Reviewed in the United States on January 17, 2020
I am evaluating adding a new health metric to those I track regularly. Years ago, my health metrics tracking began in 2013 with manual sleep tracking, then added foods/nutrients/calories via MyFitnessPal in 2016, a Wi-Fi scale in 2018, regular blood pressure monitoring in 2019, and now I’m looking to add heart rate and activity data starting in 2020. Finding a solution that makes the sensor information I’m obtaining useable and effortless is a top priority.
Please note, this lengthy review comparison is based on my specific needs for a device. There are tons of additional features in these devices which I will not be covering because they are not important for my use case.
Over the last few days, I have thoroughly researched and/or tested the following potential candidates:
Fitbit Charge 3
Fitbit Versa 2
Garmin Vivoactive 4
Garmin Instinct
Garmin Vivomove Style/Luxe (researched, not yet tested)
The decision has been so close, I developed a decision matrix grid, where I evaluated and scored each device based on 9 criteria that are important to me:
Quality of Data Presentation in App
Quality of Data Presentation on Device
Accuracy of Sensor Data (Heart Rate, Steps)
Sleep Tracking
Calories Burned Tracking
Other Calculated Metrics
Battery Life
User Interface
Style
Each section I assigned a score of up to 10 points, except Accuracy of Sensor Data, which receives up to 20 points (10 for heart rate, 10 for Steps).
Quality of Data Presentation in App:
Fitbit - 7/10
Garmin - 4/10
Fitbit receives high marks for making large amounts of data over multiple days easy to understand, featuring week-long charts and multiple daily-views at glance on the same screen. Fitbit also earns extra points for how easy it is to export data in multiple formats, including third-party apps which allow for minute-by-minute export of heart rate data, for example. Garmin only exports .fit files, and it seems more difficult to export data out of Garmin Connect into other common file formats, like .csv.
An especially nice touch in the Fitbit app, is that each widget in the mobile app--like Sleep, Heart Rate, Calories, etc.--displays data in multiple ways. The Sleep widget shows weekly graphs for a calculated “Sleep Score,” Hours Slept vs. Target Hours, Sleep Schedule, and Hours in Sleep Stages. Each tracked metric features several of these nifty charts for even deeper insight into interpreting the sensor data obtained by the device.
A glaring oversight, however, is the lack of a date-picker in both the mobile and web version of the app. In order to view a past date, the user must hit the back button until arriving at the correct date, or, on the web version, type the desired date as a URL.
One nice-to-have feature would be the ability to view weekly data for any past week selected by the user. Another would be an improved ability to touch a point on a graph and see the data at that point, which is far better implemented in Garmin’s app, from a UI standpoint.
Moving onto Garmin, the Garmin Connect app needs serious work. There is lots of data, but the way the data is presented makes it far less useful than Fitbit’s implementation. One might say the presentation is sparse or barebones at best, such as with the Heart Rate and Steps widgets, and downright confusing at worst, as in the case of the Calories In/Out widget.
Each of these widgets offers a singular line chart that doesn’t make very good use of the phone’s display. It is simply a chart of the data with no additional insight or interpretation. The
“Last 7 Days” average panel is nice, and there’s even a weekly, monthly, and annual basic chart view for each metric if you select the metric from the menu options instead of the main app home screen. It is strange Garmin would omit a date picker from the app, even though it is present on the web version of the app.
Simply put, I don’t see myself using the Garmin app on a daily basis. The daily views simply don’t display enough useful information, especially since the Garmin devices allow the past 4 hours of activity to be displayed as a chart on their devices. The display of long-term data trends via the app, however, is a far more useful prospect.
Quality of Data Displayed on Device:
Garmin Instinct - 9/10
Garmin Vivoactive 4 - 8/10
Garmin Vivomove Style/Luxe - 7/10
Fitbit Versa 2 - 7/10
Fitbit Charge 3 - 6/10
It is hard to do much better at displaying data on the device itself than the Garmin Instinct. The Instinct manages to put the time, a customizable 4-hr graph, and 3 other metrics all on the always-on, monochrome display, which is bright and easy to read under a range of lighting conditions. The information is glanceable throughout the day without any thought whatsoever. And best of all, the user can switch to a different widget than the home screen, and the device will stay on that screen instead of automatically switching back to the home screen after timing out--a feature woefully omitted on the Vivoactive 4. This means that on the Instinct, whatever information is most important to you can be displayed at all times, without having to interact with the device.
While the Garmin Vivoactive 4 does feature an always-on display, the transflective LCD is much dimmer than the Instinct in the same lighting conditions, and the inky-blue backlighting is a horror to anyone spoiled by the past decade of OLED screens. While the Vivoactive has significantly more pixels and a larger display size compared to the Instinct, the home screen somehow manages to display fewer metrics and less overall data. Navigating to any widget to access the 4-hour view simply returns to the home screen after a period of a few seconds of inactivity, which disappointingly means the user must interact with the device much more frequently in order to access the most useful data. On the plus side, the device does use all those extra pixels for better display and management of notifications, compared to the Instinct. Overall, the lack of customizability making the default home screen display the exact metrics and charts I’d like to always see, makes the Vivoactive 4 a downgrade from the Instinct, for my purposes, at least.
The Garmin Vivomove Style/Luxe series wearables take this a step further and display nothing with the screen off, and only basic metrics with the screen on--no 4-hour graphs like on the Instinct and Vivoactive (is this correct?). To see data over time, you need to use the Garmin Connect app. For these reasons, the Vivomove Style/Luxe watches lose a point.
Similarly, the Fitbit Versa 2 does not display any charts on the device itself, which is absolutely astonishing given the beautiful, pixel dense AMOLED display. Why Fitbit would decide to underutilize the display by only displaying big static numbers for each metric is incomprehensible. Consequently, the Versa 2 has about the same functionality of displaying data on the device as the Vivomove Style/Luxe.
Finally, there is the Charge 3, which also only displays static numbers on a small, monochrome OLED display, making it the least useful of the bunch, though not by much.
Accuracy of Sensor Data (Heart Rate, Steps):
Over the past few days of testing, there have been instances where both Fitbit and Garmin trackers have displayed contradictory heart rate data. Since they cannot both be correct, the trick is determining which is more accurate, more often.
I am going to call this one a tie for now, until I have more long-term data under a range of various conditions by which to make a more detailed comparison.
Sleep Tracking:
Fitbit - 9/10
Garmin - 5/10
The automatic sleep tracking on the Fitbit is implemented almost perfectly. The user has the ability to input desired sleep hours in order to receive prompts when it is time to go to sleep, but this has no bearing on sleep detection. Multiple sleep periods during the day, such as naps and polyphasic sleeping, are implemented, with periods as low as about an hour being detected without fail. I also haven’t had any false positives so far, even while being relatively still watching a show or working on the computer. The data is also displayed extremely well in the app, with fairly accurate sleep levels (Awake, REM, Light, Deep) based on activity, and other useful charts which I described earlier.
In direct contrast, Garmin purposefully handicaps sleep detection in a number of ways, making it an almost useless feature for people with atypical schedules.
First, Garmin requires the user to input their approximate daily sleep and wake time when setting up the device. Sleep is only counted if the user starts or stops sleep within this range. I thought that I could cheat the system by starting at 12 AM and ending at 11:50 pm, but this range is only one part of the problem. Another is that only one sleep period per day is recorded. So a user who sleeps for 3 hours, wakes up to take care of a baby, and then sleeps for another 5 hours, can only expect to see one of those times recorded in the app, and only if they fall within the set sleep hour range. I have read user complaints over these omissions going back over 2 years, and Garmin’s statements on the matter amount to “Falling to sleep at a regular time is important to a healthy lifestyle,” so I don’t expect to see them change this any time soon.
Going further, the sleep records Garmin does manage to record are woefully inaccurate, underdeveloped, and unrefined compared to both Fitbit and another sleep app I use, which records sleep using my phone’s accelerometer to determine approximate sleep level by measuring restlessness.
Simply put, one should not buy into the Garmin ecosystem if accurate and useful sleep tracking is an important purchasing criteria.
Calories Burned Tracking:
Fitbit - 8/10
Garmin - 5/10
While I don’t yet have any long-term data, what I can say is that Garmin’s presentation of calories and implementation with MyFitnessPal is extremely confusing.
First, Garmin calculates the total number of calories I used during the day. Also displayed is something called “Active Calories.” Then there is the number of calories Garmin reports to MyFitnessPal to add or subtract from a day. These are all different numbers, with no indication of how to interpret them or where they are coming from.
Yesterday, I was in bed or sitting almost all day. My Fitbit tracker recorded 553 steps, Garmin recorded 441 steps. Fitbit reported that I used 1,733 calories, Garmin reported 2,008 calories used, despite recording fewer Steps. In the same day, Garmin reported 96 “Active Calories” in the Calories In/Out widget, but reported a completely different adjustment to MyFitnessPal. Either way, Garmin reported to MyFitnessPal that my activity that day allowed me to consume more calories than my set goal. Where are all these different, conflicting numbers coming from??? When I removed the Garmin integration and added Fitbit to MyFitnessPal, the calorie adjustment became a negative number, -212, indicating I should consume not more, but fewer calories that day, presumably based on my actual, lower activity level.
To elaborate, a widget in Garmin Connect is “Calories In/Out.” This displays the number of Calories reported consumed (“In”) from MyFitnessPal, and shows the number of calories I exerted, calculated by Garmin (“Out”). The widget plots “consumed” minus “active calories” on your MyFitnessPal daily calorie goal to give you a “Net Calories,” which lets you know whether you consumed or depleted more net calories that day, based on your activity level and a static goal set in MyFitnessPal--NOT the daily calories expended as calculated by Garmin. What is the point in telling me how many calories I expended in a day, if you’re also telling me I can eat more because I moved a little, thereby earning “Active Calories?” If you are confused after reading this paragraph, it is because I am confused by the purpose of this widget and all the different, conflicting numbers reported by Garmin.
Overall, I feel like Fitbit not only more accurately calculates the number of calories used during the day, and better reports adjustments to MyFitnessPal, but it also displays calorie data in far more useful graphs in the Fitbit mobile app. Although the accuracy is very difficult to determine without long-term testing, the fact that one app was recording positive adjustments in MyFitnessPal, while the other reported negative adjustments for the same day, indicates that at least one of them is far off the mark.
Other Calculated Metrics:
Garmin Vivoactive 4 - 8/10
Garmin Vivomove Style/Luxe - 8/10
Fitbit Versa 2 - 7/10
Fitbit Charge 3 - 7/10
Garmin Instinct - 6/10
In addition to the standard heart rate, steps, calories, etc., Garmin devices do feature some extra calculated metrics such as “Body Battery,” “Stress Level,” “Respiration,” etc. As Garmin does well to explain what these measure and how they work, I won’t go into it here. I will say, however, it is great that this data is displayed on both the devices and the app. I enjoy having access to these metrics, even if they are little more than educated guesses in practice.
The Garmin Instinct loses a few features, including, “Body Battery,” likely because the SpO2 sensor is not present.
The Fitbit devices get points for all the extra calculated metrics only displayed in the mobile app, which were described earlier in the app section of this review. Unfortunately, none of these are displayed on the wearable or the web app, and require some digging into the mobile app to access them.
While these bonus metrics and calculations have the potential to add another layer of insight into the metrics beyond the raw sensor graph data, their usefulness is entirely dependent on the quality of the algorithms and software.
Battery Life:
Garmin Instinct - 10/10
Fitbit Versa 2 - 4/10
Others - 5/10
The Instinct is rated to about 14 days per charge, while the other devices typically obtain 4-5 days per charge. The Versa 2 has the worst battery life, which is further reduced if the display is set to always-on, earning it the lowest score.
User Interface:
Garmin Vivoactive 4 - 9/10
Fitbit Versa 2 - 8/10
Fitbit Charge 3 - 7/10
Garmin Vivomove Style/Luxe - 6/10
Garmin Instinct - 5/10
In the age of touch screens, all the devices with touch screens were relatively simple and intuitive to navigate. The Vivoactive 4 has 2 buttons on the right side which add short/long press shortcuts.
The Versa 2 has only 1 button on the left side, earning it 1 fewer points.
The Charge 3 also features only 1 button, and the small screen is often prone to not registering swipes, earning it 1 fewer points.
Further down is the Style/Luxe, which has no buttons, and users report an occasionally finicky touch screen, earning it 1 fewer points.
At the bottom of the pack is the Garmin Instinct, which has 5 buttons and no touch screen. Consequently, there is a steeper learning curve to navigating the device and remembering which button to press to perform the desired action. The screens can also be confusing to navigate, because the monochrome display makes it difficult to understand whether something is selected (viewing and acting on notifications, for example). On the plus side, the 5 buttons allow for 10 possible quick input shortcuts, making the device faster to use, in some situations.
Style:
Garmin Vivomove Style/Luxe - 9/10
Garmin Vivoactive 4 - 7/10
Fitbit Versa 2 - 6/10
Fitbit Charge 3 - 5/10
Garmin Instinct - 5/10
The Style/Luxe is clearly the favorite where looks are concerned. It is objectively gorgeous, whether data is being displayed or not.
Down the list is the Vivoactive 4 and Versa 2, which are both attractive pieces of glass, and like the Style/Luxe, offer industry-standard interchangeable bands. The Vivoactive 4, however, has the added benefit of a more standard watch-style body, while the Versa 2 is a square, clearly emblematic of a smart watch.
Further down are the Charge 3 and Instinct, which are both obvious utility bands. The Charge 3 is benefitted by its smaller size, while the Instinct is a more standard tactical watch-style appearance.
Conclusion:
Both Fitbit and Garmin offer some fantastic features. Garmin’s range of hardware options is especially impressive, and the Style/Luxe and Instinct combined make me really want to buy into the Garmin ecosystem. I especially love the way data is displayed on the Garmin hardware, although the display of data is hindered by both the spartan and somewhat dated Garmin Connect app and the limited or confusing reporting of core stats like sleep and calories.
In contrast, the Fitbit devices aren’t meant to be used extensively while worn. They are intended to get the stats to your phone, where the Fitbit app truly shines. Assuming many of these stats and calculated metrics are relatively accurate, there is a wealth of health information and insights to be unlocked that is simply non existent in Garmin Connect.
If I have learned anything from testing these devices, it is that there is no perfect tracker. Therefore, it is up to the user to weigh what is most important and decide which device and ecosystem may work best for his or her needs.
