One of the biggest pain point with fitness tracker is how each has their own proprietary charger. That’s a serious inconvenience—if you forget the Lightning connector or USB-C charger, you can always borrow one from a friend or find one at the store. But a proprietary Fitbit connector? So sorry! Guess you won’t be counting your steps on that walking vacation in Italy!
So, with an almost mystical sense of reverence, I removed the Vivomove Trend from my wrist and placed it on the Qi charging dock next to my desk. I gasped and bent down and checked the screen. Charge! Granted, it’s not super fast, but it works! Never again will I be stuck on a business trip with a watch that won’t charge!
Garmin’s latest entry-level hybrid watch is still a bit clunky to operate, but I really like the attractive, streamlined look and that new charging system. Wireless charging on any Qi charging pad is almost magic. That in itself did a lot to get it to the top.
The best of both worlds
Photo: Garmin
If you want to keep an eye on your health without wearing an overly large sports watch, you have a few options. withdraw money create a tracking device that resembles an analog clock as much as possible; Fossil wellness watch Pack as much data as possible into an analog watch face.
Vivomove Trend brings you the best of both worlds. It comes in a variety of colors (my tester was a nice peachy yellow, if a bit dated, with an ivory strap). It has a lovely 40.4 mm case and an analog watch face. However, when you click on your device in the Garmin Connect app, you can choose up to three complications that will show up when you turn the watch towards your face.
This allows for more customization than you might think, because some complications can come together—I chose the Techie face, with the date at the top and the ladder, battery, and floor at the bottom.
To start an activity, check your heart rate, go into settings, or set a stopwatch or timer, simply touch the watch face with your fingertip. With a tactile buzz, options pop up as glowing icons. If you click through the timer but then realize you want to start an activity, you swipe back. As a side note, I wish more trackers would only include a small toggle. (Even analog watches have at least one button!)
buzz also notifies you when you receive a notification or start an activity (you can change the strength of the buzz but I didn’t notice a big difference). You can start an activity manually or enable automatic activity tracking with Garmin’s Move IQ.
Move IQ is amazingly accurate—it only takes 3 minutes to get from your garage to your doctor’s appointment—but if you start an activity manually, you have to double-tap to start it. after you have selected the activity. Since it connects to your phone’s GPS, my tracked results from walking, biking, and running are consistent with results from other trackers—unless I forget to start the activity that way. manually, this has happened so many times.
