Garmin vivomove Sport

The Garmin vivomove Sport is a stylish hybrid smartwatch that's a pleasure to wear and use in general... if not so much use for our particular sport. The minimalist design of the screen and lack of GPS functionality will leave you wanting more for all but the most casual riding.

Garmin offers a very wide range of smart watches, varying from full-scale GPS adventure watches to understated hybrids. This is the latter and looks like a classic analogue watch, whilst boasting the ability to measure key fitness metrics.

The Sport initially appears as if its not a smartwatch at all, with a clever hidden screen on the lower half of the face. A double-tap or wrist raise awakens the screen and the smart features. It has no buttons and a responsive touch screen.

It's currently available in four standard colours (black, cocoa, ivory or cool mint) with matching straps, or you can choose from a variety of straps (silicone, suede, leather, nylon or metal) in a ton of colours. Personally I really liked how this black one looks, and it fitted my small wrist really well.

The quoted battery life is five days, plus a further day running purely as a normal analogue watch, but I only managed to get four days before recharging at 12%.

Functionality

The vivomove Sport has the ability to track 'wellness data' including steps, sleep, stress and energy levels. It contains a wrist-based heart rate monitor (HRM) and a pulse oximeter, which gives data on blood oxygen levels.

It connects to your phone via Bluetooth, unlocking a wide range of metrics from within the Garmin Connect app, which for me is the standout benefit – the Connect app delivers brilliant insight into the data.

Sleep tracking proves accurate in particular, and is as insightful and clear as anything else I've seen. In my opinion, Garmin's Body Battery metric is market leading, and as good as paid subscription services such as Whoop. It proved well aligned with my own perception of fatigue and stress.

As you might expect, the Sport is also able to track exercise, but unfortunately it's not so good at this part. It lacks GPS for a start, so to record a ride you need to connect it to a phone. It also can track activities which don't require GPS, such as pool swimming, yoga or general workouts.

On the bike, the small screen makes navigating to start an activity a little tricky, and in-activity data is very limited. For example, you can choose to view heart rate, distance or speed on their own, but not in combination. There is also no ability to perform mid-activity splits, and you're not able to connect to external sensors such as a power meter.

Accuracy

Against my Garmin Edge 530 and a chest-strap HRM, the data collected in-ride compared well. The heart rate tracked consistently, and with no noticeable GPS differences between the Edge and my phone, Strava played back segment times within one second of each other. That is more a reflection of the phone's GPS rather than the watch itself, though.

Other tests of the activity tracking functionality were not so successful. Two separate indoor swimming sessions yielded wildly wrong results, and the calories burned from a few core stability sessions seemed significantly underestimated.

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When connected to a phone the watch can display notifications for emails, texts and app messages. Notifications arrive with a haptic wrist tap – a buzz to you and me – but it's only small, and the tiny screen only really then prompts you to look at your phone. Maybe the comparison to non-hybrid smartwatches is unfair, but the connected notifications offered very little benefit here.

Value

The Garmin vivosport Move retails at £159.99, which includes access to the Garmin Connect platform at no cost. This is significantly cheaper than the Whoop Superknit 4.0 band at £180 before you even add on the £30 monthly subscription. The Withings Steel HR hybrid watch is the most comparable option on the market and that's also a little more at £169.95 while offering similar features.

And while the vivomove Sport is significantly cheaper than something like the Wahoo Elemnt at £349.99, it just doesn't come close for activity tracking capabilities.

It would be impossible to review this without mentioning the Apple Watch. The basic Series 7 version retails at £369 and offers many of the same features, a multitude of other functions, and most importantly works as well for tracking cycling as wearing day to day. But then it costs more than twice the Garmin's price.

Overall

The Sport is very clearly aimed those who want to benefit from health tracking data, but maintain the classic look of an analogue watch. At £160, I think it's really good value for this purpose.

However, for activities such as cycling – sports, you might say – it just doesn't offer enough. The small screen means very limited data, and the lack of GPS means it relies on a phone. Really you'll want more if you're looking for a watch to track your riding.

Verdict

Good-looking hybrid smartwatch with great health tracking, but it's less successful tracking activities