SPDCA: Garmin Vivosmart Smartwatch

A few years ago, I had an impulse buy on a watch that looked to be sorta sporty. And by "sorta sporty," I mean it had the ability to take your pulse. Other than that, it was just an electronic wristwatch.

I liked it. It wasn't fancy. But it gave me someting to look at, and something to do with my hands when I didn't know what to do with my hands. It got me out of the habit of whipping out my phone ever so often to check the time, and having time on my wrist worked out really well for biking.

Then the battery on the thing ran out. And in replacing it, I destroyed its capability to take my pulse (though, I didn't really miss it that much).

Then the plastic band started to wear. And then it eventually broke. And now it just sits on the small shelf in my bathroom, reminding me that I have 10 minutes to dress, eat breakfast, and brush my teeth after my shower.

This last December, Someone was being bad about the control of sensitive information, and let leak their Christmas gift idea for their spouse. It was the Garmin Vivosmart, which I thought was intriguing. It wasn't the gaudy, wrist-calculator smartwatches I'd seen before, but instead a smart band that didn't have an interface except for when you interacted with it. About a month later, the giftee demoed their band at a party and I was still pretty interested as someone who is a fan of subtlety and obscure human-computer interfaces.

The band is black, and the display is an array of white LEDs that shine through the band's surface. You "double-tap" the band if you want it to wake up, lighting up the LEDs to display one of the display mades it has. By default, it will show you the time, but if you "swipe" the current screen left or right it will cycle through your current step count, how far you are in your step goals for the day, and if you have any notifications on your phone. Other than the step counter, most everything on the interface is read-only. You can start/stop/play music from your phone, but after accidentally trigger it at home, and almost doing it again at work, I turned that shit off right quick. It doesn't do the Johnny Quest microphone thing, but I don't feel bad about that. It sort of just makes you look like a tool.

I haven't quite figured out how the step counter feature is implemented. I've been walking outright with the step counter up and it hasn't been counting, and I've been running full speed on my treadmill and it's been counting by twos. It definitely knows that I'm at the computer, not doing anything, because it will vibrate and flash briefly at you if you need to move. I like this, and I don't like this. It makes me want to figure out a better way of getting up and moving around at work. However, if I'm in all-day workshops or whatever, most times I've been notified I have to just ignore it. I can even tell the difference in vibrations between the "Move!" notification and the other normal notifications. So I know when I'm being lazy without even looking at it.

Notifications from your phone work quite well. If you get a text, email, or really any notification that you can subscribe to using the Android notification system, the band will buzz and it will light up with a short summary of the notification. If you keep tapping on it, it will slowly scroll through the contents of the notification message.

The application on my phone is functional, and provides a pretty nice way to subscribe / unsubscribe from notifications (which I've made good use of). I haven't been making super great use of it for exercise, so I haven't gone back to look extensively at the exercise data it collects. I like that it does, and I get a weird pat-on-the-back feeling when it puts up a "GOAL ACHIEVED" in front of a fireworks display. Usually this happens when I don't expect it, and I laugh.

Battery life has so far been awesome. It's supposed to last for seven days, but I don't have any clear indication on whether it needs charged or not. It's been running without complaining for about four days, so we'll assume we can get this far.

The real test will come when I start biking. The "double tap to wake" thing may be a problem, given that I have to keep my hands on the handlebars. However, I'm slowly learning that I don't necessary have to double-tap with my other hand, as I can just tap on any hard surface to get the same effect. Also, about half the time I can flick my wrist twice and get it to trigger. Aaaand as I tried it again just now, it took me, like, 5 tries. Sometimes it's a little consistent. However, I have the feeling that it's because I wear it upside down. Not that it should really matter with an accelerometer, but here we are.

So far, I am enjoying my first foray into "smart wear." I hope I don't wear through this watch band like I did my last.