Heads up, this is a LONG detailed review. But to sum up, this watch is absolutely ideal if you have small wrists and want to monitor your health and triggers, particularly if you have an energy limiting condition or POTS. I haven't had any of the problems other reviewers have mentioned…as of yet.
I've been wanting a smart watch for quite some time in order to monitor and record my health stats, sleep and for notifications from my phone. I tried on some of the more popular ones, including Samsung, Fitbit, Google and also had a cheaper non branded version, which was the same size as the Apple watch, however I felt that they were all too bulky on my small wrists for me to be able to tolerate wearing consistently, especially overnight.
I then came across this watch.
At 35mm it was quite a bit smaller than the 41mm sizes that the Samsung and Google watches came in, so I felt that this would be my best option.
I've had the watch around a month now and have been wearing it consistently, including every night, and so far, I'm really impressed.
Positives:
– It's comfortable to wear all day and sleep in
– It looks good on my small wrist
– The heart rate and SpO2 measurements are accurate, as I measured these against my pulse oximeter, which I also know to be accurate as I recently compared it to the ECG monitor during a cardiology appt and it gave the same results.
– I like the Garmin app, I find it very user friendly and customisable to my own needs.
– The sleep tracking seems mostly accurate and is providing some good insight.
– I like the stress tracker, which measures HRV, and is important for me to monitor as I suffer with M.E. This is also showing some good insight into my triggers throughout the day. When it notices that you're highly 'stressed' it will then prompt you to do a 5 minute breathing exercise to bring down your HRV, which again I've found really useful.
– It has a 'body battery' function which, depending on your sleep quality and I think potentially your stress/HRV levels, tells you how much energy you have left in your tank to give for the day/rest of the day. Again I've found this useful as I have an energy limiting condition. It takes a few weeks for this to start reporting and be accurate as it wants to monitor your stats first to work out your baseline.
– At the end of each day it asks you, via the app, to record your 'behaviours' under lifestyle logging, and again these can be customised so that you can monitor different triggers to your health etc.
– It monitors your menstruation cycle.
– It can monitor your water intake via the watch itself. Initially I found this helpful but unfortunately after about 7-10 days I started to forget to log this.
– You can log your blood pressure. This needs to be taken manually, the watch does not do it for you, but it can be logged via the app to keep track of it, if needed for medical reasons, so all your health stats are in one place.
– The step counter seems very accurate and you can change your step goals at any time. It also alerts you when you have reached your goal.
– It tells you your sleep quality on the watch each morning, as well as the weather and any events you've put in your calendar for the day.
– It goes into sleep mode at a time which you can choose and then back into normal mode again at a time of your choosing. In sleep mode it turns off the screen and notifications so it does not wake you during the night.
– The notifications via various apps on my phone are very handy, and you can pick and choose which notifications it displays on the watch by toggling on/off on the different apps via the Garmin app. I would regularly miss calls and texts when out and about as I wouldn't hear my phone in my bag, but now I feel a vibration on my wrist when these come through so I never miss them.
– It comes with an emergency mode which you can add emergency contacts to. If you need help or assistance you tap 10 times on the watch face and it will activate that mode and send text messages to your emergency contacts to alert them that you may need assistance.
– It has find my phone alert on it, which has proven useful when I've put my phone down somewhere indoors and can't find it!
– It's lightweight and not at all bulky so I have gotten used to wearing it consistently without a problem.
– I like the strap, it's like a silicone type material but looks leather. It's also easy to fasten independently.
– The battery life on it seems pretty good. I get around 4-5 days out of it per full charge.
Draw backs:
– Whilst the sleep tracking seems to be mostly accurate, I have found a few times that it's said I was in REM sleep in the morning when actually I was up and feeding my cat!
– The charger is a bit fiddly and annoying. The cheap non branded watch I had came with a magnetic charger which was much more user friendly. This one you have to clip onto the watch and you have to get the prongs in the exact right positioning.
– It's a basic watch in a sense of that it does not come with a coloured dial, pictures, ECG, GPS, or things like Garmin Pay etc. The Lily 2 Active comes with GPS however.
All in all, I'm very pleased with the watch. It does everything that I need it to do for monitoring my health and receiving notifications. I don't personally feel that I need any of the added extras that the bigger watches come with, as I either have these on my phone or I don't require them.
You do need to play around with the app and settings to fully customise the watch to your individual needs, which I found fairly straight forward. It won't just do everything I've mentioned above straight out of the box.
I haven't commented on the 'activities'/ sports modes as I have not used these due to health limitations.
I would highly recommend this watch to anyone who has small wrists like mine and wants to track and monitor their health needs, particularly if you have conditions like M.E, Fibromyalgia, POTS etc.
There are no reviews yet.