you spent in each range, and whether you had enough restful moments to balance out your stress.
I also really like the Relax Reminders. If the Vivoactive 4 senses your stress level is high, it will suggest a relaxing breathing exercise. On a particularly busy morning, it popped up a message on the screen saying, “Stress seems to be high at the moment. Take a moment to breathe?” You can press Later, No Thanks, or Yes. I decided to go ahead and do it.
It has you inhale for three counts, then hold your breath for three counts, exhale for three counts, then hold your breath for three counts. Yoga practitioners sometimes call this a box breath. I did the exercise for five minutes and it said my stress level decreased from 75 to 36.
The Body Battery stat, which also ranges from zero to 100, indicates how much energy you have left, based on your activity, heart rate variability, stress, and sleep quality. A score of 76 to 100 is high, 51 to 75 is medium, 26 to 50 is low, and zero to 25 is very low.
The respiration stat shows your current breaths per minute, and you can click the widget to see a seven-day average. In the Garmin Connect app, you can also see graphs of your respiration rate throughout the day, week, and month.
The pulse oximeter metric, or SpO2 level, gauges the oxygen saturation in your blood. Garmin determines this by shining a light into your skin and checking how much is absorbed. You can take one-off readings at any time from the Pulse Ox widget. The Vivoactive 4 also lets you enable all-day SpO2 tracking, or continuous measurements while you sleep, though Garmin warns that both of these settings reduce battery life. To enable them, head to the watch’s settings menu, select Wrist Heart Rate, then Pulse Ox.
Workout Animations and Custom Workouts
The Vivoactive 4 offers preinstalled cardio, Pilates, strength, and yoga workouts with form animations you can view right on the watch. To access one, press the top button, select one of the four aforementioned activities, swipe up, select Workouts, pick the one you want to do, and press Do Workout. Once you begin, the Vivoactive 4 shows the name of each move and an animation you can follow. For each category, there are three preinstalled workouts. For yoga, for instance, the workouts include Improve Flexibility Now, Sun Salutations, and Wake Up, Energize!
The Vivoactive 4 also offers enhanced yoga features and support for Pilates workouts. When you start tracking a yoga session, you’ll see a timer and your heart rate on the screen, along with two new data fields: stress and respiration rate. When tracking Pilates, the Vivoactive 4 shows a timer, your calories burned, and your heart rate on the screen.
You can also now build your own Pilates and yoga workouts in the Garmin Connect app. To do that, just go to the More section, and tap Training > Workouts > Create a Workout. As a yoga teacher, it’s fun to browse the long list of poses for ideas. Besides Pilates and yoga, you can create custom workouts for biking, cardio, pool swimming, running, and strength.
Once you create a workout, it will sync to your watch and appear in the list of preinstalled options. The only downside is that custom-built workouts don’t include form animations.
Training Plans
Another of my favorite features on the Vivoactive 4 is the ability to get personalized training plans on your device. The Connect app offers training plans for a 5K, 10K, or half marathon.
Because I’m an average runner at best, I opted to set up a training plan for a 5K. When you sign up for a plan, you have to answer a few questions, including how much you run on average each week, your average running pace, and whether you’d like to run/walk, run, or run with a time goal. It then gives you a pick of three coaches, asks you how many days per week you want to train, and which days of the week you prefer to do a long run.
Here’s the coolest part: You can enter your zip code to search for actual race events, or create your own personal 5K race. When I did this, a bunch of fun options popped up, like the Ice Cream 5K Tampa 2020 and the Tampa Beer Run 2020. Assuming those events are going to be canceled this year due to COVID-19, I opted to create my own personal 5K race, and the app suggested a date ten weeks away.
Based on the information you provide, the app creates a plan for you and syncs workouts to your device. After signing up for a training plan, the watch buzzed and told me I earned a Planning Ahead Badge.
It scheduled my first workout—a Benchmark Run—for the following day, and added it to my calendar in the app and on the watch. The next morning, the workout was easily accessible on the watch: I just pressed the top button to start tracking, selected Run, and the watch asked if I wanted to do the Benchmark Run. The workout consisted of a two-minute warm-up, a five-minute run, and two-minute cooldown. After tracking a run, you can see your stats on the watch and in the app, including your average heart rate, distance, cadence, pace, steps, and time, along with a map of your route.
The day after my Benchmark Run was a rest day, which I gladly took. The day after that, the watch had me do a Walk/Run Repeats workout. This consisted of a two-minute warm-up followed by three sets of alternating running for five minutes and walking for five minutes, then a two-minute cooldown. The watch told me exactly when to run, when to walk, and I could see a countdown of how much time I had left in each block.
I really enjoy the Vivoactive 4’s training plans. They help make challenging goals accessible, and might even motivate me to try a longer run in the future.
Music Controls
Like the Vivoactive 3 Music, the Vivoactive 4 offers onboard music storage for up to 500 songs. You can download music from your computer or third-party services including Amazon Music, Deezer, Runcasts, and Spotify. Pair that with support for Bluetooth headphones and integrated GPS, and you can workout anywhere without needing your phone nearby.
Setting up Spotify on the Vivoactive 4 wasn’t all that intuitive in testing, but I eventually figured it by following the instructions in the online user manual. To save you the trouble, I’ll list the steps here. It’s a two-part process that involves first connecting your Spotify account via the Garmin Connect app, then using the watch itself to download the music you want.
First, you open the Connect app and select your device, tap Music, then select Spotify and follow the on-screen instructions to connect your account. If you want to connect to a different music service that’s not already installed, you can tap Get Music Apps to download it from the Connect IQ store.
Next, you need to connect your watch to Wi-Fi if you haven’t already done so (select your device in the Garmin Connect app, tap General > Wi-Fi Networks > Add a network, and enter your login details). Then, you open the music controls widget on your watch, hold down the bottom button, select Music Providers, choose a connected provider, and select a playlist you want to download.
Garmin Pay
Setting up Garmin Pay is relatively simple. First, you create a four-digit code you’ll enter every time you pay with your watch. You then need to enter your card information, accept the terms and conditions, then verify your account by entering a code sent to you via text or email.
When you’re at the register and want to pay using your watch, you simply hold the top button, press the card icon, enter your four-digit passcode, and your payment card appears. Within one minute of pulling up your card, hold your watch near the payment reader. When the payment goes through, the watch will vibrate and you’ll see a check mark on the screen.
I tested Garmin Pay at my local supermarket, Publix, and it worked fine, though I did have to pass my watch over the payment card reader several times. Being able to pay right from your wrist is convenient, especially in light of COVID-19, as it prevents you from having to punch in your code on a possibly germ-ridden payment card terminal.
Too Many Badges
The Vivoactive 4 gamifies fitness by giving you badges for certain achievements. When you earn a new badge, the watch will vibrate and a congratulatory message will pop up on the screen. To view all your badges, visit the Garmin Connect app, tap My Day at the bottom, then tap your photo or avatar at the top of the screen to open your profile.
This is a small complaint, but I feel like it’s a bit too easy to earn badges. After less than three full days wearing the Vivoactive 4, I earned 12 badges, including Getting Started, Double Duty, Heating Up, Well Rested, Personal World Record, Let’s Get Physical, Weigh In, and Photogenic. You can decide for yourself how you feel about the badges, but to me, getting this many so easily devalues them.
Comparisons and Conclusions
The Garmin Vivoactive 4 is a terrific fitness tracker/smartwatch hybird, but at $349.99, it’s far from cheap. If you’re looking for a more affordable alternative, the Fitbit Charge 4 gives you many of the Vivoactive 4’s features, including integrated GPS, sleep tracking, and mobile payments for $200 less. Plus the Fitbit app lets you easily log your food intake, a feature you don’t get with Garmin Connect. But you’ll have to accept a few sacrifices: The Charge 4 isn’t as stylish as the Vivoactive 4, it doesn’t have a color screen, it offers only basic Spotify controls, and it doesn’t support Bluetooth headphones, so you pretty much always need your phone nearby.
The Vivoactive 4, meanwhile, can essentially operate on its own, similar to the Apple Watch Series 5, which starts at $399. The Apple Watch has a wider selection of third-party apps, but it doesn’t track your sleep out of the box, and it has much shorter battery life. The Vivoactive 4 tracks your sleep and lasts days before needing a recharge, making it a stronger choice for overall health and fitness capabilities. Both are excellent options depending on which features you prioritize.
So while the Vivoactive 4 is pricey, it’s also one of the most comprehensive fitness trackers you can buy. If you’re looking to leave your phone at home while measuring advanced metrics for just about any workout, the Vivoactive 4 is worth the price, and our Editors’ Choice for high-end fitness trackers.
Garmin Vivoactive 4 Specs
Form Factor | Watch |
Display Type | Color Touch Screen |
Compatibility | Android, iOS |
Heart Rate Monitor | Yes |
Sleep Tracker | Yes |
Battery Life | 8 days; 6 hours with GPS |