If you bought yourself a fitness tracker to help support your New Year health goals, or indeed had one bought for you, take a glance now at how much battery it has left. If you charged it to be ready for 1st January, the chances are it’s already lost a quarter of its juice – and if it’s an Apple Watch, you’ve probably already had to plug it in again at least once.
For those frustrated by this lack of longevity, the new Garmin Vivofit 4 tracker might be more up your street because it offers a humongous one year of battery life. This almost-endless energy is due to the Vivofit 4 using a coin battery, rather than a rechargeable one, so you will have to replace it after a year, but that’s a problem for later so forget about it now.
The previous version of the Vivofit offered similarly impressive battery life, but the Vivofit 4 outdoes its predecessor by also having an always-on colour screen. It’s a more stylish tracker too, with a variety of interchangeable bands and a shiny silver button on the front.
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The Vivofit 4 is designed to be worn at all times, so showers and swims won’t bother it, and it will also track your sleep. You get all the everyday activity-tracking classics like steps, calories, floors climbed and active minutes. You can set your own goals, or allow Garmin to adjust your step target in line with your activity, which is a good way to stay motivated because a fixed goal can be too easy or hard to keep you interested.
The device tracks sports automatically through Garmin’s Move IQ feature, which detects and logs activities like walking, running, cycling, swimming and using a cross-trainer. All of these are recorded in the excellent Garmin Connect app, where you can also relabel an activity if the Vivofit 4 has rudely mistaken your run for a walk, for example.
The Vivofit 4 is more attractively priced than the main everyday tracker competition from Fitbit – the Charge 2 and Alta HR, which are currently £99 – although it doesn’t offer heart rate monitoring like those devices do. If you’re after a simple, everyday tracker with a long battery life, the stylish Misfit Ray is only £49.99, but it doesn’t have a screen or track sports in as much detail as the Vivofit 4.
