Lower than 10 months after the prevailing Lily 2 got here out, Garmin has fairly considerably upgraded the providing with the brand new Lily 2 Lively. This watch, because the identify may suggest, is certainly focusing on a extra sporty buyer, with built-in GPS, new sport modes, new construction exercises, sensor pairing, and extra.
Each myself and my spouse have been giving the brand new Lily 2 Lively a whirl, on our current exercises, seeing the way it holds up. After all, whereas all Garmin watches have some well being/health/sport flare to them, the spectrum is kind of huge as of late. This product, like earlier Lily and VivoMove items earlier than it, is aimed as offering a minimalist watch that doesn’t appear like a smartwatch. When the display is powered off, it has a fashionable-looking floor as a substitute. But in any other case, it tracks virtually all the identical 24×7 day by day exercise and sleep metrics as one in every of Garmin’s $1,000 Fenix 8 watches.
So, let’s dive into it!
What’s new:
The Lily 2 clearly leans heavy on the prevailing Lily 2 product, however there are a variety of key new space, which now embody the next new options of the Lily 2 Lively, in comparison with the unique Lily 2:
– Added built-in GPS (no cellphone required for GPS monitoring), with 9hrs GPS battery life
– Added 15 new sport profiles
– Added two buttons for simpler consumer interface navigation
– Added sensor pairing: Coronary heart Price, Velocity/Cadence, ANT+ Lights, Working Footpod, Tempe (temperature)
– Added coronary heart price broadcasting to third celebration gadgets/apps (e.g. Peloton)
– Added a compass
– Added coronary heart price variability (HRV) monitoring
– Added Nap Detection
– Added Well being Snapshot function
– Added Golf Options
– Added Garmin Coach
– Added Structured Exercises
– Added Superior Swim Metrics
– Garmin Pay now normal (beforehand solely Traditional Fashions)
– Elevated battery life to 9 days (from earlier 5 day declare)
– Switches to Garmin normal charging port
Given the Lily 2 line continues to be kinda new in my eyes, right here’s a fast refresher on what’s new within the Lily 2 in comparison with the Lily 1:
– Modified from plastic case to steel case
– Switched to straightforward 14mm band design (vs earlier 14mm proprietary design)
– Provides Sleep Rating and Sleep Particulars on watch widget
– Provides incident detection (e.g. bike crash) security alerts
– Provides Garmin Pay to traditional editions (contactless funds)
– Additionally added new sport profiles: HIIT, Row Indoor, Stroll Indoor, Meditation
– Provides Dance Health Function, with Dance Sorts: Afrobeat, Bhangra, Bollywood, EDM, Hip Hop, Latin, Line Dancing, Pop & Jazz, Video Recreation, Cardio
– Priced at $249 for Lily 2 with a silicone band, $279 for Lily 2 Traditional Nylon band, and $299 for Lily 2 Traditional Leather-based (all of which is a $50 enhance from Lily
After which, for these not accustomed to the Lily collection, right here’s all of the baseline Lily bits:
– Smartwatch with 24×7 exercise monitoring for steps/distance/energy
– Optical HR sensor for twenty-four×7 coronary heart price monitoring (Garmin ELEVATE Gen 4)
– PulseOx sensor for sleeping SpO2 monitoring
– Tracks respiration/respiratory price 24×7
– Tracks stress and sleep routinely
– Sports activities monitoring (per above/under sport profiles)
– Shows smartphone notifications, in addition to particulars like calendar appointments and the climate
– Has stay monitoring, together with security and incident alerts
– Consists of feminine well being monitoring for each menstrual cycles and being pregnant monitoring
– Tracks your VO2Max based mostly on exercise information
– Doesn’t embody stair monitoring (no barometric altimeter)
– Doesn’t embody music storage/playback, however can management music in your cellphone
Right here’s all of the sports activities profiles which might be on the Lily 2:
Run, Treadmill, Bike, Bike Indoor, Pool Swim, Yoga, Stroll, Stroll Indoor, Indoor Monitor, Energy, HIIT, Cardio, Pilates, Elliptical, Stair Stepper, Row Indoor, Row, SUP, Golf, Disc Golf, Ski, XC Traditional Ski, Snowboard, Snowshoe, Breathwork, Meditation, Tennis, Pickleball, Padel, Leap Rope, Different, Dance Health, Well being Snapshot
Phew, bought all that? Good, let’s get into utilizing the watch.
The Fundamentals:
One of many issues Garmin continues to do a reasonably stable job of, is holding virtually all of their watches on the identical stage of day by day exercise monitoring and well being monitoring options, albeit there are some slight variations by way of issues like lack of stair monitoring on the Garmin Lily 2 Lively, on account of lack of barometric altimeter.
Nonetheless, beginning off with essentially the most fundamental of elements: The display and controls. The Lily 2 Lively provides two buttons, that are very a lot appreciated right here. Whereas there was a pattern by many watch firms away from buttons a couple of years in the past, that pattern has fortunately reversed course, as logic has set in: Not every part is nice with contact screens, particularly in health.
As with most Garmin watches, the higher proper button is your affirmation/OK button, and the decrease proper button is your escape/again button. Additionally like most Garmin watches, that higher proper button is the place you faucet to start out/choose a sport mode.
Nonetheless, there’s additionally a tiny little ‘button’ on the backside of the display. This button/contact space acts as a quick-access button to be personalized and go on to a given display (such because the watch face). And, if on the watch face, you may faucet it to iterate by way of the assorted metrics on the prime.
Talking of which, right here’s the default watch face, which illuminates once you increase your wrist:
In any other case, when your wrist is down, it appears like this – with the display components utterly invisible:
You possibly can change to different watch faces, in addition to allow/disable sure metrics/problems. You don’t fairly have as a lot flexibility as different Garmin watches on this space although.
Subsequent, should you swipe to the left/proper, you’ll undergo your widgets. These are metrics like steps, sleep, well being stats overview, calendar, climate, Physique Battery, HRV Standing, and lots extra.
You possibly can then faucet into any given one, corresponding to this one on steps, to see extra particulars about it:
After which all of this information can also be in Garmin Join cell, for each quick and long-term trending:
Likewise, you’ll see the identical for sleep:
From a sleep monitoring perspective, it’s nailed my go to sleep/wake-up instances inside 1-2 minutes every time, which is what I are likely to see on Garmin watches as of late. I don’t nonetheless price the accuracy of the sleep levels/phases (e.g. REM/Deep/and so on…), as there isn’t truly tremendous correct methods of evaluating sleep levels, with most of these strategies solely topping out within the mid-80% correct vary. Hardly all that correct. As an alternative, I discover that if wearables are correctly capturing awake/asleep time, that’s actually the important thing bit of data.
In any occasion, you may see all this sleep information on the watch, in addition to inside the Garmin Join app (or web site). Right here’s an instance of the sleep information.
Likewise, one of many new options on the Lily 2 Lively is the addition of coronary heart price variability (HRV) monitoring. You’ll get quick date after your first night time’s sleep (which is when HRV information is monitoring on this context), although it’ll take 19 nights of sleep to start out getting trending information (corresponding to ‘Balanced’ or ‘Unbalanced’). There are numerous components that may affect HRV (sleep high quality, alcohol, coaching, jet lag, illness, and so on…). However it may be used together with your information of what’s happening in your life, to determine if maybe your overdoing it.
Talking of all this heart-rate pushed stuff, that comes from the optical coronary heart price sensor on the again of the watch, which is Garmin’s Elevate V4 optical HR sensor. That implies that it’ll monitor most exercises fairly properly (there’s solely a minor enhance in accuracy in comparison with V5), but it surely received’t do ECG or pores and skin temperature, because the V5 does.
It does nonetheless do blood oxygen monitoring (referred to as PulseOx by Garmin), at night time. As you may see within the sleep stats above.
Lastly, the unit can show smartphone notifications, in addition to management your music in your cellphone. There’s no music storage on the machine itself nonetheless.
With that, let’s shift into utilizing it for sports activities.
Sport Utilization:
The Lily 2 Lively’s upgrades across the sports activities realm are fairly notable, particularly should you felt the dearth of GPS within the present Lily 2 was a deal-breaker. This bridges that hole, and provides you a couple of information pages per sport profile (with as much as three information fields per information web page), together with giant pile of sport profiles. Plus, you’ve now bought buttons that make the entire sports activities factor a lot simpler than the earlier and typically finicky throughout exercises, contact solely show.
To start a exercise, you’ll faucet the (new) higher proper button, which opens up a sports activities itemizing:
You possibly can customise this itemizing on the watch, or by way of the app, altering which sports activities are included. Right here’s an entire itemizing of all of the sports activities provided:
Run, Treadmill, Bike, Bike Indoor, Pool Swim, Yoga, Stroll, Stroll Indoor, Indoor Monitor, Energy, HIIT, Cardio, Pilates, Elliptical, Stair Stepper, Row Indoor, Row, SUP, Golf, Disc Golf, Ski, XC Traditional Ski, Snowboard, Snowshoe, Breathwork, Meditation, Tennis, Pickleball, Padel, Leap Rope, Different, Dance Health, Well being Snapshot
Inside every sport profile, you may customise the game profile, in addition to teh dat pages. This contains two information pages (screens), with as much as 3 information fields per web page/display.
There’s a fairly robust set of knowledge fields, particularly in comparison with a few of their opponents on this house. You’ve bought all of the frequent ones, but in addition much less anticipated ones like compass heading, temperature, 24-hour min/max temps, dawn, sundown, and extra.
That’s along with Auto Scroll, Auto Lap, and alerts together with coronary heart price zone alerts, time alerts, distance alerts, and calorie alerts. When you’ve selected all that stuff, again in your watch, it’ll present the standing of the GPS connection, in addition to any sensors you may need linked:
I’m going to make use of a run as a instance, however the entire sports activities work basically the identical manner.
At this level, you’ll see the info pages and fields you’ve setup. You possibly can swipe left/proper by way of these pages, in addition to hit the lap button for guide laps. Moreover, you may pause at any time by way of begin/cease. There aren’t another choices to tweak mid-run.
You possibly can manually lap throughout a run, or go away on auto-lap.
As well as, the Lily 2 Lively helps Garmin’s Dwell Monitoring, in case your cellphone is with you. This lets your family and friends see your GPS-enabled exercises, together with your exercise information. That is helpful not only for daily exercises, but in addition for issues like a marathon, letting them monitor you in actual time. You possibly can configure whether or not this routinely triggers for every exercise, or is manually accomplished. I simply go away it on automated notifications for every run to my spouse.
On the completion of your exercise, you’ll see a pile of abstract screens. These extra intently resemble what Garmin has on their mid-range and higher-end gadgets, all of which is an improve over the very fundamental abstract fields on the Lily 2.
Your exercise will sync to Garmin Join (their coaching and evaluation platform), the place you may view it in rather more element, in addition to transmitting over to any third celebration platforms you’ve bought (corresponding to Strava, TrainingPeaks, and so on…).
Now, one of many new options on the Lily 2 is the connectivity to third celebration sensors. This contains the entire commonest ones individuals have a tendency to make use of, apart from a biking energy meter (Observe: Within the unit I examined, ANT+ Biking Radar was included, however that apparently wasn’t presupposed to be there, thus, I’ve eliminated it from the listing up above, however I don’t have any manner of eradicating it from the video). However even I’d agree that the cross-over between individuals sporting this watch and biking energy meters might be fairly minimal.
The above will connect with these sensors, after which report the info to your actions, identical to another high-end Garmin watch.
If nonetheless, you wish to broadcast your coronary heart price to a different platform in real-time, corresponding to connecting a Peloton Bike, different ANT+/Bluetooth health club gear, or another machine/app, you are able to do so with coronary heart price broadcasting. It will broadcast your coronary heart price in real-time over ANT+ & Bluetooth (concurrently). You possibly can both entry it from the per-sport profile menu, or, entry it by way of the controls menu by including it as a customized management. As soon as enabled, this then permits you to pair it up with different gadgets/apps/and so on.., corresponding to Peloton right here:
Lastly, the Lily 2 Lively provides in assist for customized structured exercises for a wide range of sports activities. This implies you may obtain exercises from Garmin Connect with your watch, corresponding to this:
This additionally contains the flexibility to leverage Garmin Coach, which helps you to decide a particular operating or biking aim after which offers personalized and ever-updating coaching schedules and exercises for you.
Total, that is much more options than I might have anticipated on a next-gen Lily machine.
GPS & Coronary heart Price Accuracy:
Garmin is leveraging the prevailing Garmin Elevate V4 coronary heart price sensor, the identical one used for various years now on most of their watches. It’s not nonetheless their newer Garmin Elevate V5 sensor that features ECG assist, launched ~June 2023. That’s solely been seen on higher-end items, albeit the value hole from this to the Garmin Venu 3 (which has it), is fairly minimal typically.
Garmin hasn’t specified which GPS chipset they’re utilizing, although, I’d be stunned if it wasn’t Airoha, like just about all their different wearables.
In any case, let’s check out accuracy of the GPS on a couple of runs from myself and my spouse. Beginning off with me, and a path run within the woods:
varied spots, it’s close to equivalent to the Garmin Fenix 8 and Apple Watch Extremely 2 – very stable efficiency.
Then, wanting on the coronary heart price facet, it solely made 1-2 minor-ish errors, slight delays once I shortly elevated the tempo up some sharp inclines. Nothing main, however notable.
Subsequent, taking a look at an interval exercise my spouse did, she’s in an space that’s considerably open, but in addition subsequent to some occasional huge buildings.
You possibly can see right here, it’s just about equivalent to the Fenix 7S Professional Photo voltaic Sapphire, and Fenix 8 she had along with her:
In the meantime, on the guts price facet, for the intervals, it’s very stable. In actual fact, I may even make the case it beat her Fenix 7S Professional Photo voltaic Sapphire (which has a extra high-end optical HR sensor, although, is a heavier watch, which may impression optical HR accuracy).
After all, none of that is actually a shock, the Elevate V4 optical HR sensor has been round for a few years now, and is properly understood. Although, I’m impressed with the GPS efficiency given the small type issue.
Wrap-Up:
After I first noticed that Garmin was popping out with one other Lily 2 simply 10 months after the primary, I used to be ready to be dissatisfied. However in actuality, I’m truly actually impressed. This could realistically be referred to as the Lily 3, given what number of new options this has. It’s a *HUGE* step up over the prevailing Lily 2. Be it GPS, the added sport profiles, HRV monitoring, added golf, and lots extra.
Garmin appears to have managed to cram in all this stuff, with out ruining the visible aesthetic of this watch or the minimalist really feel to sporting it. Positive, I’d like to have seen them squish the ECG parts into it, particularly for wrist temperature bits and the way that might finally be leveraged by Garmin for higher girls’s well being monitoring, however alas, perhaps that’ll be what Lily 3 sooner or later will get.
Total although, it’s a stable watch that delivers in each options in addition to accuracy. Heck, I can’t even complain in regards to the value this time, because it truly appears moderately consistent with each their previous merchandise and their opponents. Good job Garmin.
Thanks for studying!
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