Garmin vívofit 2 activity tracker

On Wednesday I got Gord and I Garmin vívofit 2 activity trackers (our bands are black).

The vívofit 2:

• is a watch showing the time and date
• tracks the number of steps taken (you set your daily goal ... mine is 10,000) and distance (mine is in kms)
• tracks calories (you can link it with MyFitnessPal)
• monitors your sleep
• if you buy the attachment, monitors your heart rate (I didn't get this)
• has a red move bar alert (it beeps if you haven't moved in an hour [and every 15 minutes after that] to remind you to get up and move) - the Fitbit doesn't
• has an activity timer (a stop watch)
• is water resistant so I can wear it in the shower (so I won't take it off and forget to put it back on)  - the Fitbit isn't
• allows you to connect with other users (I'm connected to Gord) and join groups
• has different colour bands so you can accessorize with your clothes (I've ordered a couple colourful ones) - you can't change the band with a Fitbit

I can sync it to my laptop (and smart phone) whenever I want.  Despite what their website says, it doesn't auto sync.¹

I find that syncing is a problem at times.  I've had to uninstall and reinstall the Garmin program three times already to make it sync (maybe it doesn't like Windows 10?).²

There are lots of reports and here are the ones I have on my dashboard (what I care about):

If I want more details, I just have to click on the top right corner and it opens up to a full page report.

I can check my progress.  This morning I went for a long walk and hit my goal by noon.  Yay!

By hitting the sleep function when I go to bed and turning it off when I wake up, it monitors my sleep pattern.  I went to bed this morning at 1:13am and woke up at 8:07am and I got 6 hours and 54 minutes of sleep.

This shows my movement during night ...
the biggest peak was about 6am
because I got up to use the washroom

My sleep levels ... the thicker pink line is when I got up to use the washroom

As you progress to different levels, you get congratulatory badges to reward milestones and encourage you to keep going.

My badges so far

You can connect to other vívofit 2 users.  I'm connected to Gord and we can watch each other's progress.

Though we've only had them four days, I've found it's made a difference already.  It's making me exercise and even get up and walk around so I can reach my 10,000 steps rather than be a slug.

• On Thursday I was about 1,000 steps from reaching my goal so I jumped on my stationary bike before I went to bed and got to 10,000 steps (it's been a while since I've been on the bike!).  
• I was only halfway to my goal on Friday so spent a lot of time on the bike that evening and reached my goal.  
• We were going to walk to a pub for supper yesterday but it started raining just before we planned to leave so we stayed home instead.  I'd been psyched to walk not bike so didn't reach my goal (I only did 4,909 steps).  
• This morning I went for a long walk and wouldn't come home 'til I reached my goal!

I would recommend this activity tracker!  It's a great motivator to get/keep moving!

¹ I heard from Garmin and apparently it auto syncs to a smartphone, not a laptop.  They might want to clarify this on their website.
² Garmin has asked me to contact them if I can't sync (rather ran uninstall/reinstall) so they can look at the logs.