Even while many industry analysts and users have been wondering what new stuff Garmin has to offer now in terms of wearables, the company has gone ahead and announced the arrival of the Vivoactive HR. This particular fitness watch, however, has now been improved compared to the previous offering and has been attracting attention on the Internet.

Reporting on the arrival of the Vivoactive HR, CNET states that it now has heart rate monitoring onboard which is a huge improvement from the previous version. It adds that, taking advantage of this, users will be able to stop wearing a chest strap which they had to employ when using the previous version of the Vivoactive watch. Garmin also seems to be aware that the heart rate monitor on board the smartwatch is going to be an important feature and, therefore, included the HR portion in the name of the device.

As for the design of the Vivoactive HR, there appears to be an activity tracker at its core, but it comes with several smartwatch-like features including the ability to show users notifications, incoming calls, alerts and messages. However, it needs to be paired with a smartphone for all these functions to work.

The activity tracking features of the Vivoactive HR are especially well developed so the device can automatically identify whether the user is running, climbing stairs or riding a bike. In addition to this, the Vivoactive HR tracks steps that they take, the amount of calories burnt during a workout and even sleep patterns. Also, it can track the number of floors that a user has climbed.

Finally, there is GPS onboard the Vivoactive HR and it comes with a number of fitness apps that have been inbuilt into it. These can track a variety of activities such as running and cycling to others that are more complex like skiing and rowing.