In case you were wondering, yes, I have jumped on the fitness tracker bandwagon and have Garmin’s vívosmart.

I originally had my sights set on Jawbone’s UP3. While I wasn’t impressed with Jawbone’s JAMBOX Wireless Bluetooth Speaker, the advanced press on its UP3 was intriguing. It claimed to be “the most advanced tracker known to man.” (Do I hear an objection from the NSA?) Plus its wicked looks appealed to my superficiality.

So, right around Christmas time last year, I dropped hints around Nicolas – by dropping a very detailed email in his inbox, together with a link. (Well, he says he never knows what to get me, so I thought I’d help him out a little. Okay, a lot.) Except that the UP3 wasn’t available then, so Nicolas went to the mall and purchased the most expensive fitness tracker he could find.

Enter vívosmart.

Fast forward to a rowdy Goan party in March that featured frenzied dancing and extreme arm-flailing. Exit vívosmart.

Dammit, I had grown attached to that Big Brother device. And I could have sworn it was attached to me! Grrr… (If ever you get a vívosmart, be sure to use that “keeper” it comes with, and take care not to lose it or you might end up losing the whole damned device.)

Fast forward to my birthday in May. Re-enter vívosmart. Thank you again, Nicolas! (Sometimes it isn’t necessarily a bad thing that he doesn’t know what to get me.)

And, just like that, I’m back to being attached to my fitness tracker. And it to me. (Keeper is firmly in place. Check!)

Here’s what I like and dislike about Garmin’s vívosmart.

LIKES:

– I love it that it doesn’t look like a watch. I don’t wear watches as a rule, and the vívosmart that I have is a simple black band, like a bracelet, except that I’ve worn clunkier bracelets. While the device can be set so that the display automatically comes on whenever you lift your arm to look at it, I find that this drains the battery faster than usual, plus I don’t really like being constantly reminded of the time or date – which is why I don’t wear watches – so I’ve set my vívosmart so that I have to tap the display for it to come on.

– vívosmart is not just splash proof, it’s waterproof, which means that I don’t have to take it off in the shower and that I can swim with it!

– The vívosmart can receive message notifications for Skype, WhatsApp, Facebook, etc. Which freaked me out at first. I felt like I was on a leash, so I quickly deactivated the feature. I’ve recently decided to give it another try and , while I like that I can keep on top of most things without having to look at my phone (- the device even vibrates before my phone rings), if you have very chatty friends, it’ll drain your battery faster than you can yell, “CUT IT OUT ALREADY!” Methinks I should deactivate it again or I’ll have to get used to charging my vívosmart every two days instead of once a week!

– I can time my “fitness activities”, which is why you haven’t seen the word “exercise” on this blog in a while.

Which, I admit, is a lie because:

1. You haven’t seen this blog at all in a while. I still don’t have a reliable internet connection so I have been writing fuckall.

2. Because I haven’t really been exercising either. Been doing the usual: swimming (1120 m.), biking (12 km.), and walking the dogs (approx. 1.5 km. during high tide; easily double that and more when the tide is very low), but only sporadically. The starvation diet was working a little too well and I didn’t want to lose too much weight. And then I resumed my regular (over)eating habits when Nicolas and I went to Bacolod to visit a friend, and when friends came over to Siargao for a visit. Which, of course, was followed by the requisite week-long recovery that involved drifting in and out of consciousness, interrupted only by the consumption of large amounts of greasy, carb-laden food.

Still I managed to keep my weight down, I think, with all the walking that I normally do on the island. (Since the starvation diet, my weight has consistently remained under 55 kilos.) I logged 27,571 steps on July 25, the day my friends arrived. (I logged 19,940 the day before and 18,856 the day after.) On the 28th, my last day of entertaining, vívosmart registered 21,549 steps, but that dropped to 5,800 the next day when I refused to get out of bed.

But, even with my periods of inactivity, I, surprisingly, still consistently top vívosmart’s Step Challenge leader board. If I’m not at number one, I’m usually in the top three. And that’s without even trying.

– The vívosmart prompts me to move if I’ve been idle for a while. Like now. Which gets me up and moving. Sometimes. Not really. Pfft. Like I’ll get up and move if I don’t have to.

DISLIKES:

– It doesn’t have a heart rate monitor, which is what I really wanted a fitness tracker for. It can connect to a heart rate monitor, but the idea of strapping another device to me doesn’t appeal.

– The vívosmart connects to my phone via bluetooth, but it still needs an internet connection to transfer data, which sucks considering that I often do not have an internet connection. And this is the main reason why the UP3 no longer appeals to me. I just found out that it has no display and its data can only be accessed through its app. Right. How advanced could UP3 be when it doesn’t understand the concept of instant gratification?

– The device vibrates when you’ve lost your bluetooth connection, which is supposed to be a way of keeping track of the whereabouts of your phone. Except that if somebody did steal your phone, you’ll only be alerted to it when the thief is well on his way to Timbuktu. I know it isn’t Garmin’s fault that the bluetooth range is now pretty far-reaching, but I suppose I’m just saying that no one should rely on their bluetooth connection to assume that their phone is nearby because that may not always be the case.

A few months ago, I came across an article re the “dark side” of fitness trackers. I can definitely see how one can be addicted to one’s fitness tracker and the data it collects. When I was in Manila, I would walk my mom’s dog just to reach the goal of x amount of steps that vívosmart had set for me. (The poor dog now thinks that I care.)

For a while, I was even inputting my food intake into My Fitness Pal (which works with Garmin Connect, vívosmart’s app), but counting calories has never been my thing. Especially when I’m often told that I’ve exceeded my maximum calorie intake for the day – when I’m not even halfway through listing what I had for my first meal!

I think my laziness far outweighs any obsessive compulsion I could possibly have. It takes commitment and focus to develop a neurosis, both of which I simply do not have.

I have no illusion that the data contained in my vívosmart is an accurate representation of my physical activity. Last year, I bought a pedometer on IndiGo, my favorite Indian airline, and, while Alan and I were waiting for Stephen at the Cochin airport, I counted my steps and checked it against the pedometer. The pedometer was off by, er, A LOT. So I’m aware that it isn’t accurate, but I like having some record of what I’m doing, which was what this blog was all about. Now, most of that information is stored on Garmin Connect.

So, if you’re on Garmin Connect, please feel free to connect with me. Look for TangerineChick.