New VA4 - Live review

Connected to Garmin Express and got SW 3.50 installed. I could swear it rebooted once, then after 5 min another reboot, this time with a progress bar at the bottom. So in total 2 reboots.

Now the SpO2 value is shown as 2nd window in the health widget, so yes, having to have its own widget was due to 2.70 SW.

I have PulseOX 24/7 enabled, backlighting off, charged to 100%, DND set between sleep & wake times, let's see how it fares the night. I will wear my AW3 on the other hand to check in the morning how the sleep stages/detection and HR/RHR rates compare. For AW3 i use Autosleep which has been very accurate over the months of use.

I love the floors climbed/descended feature, but isn't it possible to see when actually a floor was climbed/descended? For some reason i have 7 climbed / 6 descended which doesn't make sense...can't we see the individual values and edit/delete them if we know they're wrong?

OK, night has passed. Almost 12 hrs since i charged to 100%, now is at 87%. Right now it seems that a full 24h will eat more juice than the Venu (which ate ~20% / 24h) with the same settings: HR+PulseOX 24/7, no notifications, backlight off, smart sensor recording.

Here are the results for the sleep analysis comparison:

AW3+Autosleep = 8h45min (01:24-10:09), light 5:00, still(rem) 1:15, deep 2:30, awake 0, average HR 60
VA4: 8h42min (01:15-10:00), light 5:31, rem 1:23, deep 1:48, awake 3min, average HR 61, average SpO2 82%

Graphs do differ quite a bit, VA4 seems to pick up (same with the Venu) a strong deep sleep period only at the beginning. Later in the cycle it doesn't. VA4 seems to have recorded some steps also while sleeping?!

I will test more over the next days and post differences, if any.
If anyone has a special request for a test, pls let me know. I will take both to the pool maybe tomorrow, for the ultimate test 

I noticed now with SW3.50 that we are able to set alerts for pool swimming for each length. Not really intuitive though, you select distance, enter 001 and press OK in the middle. The alert shows up as "1 length"...hmm?!

Another difference to the Venu, same SW 3.50 is that the VA4 has some languages missing.

Did you do any running or other high intensity activities with the watch? If so, did it give you a VO2 max reading in Garmin connect?

I also get about 20% per day in terms of battery life with Pulse Ox only at night

No running or high intensity workout yet, so i don't have any VO2 max values.
If you're getting 20% per day with POX at night only vs. mine with 20% per day with POX all day, means you have some other settings activated that eat battery.

I know some watchfaces (like the one i use, called NoFrills) use more battery than others...but didn't test that yet.

What i noticed today is that upon opening up Garmin Connect, the watch doesn't sync. I have to force-kill the app for it to sync the watch again. IOS version that is.

I also noticed that when removing the watch from the hand, for like 1.5h, the green light keeps flashing, as in the sensor doesn't detect there's no skin
With previous SW 2.70 i didn't have this effect, once you removed the watch, it flashed for 1 or 2 sec, then it stopped.

NIce. But, if you came from a Wtch GT, i did not understand why Huawei is the only one who can log Naps so perfect.
I guess Garmin will do this not in hundred years.

yes, i am amazed also by Watch GT, sleep analysis is incredible accurate. So is fitness tracking (swimming, cycling, walking, gps lock..).
The only disadvantage is that i have an iPhone so the Huawei Health app is missing LOTS of features compared to Android. Also it doesn't have the depth of analysis like Garmin Connect or export FIT files to any 3rd party app or Apple Health (workout info)...(Google Fit doesn't count, it's a sad platform)

I don't care about "smart" features like music, notifications, payments, etc....which i turned all off on my current VA4 anyway.

So, i did a swim session today with both watches: VA4 and AW3. For some reason the AW3 decided for the first time to totally ignore a full 10x segment after resuming after a stop. I will test more tomorrow, but what i can now say 100% is that the breaststroke detection error that i experienced with the Venu is also present on the VA4:

Case1: start swimming say 2x25 breaststroke -> nothing detected
Case2: start swimming 2x25 breaststroke, then 8x25 freestyle -> only 8x freestyle (laps/distance) detected
Case3: start swimming 2x25 freestyle, then 8x25 breaststroke -> everything detected
Case4: start swimming 10x25 freestyle -> everything detected
Case5: start swimming 2x25 freestyle, then 8x25 breaststroke, then rest (press B)...then resume (press B again), new interval is initiated..detection resets (so starts over to behave like Case1,2,3 or 4)

It can't be my stroke style because it's picked up perfectly when preceded by freestyle! Only when starting with breaststroke, it doesn't detect any laps/distance (and probably style) :) The timer works though :)

Garmin-Matthew Former Member can you guys please take this up with development and check the behavior out? I'll be glad to help with data sets if needed.

PS - i think i figured out why the VA4 sometimes refused to sync/connect to the Garmin Connect app, even after multiple forcekills: i had the AW3 paired at the same time. I shut the AW3 off and the VA4 connected right away. Maybe there was some kind of conflict over access to the phone? Strange though, because during the whole day i had no issues to sync, they appeared only after the swim workout when trying to sync data and stuff. AW3 sync-ed first, but VA4 appeared as not connected in Garmin Connect app..

PPS - tried Garmin Connect on a Huawei P30 and FYI the Insights graphs do not show the yellow "you are here" bar. Did anyone notice this? On the IOS app it displays properly...

So, after 48h i have 45% battery left. PulseOX measurements on 24/7, no notifications, backlight gesture OFF, backlight brightness 20% (comes on when touching the display), NoFrills watchface.

More sleep analysis comparison
Left AW3 with Autosleep
Middle & right VA4

Overall i'd say timing is very good, light sleep detection very good, but loses/mixes some deep sleep with REM

Later today i will attempt a mega-comparison in pool swimming between Vivoactive 4, Apple Watch 3 and Huawei Watch GT 2 !! 
First have to figure out how i strap all 3 on both hands.....Stay tuned.

Sneak preview

This was a close one, at least from HR measurement under water point of view.....

Here we go. I will start with the conclusions after this round.
Basically the GT2 is scary....because it's so accurate, both HR-wise and lapcount-wise, 100% on par with AW3. Sometimes i wonder if they do share components...
The VA4 behaved as expected, that is messing up breaststroke detection (second 250m session) on new interval or workout start. For some reason (in the first 1000m session) it decided to count more laps / distance than i actually swam, so double error IMHO.

Let's start with a 1000m swim pool workout, with no pause or rest. For the sake of keeping the Garmin in the contest i decided to start with freestyle. Remember, if i start breaststroke, it won't count laps/distance. You'll see that in the 2nd workout example.

From left to right: Apple Watch 3, Huawei Watch GT2, Garmin Vivoactive 4
I will focus on laps, distance and HR.
Pace, SWOLF are useless since we need a clean baseline for all 3 devices (proper detection of laps, distance, times) to start with.
For fun you can however compare AW3 and GT2 values for pace, SWOLF. The only thing that VA4 kept up with was...keeping the time of the workout 

1000m (40x25m) SESSION DETAILS
Did 30 freestyle + 10 breaststroke in total
Started freestyle then switched at some point, can't remember didn't keep exact track

  

40x25m HEART RATE DETAILS

250m (10x25m) session -> started with 6 breaststroke + 4 freestyle

10x25m (6 BREASTSTROKE + 4 FREESTYLE) HR DETAILS

BREAKDOWN OF LAST 250M (10x25m) from Garmin Connect.
You can see clearly that the first 6 weren't counted/detected. It picked up only the last 4 freestyle.
I rested for 3:49....really?

Well, what can i say.
I think i can safely come to some straightforward conclusions:

- detection issue is not limited to a single device, because i had the same with a Venu. Same SW 3.50
- detection issue is not due to my stroke style, because it picks up after starting with freestyle
- HR detection underwater for all 3 devices is very close. VA4 seems to go a bit higher post-workout, whereas GT2 and AW3 are identical (no joking)
- in this current state of affairs, VA4 is not a good pool swimming companion for me, compared to GT2 and AW3.

So, Garmin, the ball is in your court now. I'm still waiting for the mods mentioned few posts above to react on this. I did my part.
And now i swear writing this post and preparing the screenshots was more tiring than the whole 1.250m session today 

Hope you find this comparison interesting. Maybe i should take it to Reddit as well? What do u think?
Good night!

PS - tomorrow a sleep analysis comparison between the 3 contenders will be done.
Battery on VA4 down to 15% after 3 days. Today i disabled 24/7 Pulse OX and left only during sleep enabled. But i still see SpO2 values being read during the day, as if the setting didn't apply. And yes, the watch was sync-ed several times since.