Garmin has announced the Vivofit 4, a new activity-tracking wearable device that sports an always-on color display and battery life up to one year.
The wrist-mounted, waterproof device performs all of the functions of a digital watch, including timer, stopwatch, and alarms, while counting steps and encouraging the wearer to stay mobile and active. The Vivofit 4 can be paired via Bluetooth with a phone (iPhone or Android) for additional functions, such as sleep tracking, detailed and automatic exercise tracking, and weather reports.
It also includes a “find my phone” feature. The phone app connects to Garmin’s cloud service and lets users compare activity with selected family and friends. It also lets users customize the wearable’s display with various watch faces and themes. The always-on display uses a special kind of LCD technology called MIP (memory-in-pixel) that retains an image without power, much like e-ink displays. It’s readable in daylight without a backlight, and can display eight different colors across its 88 x 88 pixels.
Garmin says:
“For those customers looking for more than just basic activity tracking, the vívofit 4 can be paired with a smartphone, adding even more functionality and options, such as tracking sleep, intensity minutes and more. Forget to start or stop a timed activity? Thanks to Move IQ, the vívofit 4 is able to detect changes in a user’s movement and automatically capture and classify activities such as walking, running, biking, swimming and using an elliptical. Users can use the vívofit 4 as their everyday watch, complete with a countdown timer, stopwatch and multiple alarms. A weather widget gives a quick, illustrated look at the day’s weather. The vívofit 4 even includes Find My Phone for those who need a little extra help keeping track of their smartphone.”
Despite all of its great features and out of this world battery life, the vívofit 4 only costs $79.99. You can choose between white, speckled lime green, and black colors. All come in small and medium, although only the black is available in large.
For the fashion conscious fitness folks, you can buy additional band colors, including a special combo pack for $29.99 that comes with “Speckled Merlot” and “Speckled Navy.”
