Upgrade from Vivosmart HR

Any advice would be appreciated.

Cheers

My advice would be to read the forums and make your own call. It seems the VA3 is either hit or miss.

I like it, clean looks and it does the job. I have no issues with watch faces, all have worked perfect. Right now I use the "Analog Switch", which is really great. Battery time could be better, I charge it each other day. Use it for cycling, GPS is on 2-3 times a day for total of 1-3 hours. Otherwise, it's always on my wrist.ciq.forums.garmin.com/.../1316166.jpg

I may be one of the lucky ones here as I have NOT experienced many of the issues discussed here. My experience has been very positive. I initially started off with some notification inconsistencies. But those appear to be due to GCM and have been fixed. The battery life could be better. I am finding I need to charge it ever 3-4 days. Usage consists of approximately 45 minutes roadwork with GPS and 1.5 hours-ish gym work with a BT HRM strap daily. I was pretty consistently getting 6-7 days with the VAHR with the same load.

I would say go for it. The only real issue I have is the battery but only due to owning the previous vivoactive hr. Other than that it's a classy and accurate tracker.

Thanks for the replies. It pretty much fits the bill for everything I need.

Cheers again.

I do not have many technical failures that appear in the forum.
The battery is discharged 5% daily and between 5 and 10% with one hour of activity with GPS.
I use the watch to run indoor, outdoor, indoor, outdoor and swimming, and I have no direct problems with activities.
I do not use the functions of connection with the cell phone because I have Windows Mobile x.x
I highlight the HR on the wrist as a great positive characteristic of the watch.
The problems that I have or had, is the random disconnection of the footpod, and swimming should be used with 0% brightness.

I've had my Vivoactive HR for a year, and while I prefer my Samsung Gear S3 (in appearance), the Garmin device is more accurate and reliable. If it had a more appealing (round) appearance it would be my full time watch.

The Vivoactive 3 has been a bust, IMO. I've had to contact Garmin 3 times, resulting in a replacement, but just how good the replacement is, remains to be seen. The battery has always been the issue. It may be the latest FW (3.3) will take care of the problem, and at 2 days I'm 65% battery remaining. Problem has been with the activities using too much battery (25%/hr), but I haven't gone out for a couple of days due to the flu.

My take: If you like the appearance of the HR, and it's been reliable for you, then that would be my cue. The VA 3 is smaller and lighter, but there sure seems to be a lot of threads with problems.

It's a tricky decision, because people's experiences with the VA3 seem to be so variable. I'm not sure whether the watches themselves have variable performance, or if the root of the problem is that people use them for different things. Mine has been pretty good, apart from some issues with battery life, but I only use a fraction of the features if offers.

So far as I can tell, the VA3 does everything the VS does, and more, except for some very obscure things.

FWIW my advice would be to buy a VA3 from a supplier who will take it back without fuss if it doesn't suit you. I've come pretty close to sending mine back a couple of times, but I'm still using it.