Hey, it winter and icey out. My wife's VivoSmart 3 calculates her VO2 while on the treadmill. My Vivosport requires I do these activities outdoors. Please add this indoor VO2 max calculation feature to the Vivosport. I am elderly and it is so icy out I can barely walk to the car. Vivo owners would love you. Thanks.
Are you 100% sure that your wife's VA3 is updating VO2max when used indoors? Back when I had the VA3 this was not possible, but if it has now changed that is very interesting news since it will mean that Garmin is actually doing something with their silly "GPS only requirement" which hopefully will transfer to other devices as well.
I have the Fenix 5+ paired with a Stryd foot pod which gives much better pace/distance data than GPS - but it's not possible to get VO2max unless I'm running outside with GPS enabled, which is very annoying since I won't get any updates for VO2max, LT or Training Status until March probably...!
Sorry, I had incorrectly called my wife's watch a Vivoactive 3 when in fact it is a Vivosmart 3.
I have a Vivosport. I would purchase a Vivoactive 3 IF it would record VO2 max indoors. It is very frustrating that my Vivosport doesn't allow this. I live in rural, hilly location so even in summer I would have to drive 10 miles to try to get an outdoor VO2 reading and as a 72 year old I'd feel foolish walking around a parking lot or on some high school track! And in the winter I do all my exercise on a treadmill.
My Vivosport and my wife's Vivosmart 3 have basically the same features minus the GPS and are of the same vintage. There is no reason at all that I can think of why Garmin can't provide the firmware to allow an indoor VO2 calculation. Or what they can't do this with other watches.
By the way, my wife's gives very reasonable and consistent VO2 max from her treadmill exercises. The newer Vivosmart 4 also has this feature, but in other ways the Vivosmarts would seem like a downgrade.
Garmin's approach to this is very frustrating indeed!
One could understand the logic if the case was that they set the input data quality requirements higher on higher end devices for more thrustworthy outputs, but that clearly isn't the case as GPS is NOT better for instant pace than a properly calibrated foot pod - and under some conditions even a properly calibrated built-in accelerometer does a better job!
Indeed. My Garmin calculated distance based on my stride length is very close to the distance reported by my treadmill. The VO2 max value is just a calculated metric anyway and walking on a treadmill may be more consistent than walking outdoors anyway. Definitely better in the icy, windy conditions we are stuck with for 4 months.
I could not be very hard for Garmin to take the coding they use for the Vivosmart 3/4 and add it to other watches. Maybe I need to get a cheap refurbished Vivosmart 3 as my VO2 watch rather than the upgrade to a Vivoactive 3 I had be thinking about. I would like the VO2 metric to monitor my exercise progression.
