I recently purchased a Vivoactive 4s and it’s been great so far! However, there are some issues with the watch’s software and the Garmin connect app that I believe could be fixed with just a little effort from Garmin. I am posting these here both to get help from other forum members in case there is some workaround that I hace overlooked and since I have seen that there are some Garmin staff on the forums that I hope could forward this feedback to the right instance. These suggestions are all relatively simple, but would yield major improvements in usability.
- Optionally disable automatic counting of reps. As is listed on Garmin’s own website, the automatic rep counting is inaccurate for all exercises that do not involve regular arm movement (and I have found it to be less reliable even for exercises such as bench press). It is a major annoyance to have to edit the repetitions of every set manually via the phone app, just because the watch is not counting accurately. Since most sets are performed at the preset number of repetitions, a simple fix for this problem is to have an option to disable automatic rep counting and instead use the preset number of reps as the default (while still allowing for manual edit when needed).
- Remove the need to enter leading zeroes. When editing the reps or weight for an exercise, the default value is
---
, so the user always needs to enter a three digit number, such as009
. A simple fix for this is to make the default value000
instead of---
, then users only need to enter the number of digits in their number and no leading zeroes. This is important in the middle of an intense workout where you want to spend as little time as possible fiddling with the watch. - Add multiple timers. Multiple timers are commonly used, and this feature is available in all smartphones. There are already multiple alarms on the Garmin watch so adding support for multiple timers should be straightforward and a significant upgrade for many users (e.g. it is really good for working with the pomodoro technique, for taking naps, and for timing different activities and rests simultaneously).
- The Android Connect app does not allow to scroll down to edit the last exercises of a workout since these are hidden by the keyboard. Instead, I need to close the keyboard and directly click the set I want to edit.
- Don’t require location services for weather. There should be an option to set a default location that is used when location services are not activated on the phone. In addition, the watch will sometimes say “No hourly data available” although it has reported weather for hourly data previously that same day.
- Views over time in the connect app, such as heart rate, would benefit from being zoomable via pinch to zoom.
- When editing the amount of calories burned in an activity, the spinner should be replaced with the possibility to type in the numbers. If the calories are way off it is quite tedious to spin the numbers (I have had to do it for ~ 30 s) instead of just entering the calorie count right away.
Particularly the first three points above are major upgrades that would require little effort to fix and be a big win for many Garmin watch users.