Vivoactive3. What a piece of junk

I really like my VA3 but the lack of a fix to the sensor hub and golf app are really getting my goat.

Yes, I can also live with all the other issues, but in golf the only thing that works is a distance to the green and to the some extent the pure scratch stroke play score. All other calculations and statistics, handicaps etc do not work at all or have even worse totally wrong numbers. This is odd also because Garmin have fully functional golf watches. Looks like there is a team never heard of golf developing the functionalities. And the team doesn't know that required knowledge exist in the company. I have been patient waiting 6 months believing that these will be fixed any day soon. But I'm losing my belief...

I have to sadly agree that this device has a constant set of irritating problems. Here's my list:

* Bluetooth will disconnect on occasion and the only fix is a phone reboot. Other times it will reconnect after a while. I'm using a Pixel 2 XL, which is basically the reference phone for Android development, and I don't have problems with any other bluetooth devices.

* Heartrate monitor for elliptical activity is mostly way wrong (like 60-80 bpm when it should be 130-150 bpm). This watch is marketed as a fitness device and I want to record my workouts, even boring ones like elliptical. It's some kind of long-standing software issue because my heartrate seems fine when I'm riding a bike. And, no, I don't want an external strap. I don't care if the heartrate is perfect, I just want it somewhere in the realm of reality.

* Weather widget is useless - a fair amount of time it will have "no data' even though the phone is connected to the watch and the phone is on 5 bars of LTE. Sometimes the weather is way off. For a sports watch, this is a big deal, especially because there's no reason for independent developers to create a weather app when Garmin has one that supposedly works.

* Music widget has intermittent problems - freezes on a song and doesn't refresh for a day. Not a show stopper but another irritation.

It's really a shame because the VA3 is in a great niche -- multi-day battery life with an always-on display. I think that's a real sweet spot for a lot of us.

I bought this with great excitement when it was exclusive at Best Buy. I bought it with the expectation that we'd go through a few months of software updates before things were stable. We're at almost 10 months now, and the problems listed above persist.

As someone new to the Garmin ecosystem, the diseases I see here are "featureitis" and "deviceitis". I don't care about getting b.s. features like badges on Connect IQ when the watch disconnects a couple of times a week. When you have over 2 dozen devices for sale simultaneously, it's no surprise that this one has long standing issues. The engineering team has too little time to maintain the dizzying array of different hardware platforms.

Just spoken to Tech Support re the incorrect conversion from Ambient Pressure to Mean Sea Level - in my case a difference of 7.8 hPa when it should only be 1.3. Told it's a known issue & an update is due 'late May / early June'. The AP readout in mine is actually pretty accurate when compared with a calibrated instrument.
To emphasise TMK17 's point in post #29, until a watch has an outside air temperature sensor, it can never give a completely accurate 'converted' reading.
For example, at 0 DegC, 1hPa = 25.87932244 ft ; at 15 DegC, it's 27.30529678 ft

hungrykid Look, I'm not saying you're an unreasonable person. I'm personally familiar with owners of four VA3's. Mine, which I gave my son. My wife's and two friend's of mine. None of these watches have problems. When you read in a forum that someone says they are now on their 5th watch that was released about nine months ago, one can't help but question why. Are you familiar with Occam's Razor? In a nutshell, when there are competing answers to a problem, the one with the fewest assumptions is most likely correct. Yes, there are several threads about problems with the VA3. That's the nature of forums. I don't know the exact percentages, but I'm willing to bet the negative or "problem" threads represent a very small percentage of owners. So, when thousands of VA3's are sold and the majority are problem free, I made my statement about not buying it when someone says they've received five defected watches. The reasonable assumption would then be user related. Let me give you an example. There are post across several devices with barometric altimeters that their watch is defective because they started their run at 50M elevation and finished at the same location with an elevation of 25M. When asked what the temperature, ambient and barometric pressure was before and after their run, you usually get an "I don't know", or "What does that have to do with it?" answer. It has everything to do with it. Because they don't understand how a barometric altimeter works and they expect the start and finish to be the same, they think they have a defective watch when in reality there is nothing wrong. Returning or exchanging the watch doesn't validate that it was defective either. It could mean that person was just persuasive and it's the easiest solution for Garmin. Again, I can not help you because I have no idea how you are using your watch or what phone or accessories you are using. You may very well be the most unlucky Garmin consumer ever, but in my defense, my conclusions seems very fair and reasonable.

Jano22222 I too have used several Garmin models throughout the years. I remember the FR235 being a nightmare for a lot of people when it first came out. Now it's a great dependable watch. I've read how this or that watch was the "worst ever". I think this is currently the label the VA3 has because it's newer and fresh in people's minds. There's no doubt we'll read how future Garmin releases will be the worst ever and how we don't remember any other devices being that bad.

A trick that works pretty well with the Fenix 5x is to save the location where you start most of your runs. For me this is my house. I save the location and then edit the elevation field to match the actual elevation from the land survey. When GPS gets a fix at my house, the altimeter is calibrated to this value.

Just spoken to Tech Support re the incorrect conversion from Ambient Pressure to Mean Sea Level - in my case a difference of 7.8 hPa when it should only be 1.3. Told it's a known issue & an update is due 'late May / early June'. The AP readout in mine is actually pretty accurate when compared with a calibrated instrument.
To emphasise TMK17 's point in post #29, until a watch has an outside air temperature sensor, it can never give a completely accurate 'converted' reading.
For example, at 0 DegC, 1hPa = 25.87932244 ft ; at 15 DegC, it's 27.30529678 ft

To get the most accurate conversion of measured air pressure to elevation you also need to know RH (relative humidity) since water vapor weighs less than standard air mixture at the same temperature, and therefore will make the elevation appear higher.

To properly convert to elevation, the Connect app should acquire a GPS fix (through the watch of phone), get the elevation at the exact location based on lat/long from a service (not the 3D fix), then temperature, humidity, and air pressure from the nearest official weather station (not a hobby weather station, as some are not well maintained or calibrated) and use the combination of data for a starting point of elevation on the watch (auto-calibration). At the end of the activity, only check the air pressure from the same fixed-elevation station again and apply any offsets over the duration of the event to correct for changes in air pressure due to weather. During the event, you should only ever need the altimeter and not the 3D GPS for elevation fixes. This should result in some pretty reliable accurate readings. If the weather station is not available, trust the GPS in only lat/long fix (not elevation) of the same location as the start of the activity to reference that stating elevation for any weather corrections.

Honestly I don't see any reason why these devices cannot do the same math that the higher-end equipment does, but I will take a wild guess and say that the VA3 got farmed out to cheap contractors in developing countries to save $$$ and compete, so they did not use or have knowledge of the software of the high-end devices. The problem with this development tactic is your company gets a bad reputation, and it requires a lot more expense in support and lost repeat customers.

I'm fast losing patience with my VA3 but the trouble is that there is nothing in its price point that I like the look of or are fraught with their own issues, all I want is an activity tracker for cardio and golf app, a very small shortlist of Samsung Gear 3 frontier or a Fitbit Ionic, both have less battery life and if I'm honest I really like how the screen works in direct sunlight on my VA3, something both the samsung and fitbit struggle with. I guess to sum up, just fix the bloody VA3 bugs

Thevoid have you considered 645? While I still holding hope for VA3 firmware fix (though I do not believe in it) - will probably dive into 645 forum. Yes, VA3 looks better, costs better, but 645 has buttons, has wifi and if it works as promised. Well, you know the drill

So while I was taking a shower this morning after a halfway reasonable sleep (still didn't meet my goal :-( ) I was thinking to myself if I were to not have purchased the VA3 yet, what would I get purchase today? Here is my thinking on various choices of general-purpose fitness "motivators" with a little more functionality than a general step counter (GPS, elevation, biking, swim tracking):

So VA3 still is at the top, regardless of its warts.

1. VA3: Always on display, pretty nice Connect application, accurate counters and monitoring, OHRM works very well on me. We all know what is has, and does not have. My real disappointment right now is just the elevation problems, and from what I can tell is one firmware update away from operating properly. Features that may be buggy and I don't care about: I don't trust ANY gadget with making payments. Sorry, I have seen too many devices compromised over the years that can steal some fairly sensitive data. So NFC I don't want/use, and connectivity notifications and phone status I don't want/use. I can reach for my phone in my pocket easily enough, or my CC in my wallet. Oh, and if I mash the thing doing outside work or in hockey, I wont be out $1/2K of cash.

2. Fenix 5. It would do everything I want, and way more than I could ever use. Connect application nice. Perhaps when I was 20 and darned close to extreme sports land it would make more sense, but back then I didn't have two pennies to rub together and now I am almost 50. No more mountain bikes through the backwoods for this guy. Plus it is too big for casual use and when working in the property will get caught on stuff and doesn't fit well under work gloves. I would get it if it were on sale close to the VA3 price and not regret the money spent though.

3. Fitbit Versa. Similar to the Ionic, similar pros and cons. Finally swimproof. What took Fitbit so damned long? This has stopped me from purchasing any of their stuff due to fear of water damage. I have a nice pond, I am in it a lot, I don't want to destroy my devices. Battery life a bit short. Kind of ugly IMHO but knocked down a notch since I like the Connect app better.

4. Fitbit Ionic. Big bright display, cool ecosystem and little helpful motivators and things that are fun. Not hearing great things about bugs in the device, and the delay for viewing the display is sort of annoying. Nice display for tired old eyes. I don't give a rat's patootie about Smartwatch features, so down a notch since I would have to pay for things I wont use. The less connected I am, the happier I find myself to be. Apart from music. That would be nice. Not swimproof. Battery life? Ugh.

5. Samsung Fit#/Sport# etc. They are Samsung. Designed to die/break/no support. Twice bitten by Samsung products, I am done with them.

6. Apple: I am not about to buy into the Apple ecosystem, as pretty as they are. I am more married to Android/Google and have more money in my wallet to show for it. Plus I have a real problem with the removal of the audio jack on recent devices. Yes, that ticked me off. And they are really more like a smart device with fitness as a side-thought.


So take it as it is, it is a gadget designed to help us motivate to be more fit in our lives, and gadgets are always designed to not be everything but to leave us wanting more. If these things were perfect, we would be a one-time customer and never come back. You will see that there will be a VA4 at some point that fixes our gripes, has some minor improvements, looks a tad prettier, and we will all drool over hoping it gets rid of our frustrations. It will have a whole new slew of different issues we will discover. Rinse/repeat.

Thevoid have you considered 645? While I still holding hope for VA3 firmware fix (though I do not believe in it) - will probably dive into 645 forum. Yes, VA3 looks better, costs better, but 645 has buttons, has wifi and if it works as promised. Well, you know the drill

I have been looking at alternatives but no access to a golf app on the 645 rules it out.
Something that's really getting my goat is people forgiving the VA3's faults at it's a lifestyle watch and not a premium Garmin, this is tosh, you can buy a Golf GTI or a Polo, would you be happy if the rev counter on the polo kept failing and VW said it's not a premium VW so some things don't work?