Garmin just unveiled its first LTE-enabled smartwatch at the ongoing CES 2019 in Las Vegas. It’s not a new watch, but an update to its existing Vivoactive 3 Music smartwatch. The company has partnered with the American telecom operator Verizon Wireless for this launch.
Garmin Vivoactive 3 Music LTE
The LTE-enabled Garmin Vivoactive 3 Music can connect to Verizon’s LTE network for a variety of features including text messaging and, naturally, music. The watch also comes with some safety-focused features. There’s an emergency mode that will alert pre-selected contacts with your real-time location when you hold down the button. The watch can also automatically detect an incident while you’re walking or biking. There’s also a non-emergency “LiveTrack” setting that lets your contacts see where you are while you’re out on a workout.
As for other features, the Garmin Vivoactive 3 Music comes with the Garmin Pay virtual wallet that can work over LTE now. You also get heart rate monitor, sleep tracker, GPS, and other basic sensors.
Garmin promises the watch to run for up to 4 hours on a single charge with GPS and LiveTrack enabled and music playing. The battery back-up, however, shoots up to 5 days on smartwatch-only mode. The watch comes with ample storage space to keep 500 songs for offline listening. And now with LTE support, you can directly download music into the watch. Apparently, Garmin didn’t specify if the watch can stream music over LTE. The company only said that users can “download their favorite songs or playlists.” However, Garmin did said that users will be able to select playlists from their Deezer or Spotify accounts to sync to the watch regardless of whether they’re on WiFi or LTE.
The Garmin Vivoactive 3 Music features a 1.2-inch 240×240 circular display protected with Gorilla Glass 3. It has a 5 ATM swimproof rating. The watch has a polymer case and comes with replaceable silicone strap.
Garmin is yet to announce the price and availability of the LTE-enabled Garmin Vivoactive 3 Music. The regular version of the watch is priced at $300.
