Top critical review
3.0 out of 5 starsNice looking watch but with some drawbacks
Reviewed in the United States on June 2, 2023
I loved this watch when I first received it. It's small and lightweight enough that it feels and looks like a normal watch. I feel good wearing it all the time and it doesn't look like a smartwatch. The way the watch hands move out of the way to show the screen is nifty. And it's nothing too fancy but had all the functions that I wanted. I don't need something to communicate with my phone or receive text messages or calendar items; I just wanted something to track my daily activity, heart rate, and sleep.
After having it for a while, though, it's not living up to expectations. The sleep tracking does not seem very accurate. It regularly records "light sleep" when I am laying awake trying to fall asleep. And it records REM sleep from the time I wake up in the morning until I get out of bed, and sometimes even for 10-20 minutes after I have gotten up and started my day. These quirks make me wonder about the accuracy of the rest of the sleep info. I'm not sure what the "body battery" number is based on, but it actually seems like a better indicator of how well I slept the previous night and how I feel that day.
It also bothers me that I can't see my heart rate when I'm in the middle of an activity, which is the most important piece of information to me. I want to know what heart rate zone I'm in, not how many calories I've burned.
Since there are other things I like about the watch and the app is nice, I hope that Garmin addresses these issues in later models.
