When comparing Garmin Vivofit 3 vs Fitbit Versa, the Slant community recommends Fitbit Versa for most people. In the question“What are the best fitness-trackers?” Fitbit Versa is ranked 6th while Garmin Vivofit 3 is ranked 10th. The most important reason people chose Fitbit Versa is:
Since the Fitbit Versa is light, flat and waterproof, it’s comfortable to wear all the time – while sleeping, showering, working out or in your everyday life. The LCD screen is made of guerilla glass, which ensures scratch protection and durability for active use. The Fitbit Versa has a clear and bright display, making it easily visible both underwater and in direct sunlight. Even though the watch’s UI is already designed to give users easy access to everything, the three buttons on the watch can be customizable for shortcuts and commands. The visual design might not suit everyone, and it might seem cheap and childish to some, but customizability and comfort outweigh this con. The app store offers many watch faces, so you can find whichever suits you best.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Completely safe for swimming and showering
The Vivofit 3 is waterproof up to 50 meters. You can confidently take it swimming, or wear it in the shower without risk of damaging the tracker.
Pro No need to recharge the tracker
The Vivofit 3 runs on battery so there is no need to worry about keeping it charged.
With a battery life of up to 1 year, it can go longer without a battery change than most other fitness trackers.
Pro Provides a great blend of design, quality and comfort
Since the Fitbit Versa is light, flat and waterproof, it’s comfortable to wear all the time – while sleeping, showering, working out or in your everyday life. The LCD screen is made of guerilla glass, which ensures scratch protection and durability for active use. The Fitbit Versa has a clear and bright display, making it easily visible both underwater and in direct sunlight.
Even though the watch’s UI is already designed to give users easy access to everything, the three buttons on the watch can be customizable for shortcuts and commands.
The visual design might not suit everyone, and it might seem cheap and childish to some, but customizability and comfort outweigh this con. The app store offers many watch faces, so you can find whichever suits you best.
Pro Tracks a comprehensive amount of health and fitness data
Fitbit Versa offers all-day heart rate tracking, reminders to move, guided breathing sessions, 15+ exercise modes, sleep tracking, female health tracking and subscription-based on-screen workout sessions, all of which is traced and displayed on the Fitbit app. Although the watch does not have built-in GPS tracking, it can easily be connected to your smartphone in a 30 ft range for accurate tracking of speed and distance.
Pro Long-lasting battery life
The battery life of the Fitbit Versa varies between 3 and 6 days depending on use and Wi-Fi and Bluetooth settings. This also means that you usually don’t have to worry about charging your watch at night and you can properly use the “Sleep tracking & stages” feature. Regarding the charging itself, it takes only two hours to get from 0% to a fully charged battery.
Cons
Con Too unreliable for the cost
The Vivofit 3 has multiple serious issues impacting its reliability which means you're taking a gamble by purchasing it. At $80, you can get trackers with much better build qualities and a similar set of features.
Con Software that detects different activity often doesn't work
The "Move IQ" software in the tracker, which is supposed to detect different types of exercise, often doesn't work. Either it will track everything as walking, or will not start tracking them all.
Con It's easy to lose the watch because of the weak clasp
The clasp frequently comes undone during physical activity because of its poor design. If you aren't constantly paying attention to it or add re-enforcement to the clip, it would be easy to lose the tracker.
Con Syncs with a limited number of devices
Con Not for people with small wrists
The tracker is available in two sizes, regular or extra large. The regular band is too long for people with below average sized wrists.
Con Setting up music is a hassle
The watch offers 300+ song internal storage, but transferring songs takes a long while and it's different for everyone. On this forum post a user has said that it took 7 hours to upload ~5.5 hours of music on their Fitbit, but another has reported that it took 9 hours to sync 9 hours of audio. There are many posts on the official Fitbit community forum referring to this problem.
In terms of streaming, the app store only offers Pandora and Deezer as of now.
Con Relatively small app library
Since Fitbit is a relatively new arrival in the smartwatch scene and has a smaller community, its app store offers only a fraction of what other competitors can provide in the third-party app and integration field.
The app store itself is not perfect – some apps and watch faces offer trial versions and need payment for full-time use, which is not always disclosed at first.
