Garmin Vivoactive 3 Tips And Tricks

The smartwatch industry has been shaken with the release of the Garmin Vivoactive 3.

It comes packed with a plethora of smart features that can only be found in high-end smartwatches. The value proposition that it is offering is quite something.

Now, if you got one of these, you might be wondering that if there are any Garmin Vivoactive 3 tips and tricks that you do not know of.

Well, yeah, there are many new features that Garmin introduced to their smartwatches with the Vivoactive 3.

And if you are relatively new to the Garmin devices, you might not know all of them.

But you will not have to worry about that anymore because we are going to make you accustomed to most of them. With that being said, let us get right into it.

Related Topic: Fitbit Versa vs. Garmin Vivoactive 3

Table of Contents

Tips for Extending the Battery Life of the Garmin 3

The Garmin Vivoactive 3 does come with an adequately-sized battery, which can offer seven days of battery life in the smartwatch mode.

However, if the battery life that you are getting is not satisfactory, these are the things that you can do for increasing the battery life of the Vivoactive 3:

Disable Auto Activity

The smartwatch can start measuring the activity automatically without you having to tap on anything.

For that, it has to keep some of the sensors functioning all the time. However, if you disable some of those, you can extend the battery life substantially.

By this, we are not implying you to turn off the move IQ of the watch because that feature is important.

The one that we are suggesting you to disable is the auto walking and running activity monitoring mechanism.

You can just manually start it up when you want to monitor your steps and calories burnt.

Disconnect It with Your Phone

We know that getting texts directly to your phone is a convenient feature to have. But it does consume a significant amount of juice.

Even though the Bluetooth chip that is used in the watch is quite efficient, you can still extend a bit of your battery life by not keeping it connected all the time.

Use Chest Strap

The Vivoactive 3 is compatible with a plethora of smart accessories that are out there. And the wrist HRM is one of them.

However, it does require you to connect with the chip that is on the strap, which will drain your battery.

Keeping that in mind, we would recommend you to use the chest strap instead of that.

Set the Backlight to an Absolute Minimum

If you mostly stay indoors or if you hardly go out in the sun, it would be better if you keep the backlight at 10 percent.

It will allow you to extend the battery life substantially.

Set the Auto Wake to Short Duration

The smartwatch comes with an always-on display mode that will make the screen stay lit all the time.

Even though the screen that it features is the color transflective screen, the battery consumption is on par with OLED screens.

And on that screen, the always-on display feature will consume a considerable chunk of battery.

However, you will be able to dial down the battery consumption by setting the auto wake duration to “short.” It will not keep the screen on at the brightness settings for a long time when you pick it up, which will allow you to save quite an amount of battery.

Related Guide: Garmin Fenix 3 vs. Vivoactive 3

Tricks to Save Your Current Location for Navigating Later

Unlike some of the smartwatches that Garmin introduced to the market, this one comes with an advanced GPS that will precisely track your location. You will also be able to save a location that you are currently in to navigate to it later. The steps for that are:

• First, you will have to turn on the smartwatch. Once it is on, you will be on the home screen.

• Now that you are on the home screen, you will have to press and hold the side button for a while.

• After that, a menu will pop up, which is called the controls menu.

• Once you are in the controls menu, you will have a plethora of options there. You can set the do not disturb mode, access the Garmin pay wallet, turn the device off, save your current location, and more.

• By tapping the map icon on the control menu, you will be able to save your current location. This current location will be saved on your preferred map app that you use on your phone.

How to Calibrate the GPS of the Garmin Vivoactive 3?

You will require the GPS to start any activity from the watch. And if the GPS is not working properly, you will have to calibrate it. The steps are:

• Turn on your watch. Once the smartwatch is turned on, you will be on the home screen.

• While staying on the home screen, you will have to tap the side button once. After that, a list of activities will pop up. If this is the first time you are in this menu, then you will have to set your favorite activities first.

• Now, you will have to select one activity to make the GPS functionality start.

• If the GPS is facing trouble in case of starting or if it does not start at all, you will have to move your watch in a figure 8 motion.

Continue moving in that motion until the GPS starts. After a while, the GPS will be calibrated, and it should start working optimally.

You can also read Do Divvy Bikes Have GPS

Final Words

Now that you are aware of some of the Garmin Vivoactive 3 tips and tricks, you will be able to get the most out of your smartwatch.

With that said, we would like to wrap it up here by wishing you good luck and hoping that you can use the watch efficiently to track your health and stay fit.