Garmin Vivosmart Tutorials


Garmin Vivosmart is an activity tracker that displays your daily activity and notifications from your smartphone. We put together a few short How To tutorials to help you get started.

We cover the following topics:

  • Quick Setup using iPhone
  • Setup With a Computer and Garmin Express
  • How to Start a Fitness Activity
  • How to Use Sleep Mode
  • How to Find Your Smartphone
  • Bluetooth Settings
  • How To Adjust Brightness
  • How To Adjust Time Settings
  • How To Force Sync
  • How to Pair a Heart Rate Monitor
  • How to Reset

Quick Setup using iPhone

Getting setup with your new Garmin vivosmart is quick and easy. In the box includes the device, USB charging cable, instructions and wrist strap accessory.

First thing to do is plug in your device to the charging cable and plug it into a USB port. During this time, you can download Garmin Connect on your computer and/or Garmin Connect Mobile to your smartphone. You’ll notice once you remove the device from the charging cable that a URL will appear.

We’ll focus on getting up using our smartphone, because that will allow us to sync our activities in a more fluid manner and to install any software updates. So really, our charging cable can be stored in a secure spot where you can recharge the device every 5 days or so.

Once the Garmin vivosmart has been charged and our apps have been installed, we unplug the device from the charging cable, turn on our bluetooth on our smartphone and open up the Garmin Connect app.

From here we can create or login to our Garmin Connect account. Once done, we can pair the device by choosing the vivosmart from the device list.

Once it’s found the vivosmart, it will display on the unit the pair code, enter it on the app and it will complete the setup. If there is a software update, this is where it will be downloaded and installed. so this part might take a few minutes.

At this point, the setup on the app will guide on the various screens and an initial sync will occur. Now you can put on your vivosmart and start using it!

 

Setup With a Computer and Garmin Express


Setup your garmin vivosmart to your mac or pc computer. The process is pretty simple and you can use either the USB charging cable or USB wireless dongles for this. But first make sure you download & install Garmin Express to your computer.

Now plug in your garmin vivosmart to your charging cable. Once the battery icon is shown, PRESS somewhat hard along the middle of the display until you see the USB icon appear on the right side. You might have to try this a few times to get it right.

Once in USB mode, you can now open Garmin Express and from the main panel select ADD A NEW DEVICE.

When plugged in via the USB cable, it should find it very quickly. Once it finds the vivosmart, CLICK ADD DEVICE.

From this point, you can either create or Log In into your Garmin Connect account. You’ll verify some profile information and click DONE.

Note that you can access other tools and settings , including removing the device from your garmin express account.

At this point, you can remove the vivomsart from the charger and start using it.

 

How to Start a Fitness Activity


Anytime you walk or run, you can store that activity to your Garmin Connect history by using your vivosmart.

1. Wake up the device and TAP & HOLD to reveal the menu
2. SELECT the running icon. If you have a HR strap on, wait a moment for it to connect with your vivosmart.
3. TAP the PLAY/PAUSE icon to start the timer. TAP the icon again when done.

SAVE the activity by TAPPING the DISK icon or TAP the TRASH icon to delete the activity.

 

How to Use Sleep Mode

Sleep tracking on your Garmin vivosmart allows you to record total hours of sleep, periods of movement and sleep length. If you forget to use this feature, you can always manually enter it on your Garmin Connect account.

1. Wake up the device and TAP & HOLD to reveal the menu
2. Select the MOON icon and TAP OK.
3. When you wake up, repeat the steps by WAKING UP the device and TAP & HOLD until you exit sleep mode.

 

How to Find Your Smartphone


If you need to find your smartphone and within bluetooth range, you can use the find my phone feature on your garmin vivosmart.

1. Double TAP to wake up the device
2. TAP and HOLD to reveal the menu
3. SWIPE until you see the PHONE icon, TAP to ping your phone.

At this point you should see & hear notifications coming from your smartphone. You can unlock your phone to stop.

You can hit BACK icon to stop searching.

 

Bluetooth Settings

You can turn off the bluetooth radio from your Garmin vivosmart if you prefer to sync the data via the USB cable and a computer rather than use your smartphone.

1. DOUBLE TAP to wake up the device
2. TAP and HOLD to reveal the menu
3. SWIPE until you see the Bluetooth icon, TAP to see the options.

From here, you can SWIPE to either TURN OFF, TURN ON, HIDE ALERTS or enter PAIRING mode. TAP to make your selection and TAP on the BACK icon to return to your main display.

 

How To Adjust Brightness

You can adjust the brightness on your garmin vivosmart very easily by doing the following to increase or decrease the brightness.

1. DOUBLE TAP to wake up the device
2. TAP AND HOLD to reveal the menu
3. TAP on the brightness icon

Now TAP on either the PLUS or MINUS icons to increase or decrease the brightness. TAP on the BACK icon to apply your changes.

 

How To Adjust Time Settings

On your Garmin vivosmart, you can set the time by either using your smartphone’s time or set it manually. By default it will opt to set using your mobile. Each time you sync with your smartphone, it will set the time automatically.

1. DOUBLE TAP to wake up the device.
2. TAP and HOLD to reveal the menu
3. SWIPE until you see the CLOCK icon and TAP to select the options.

From here you can SWIPE either MOBILE or MANUAL. If you select manual, the display will show the date & time and you can use the plus or minus to set each field. TAP the CHECKMARK icon to apply your setting for each field.

 

How To Force Sync


In order to use the force sync funtion on your Garmin vivosmart properly, you need to have it paired to your smartphone first. However once this is done, you can use this feature to send data at any time.

1. DOUBLE TAP to wake up the device
2. TAP and HOLD to reveal the menu
3. SWIPE until you see the UP&DOWN icon

at this point, just TAP the icon and provided that your smartphone is in range, it will sync the data to garmin connect mobile.

How to Pair a Heart Rate Monitor

You can pair an existing Garmin Heart Rate Monitor (or ANT+ compatible) to your Garmin vivosmart; and it’s pretty easy.

The best way to is to have your vivosmart paired with your smartphone, because we will use the Garmin Connect Mobile app to enable the Heart Rate display screen. Once this screen is turned on, we will be able to pair the HR strap.

Note that if you bought the vivosmart with a HR strap, it should come already paired.

1. Put on your Garmin Heart Rate Strap across your chest.
2. Open the Garmin Connect Mobile app
3. Go to MORE | Devices | vivosmart | Device Settings | Display | Heart Rate.

Note that if you have other ANT+ sensors you can turn on those screens in the same spot.

Now let your vivosmart sync to apply the settings.

4. Wake up your device
5. SWIPE left or right until you see the Heart Rate screen.

At this point point you will see the heart icon and it will flash for several seconds as it pairs and eventually you will your current heart rate.

Now you can record an activity and have the heart rate also recorded. Especially useful if you have your zones setup in your Garmin connect profile.

How to Reset

There are two ways to reset your Garmin vivosmart: easy or hard way. Let’s try the easy way first. Note that if you have not sync your device, you will lose data.

EASY WAY
1. Wake up the vivosmart and reveal the menu.
2. Swipe until you see the INFO icon and tap to select it.
3. PRESS and HOLD several seconds until you see SHIP MODE. Press OK

The device will reset. From here you start like it way out of the box. You may need to plug it into the USB charger if you can’t get it to wake up.

HARD WAY
This is more complicated, assuming you have it paired with a smartphone.
1. Delete Garmin Connect Mobile
2. Forget the bluetooth pairing from your smartphone settings
3. Plug in the device into your USB charger and go into USB storage mode by PRESS & HOLD until you see the USB icon
4. On your computer, open the GARMIN drive and go into the GARMIN folder.
5. DELETE all files & folders.

Now at this point you can download Garmin Connect Mobile again and start the pairing process. It will take a little while to finish the configuration since it will be downloading a new copy of the GARMIN folder.



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