Garmin Debuts Vívoactive GPS Watches

As part of their activewear fitness wearables section, Garmin introduced the new vívoactive GPS smartwatch at CES. This sleek, slightly girly device is designed with built-in activity tracking apps and the ability to customize with additional apps, watch faces, widgets and more via Connect IQ, Garmin’s first-ever open app market.

“Designed to be worn all day, vívoactive can be personalized in many ways—from interchangeable bands to watch faces, apps and widgets—making it versatile, stylish and functional for your life,” said Dan Bartel, Garmin vice-president of worldwide sales in a press release.

The vívoactive has a number of features and apps designed for specific common sports activities including running, cycling, swimming and golfing. Here’s a breakdown of what it offers as far as fitness and sports tracking:

• Running app – displays pace, time, distance (uses accelerometer when indoors), Auto Lap, Auto Pause, vibrations alerts for heart rate
• Cycling app – measures time, distance, speed and calories burned
• Golfing app – ability to download course maps from more than 38,000 courses worldwide, measure layup and dogleg distances as well as distances to front, middle and back of green; keeps individual stroke play scorecards and measures shot distance.
• Swimming app – Watch is water resistant up to 50 meters (164 feet) and computes length, total and interval distances, paces by length/interval, calories burned, number of strokes and SWOLF score (to measure swimming efficiency)
• General fitness activity tracking – monitors steps taken, calories and distance; sets up a personal step goal; move reminder during periods of inactivity, monitors sleep.
• MyFitnessPal integration for seamless tracking of fitness goals across platforms.

The watch can also sync with your phone and will display the same kind and degree of notifications as you can receive in your notifications bar of your smartphone including missed calls, caller ID information, sender information and message for texts, incoming calls, email messages with sender and subject, calendar reminders and notifications from social media and apps to name a few. The watch can also be used to remotely change music tracks and is compatible with a range of sensors to improve usability in tracking and sports.

The vívoactive is available in black or white, with additional options for different colored bands available for the style-conscious. The watch is expected to begin shipping soon and will retail for $299 with a heart rate monitor and $249 without. Read more about the vívoactive watch or buy your own here.