Defective Garmin Vivoactive - Welcome To The Wall Of Shame

If you travel as much as I do and are active (walking, hiking, golfing, swimming, etc.), a good activity monitor or smart watch is indispensable. I bought one from Amazon.com a little over a year ago and am I sorry I did.

The Garmin Vivoactive ($179) worked fine for about six months, monitoring sleep and the golf function worked OK. When walking (golf) or during travel (we walk a lot), it kept track of steps and was quite useful, but I use an elliptical trainer for much of my cardio and the Vivoactive was/is totally useless unless your arms are swinging.

After 5-6 months, it quit syncing sleep on a regular basis and a month or two later the golf function stopped working altogether. For golf, it give you basic yardages (front/center/back of green) and keeps score, but that's it. It has difficulty recognizing the golf course you have just arrived at, even with GPS, so you have to remember to sync it via Bluetooth with the Garmin Connect app on your phone, a real pain in the butt.

For the past several months the golf function, one of the primary reasons I bought it, quit working altogether. It can find the course, but when you click on the course you want to play, it starts "downloading data" and "transferring data", but then goes back to the main menu. Once on the course, it sometimes would start working, but FOR THE WRONG COURSE. The course I play has a short Par 4 2nd hole, but the Vivoactive lists the 2nd hole as a Par 5 and the yardage does not work at all.

This "smart" watch is a piece of junk. I wasted $179 for a digital watch when I could have paid $30 and gotten a better Casio with more functions than this thing has now. Garmin came out with the Vivoactive HR just weeks after I bought this garbage, but did not bother telling me that I could have bought an upgraded watch with a heart rate monitor for a little more if I waited a few days. I do not know if the Vivoactive HR is any better than the Vivoactive, but it could not be any worse.

The watch stopped working altogether in July 2017, dead as a doorknob. I will never buy a Garmin product again because of their lack of customer service and the junk they sell. DO NOT BUY A GARMIN VIVOACTIVE!

CombatCritic Gives Garmin and Their Vivoactive 1 Bomb Out Of 10 And A Spot On My "WALL OF SHAME" ... More Bombs Are Better!

One Bomb Equates To:

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Title: Travel Tech: Defective Garmin Vivoactive - Welcome To The Wall Of Shame

Key Words: Garmin, Vivoactive, watch, GPS, smart watch, golf, steps, activity, monitor, active, Portland, Oregon, CombatCritic, TravelValue, travel, value, product, business, review, Yelp

Translation for Civilians: FUBAR = "Fucked Up Beyond Any/All Repair"

Copyright 2018 - 3rd Wave Media Group, LLC and CombatCritic - All Rights Reserved

The Misfit Flash Is A "Flash" In The Pan, Don't Waste Your Money

Misfit Flash 

Fitness Monitor

Sold by Amazon.com

$25.97 Plus Tax

Being a gym rat, avid golfer and frequent traveler, fitness is important even while on the road. With aerobic machines rarely available while on vacation, a fitness monitor provides a quick and easy way to ensure I get enough exercise, at a glance, so I bought the Misfit Flash through Amazon.com.

When the Flash synced with the Misfit app, it seemed to work well enough. The "points" (steps) were sometimes off (low) and sleep stopped tracking if I awoke after 5am, even if you go back to sleep, but for $30 it was acceptable until it stopped syncing altogether. The instructions that came with the Flash were totally inadequate and their website provides little, if any, technical information or support (for example, they do not bother telling you how to change the battery).

Even though I had the Flash for a little over 30 days, 32 to be exact, Amazon at first refused to allow me to return it. The device worked OK in the beginning, but recently only synced intermittently with the Misfit app. I had bought one for my wife a few days after getting mine (because it seemed to work OK at first), but her's did not sync for weeks and then would not even pair with the Misfit app via Bluetooth. 

I contacted Misfit on numerous occasions (February 4th, 6th, 27th, 28th and March 2nd to be exact) about a fix, but they either refused to respond or sent me the same lame cut and paste instructions that are available on their website. They dragged their feet long enough that I was 2 days out of warranty by the time I got around to contacting Amazon about a return. Fortunately, my wife's Flash, also bought through Amazon, was within the 30-day return policy, but I thought that I was apparently out of luck.

I ended up returning my Flash in the same box I was returning my wife's in, even if I would not receive a refund, contacting Amazon (not an easy thing to do by the way) and letting them know of my dismay. Low and behold, I received an email the very next day telling me that they were processing a refund for my former Flash in addition to my wife's. Maybe their motto, "We're Building Earth's Most Customer-Centric Company", is true after all! 

The Misfit Flash is junk and Misfit obviously doesn't care about their customers, so do not waste your money.

CombatCritic Gives the Misfit Flash (and Amazon.com's published return policy) 1 Bomb Out Of 10 and a spot on my Wall of Shame ... More Bombs Are Better!

One Bomb Equates To:

Read Reviews By CombatCritic:

Yelp - Elite '14/'15/'16

TripAdvisor - Top Contributor

Tabelog - Official Judge (Bronze)

Zomato - #1 Ranked Foodie





... And Don't Forget To Subscribe To TravelValue TV on YouTube

Title: TravelTech: The Misfit Flash Is A "Flash" In The Pan, Don't Waste Your Money

Key Words: Misfit Flash, Misfit, flash, wearable, activity, tracker, monitor, fitness, sleep, Amazon, Amazon.com, technology, tech, CombatCritic, TravelValue, travel, value, product, review, Yelp

Translation for Civilians: FUBAR = "Fucked Up Beyond All Repair"