Garmin Vivomove Sport review: An affordable hybrid smartwatch that looks great too

The watch offers Pulse Oximeter,  "Body Battery", stress and energy monitoring, and 24x7 heart rate monitoring.

(Image: Garmin)

In my two weeks with the watch, the most useful features have been stress monitoring and body battery. While the former is self-explanatory, the second is a measure of your body's battery — it turns out your body has a level of charge at the start of each day and depletes as you go through the day, like any gadget. In my case, it was fairly accurate — I would start my day at around 75/100 and end with about 15 percent left in the tank.

As for stress, as you can imagine, it was always on the higher side, but it was part of the course.

The heart rate monitor does a great job of tracking this most vital of signs and, as per the literature that came with the watch, would harshly buzz if the user's resting heart rate goes above normal. It hadn't happened to me, but it's still a useful feature to have, especially if you have a history of cardiovascular-related conditions or hypertension.

The watch also detects when you have been sedentary for too long and orders you to move (seriously, it's an order).

The sleep tracking feature is quite accurate, too, with the watch measuring your deep sleep, restfulness and disturbed sleep.

(Image: Garmin)

The true champion of this smart wearable is its battery — I only had to charge it once every four days, and considering just how many things are running in the background, that's an impressively long time to last on a single charge.

The watch is paired with a smartphone — Android or iOS — through the Garmin Connect app, which also serves as a companion application, giving you all the readings in one place. You can track your real-time heart rate, stress levels, and body battery and also take a peek at how well you slept the previous night.

The watch is light, and the rubber straps are super comfortable, so much so that I forgot I was wearing the watch when I took a shower. It's a good thing the watch is water resistant.

In short, the Garmin Vivomove Sport is an affordable hybrid smartwatch that functions as a normal timepiece when you want it to and can turn into a health and fitness tracker with just a double tap.