Garmin Lily 2 Active Review: Where Style Meets Stamina
The challenge of finding a smartwatch that beautifully merges polished style with heavy duty fitness tracking features, that doesn’t look like a miniature robot on the wrist, is still a tall order for many consumers. Garmin, a well-known brand in the rugged sports watch market, is expanding its reach into the fashion watch market with the Lily series. The most recent version, the Garmin Lily 2 Active, is a significant evolution that seeks to appeal to buyers for whom looks matter but who want some features beyond basic tracking. We already know that built-in GPS and vastly improved battery life are hallmarks of a product that is both smaller and sexier than anything else Garmin makes — or anyone else for that matter. This review explores if the Lily 2 Active lives up to the combination of form and function, with an in-depth look at its design, performance, usability and how it stacks up with important competitors, serving as the ultimate guide for anyone in the market for this fashionable fitness companion.
That “Active” label is crucial; it means a truly considerable functional upgrade over the stock Lily 2 and Lily 2 Classic models. Though sharing the same core aesthetic, the Active variant adds integrated GPS and nearly doubles the battery life, changing it from a simple fashion tracker into a more complete fitness device. This perhaps showed that Garmin had identified a need for a more dedicated athletic performance tool for a slice of its potential user base, who wanted more serious athletic functionality without sacrificing the nuances of a discrete, stylish wearable. This review will look at exactly how adeptly Garmin traverses that line, and whether the Lily 2 Active finds a happy medium or winds up a compromise between its role as fashion accessory and full sports watch, potentially testing style oriented competitors from Apple and Fitbit alike with just the right amount of Garmin’s trademark fitness prowess.
Design, Display, and Core Features of the Unpacking the Lily 2 Active
How It Works: The Aesthetics and Build Quality
The Garmin Lily 2 Active stands out the moment you put it on for the distinct perspective on smartwatch design it gives. Its most defining feature is its elegance and size. Anodized aluminum means the 38mm round case is lightweight at 29 grams on the wrist. This smaller body is central to its appeal, especially to smaller-wristed users or people who find regular sports watches too bulky and boisterous. Available in chic color combinations such as Lunar Gold teamed with a Bone silicone band or Silver paired with a Purple Jasmine band, the aesthetic is squarely jewelry over tech.
Unlike other smart displays we’ve seen, a clearly defined aspect is the patterned lens that covers it when the digital display is inactive — helping to preserve its outer appearance of a standard timepiece. The lens of this is made with Corning Gorilla Glass 3, making it scratch-resistant for daily use. Two physical buttons are integrated proudly, but subtly between the metal case on the right side, giving tactile control without disturbing the minimalist nature of the design.
Most importantly, the Lily 2 series (Active included) adopts standard 14mm quick release bands. This is a major and welcome step up from the proprietary band system on the first Lily, which made customizing a headache. The standard size means that a huge world of third-party bands is available – leather, metal, nylon or coloured silicone – and they can be swapped out to suit outfits or events, which again enhances its potential position as a fashion accessory. The watch comes bundled with a slim, comfortable silicone band suitable for its fitness aspirations. On the whole, the design should appeal to users looking for a feminine, elegant and untraceable alternative to more performance-driven smartwatches for the gym or the boardroom or the ballroom.
The Dark Side of the Obscure Screen: Battling Monochrome
Behind that slick patterned lens, you’ll find a 1-inch (about 34mm effective diagonal) Liquid Crystal Display (LCD). Instead of the colorful, full-color AMOLED displays found on many rivals, the Lily 2 Active relies on a monochrome screen that can display 16 shades of gray and measures 240 x 201 pixels. It’s unique feature is the “hidden” nature; when in inactive mode, the display completely disappears, revealing only the decorative pattern.
Activation takes some sort of conscious action — either a tap on the screen or a flip of the wrist. It’s not an always-on display, which is part of the reason for its good battery life. Fortunately, the gesture recognition for waking the display has apparently been greatly improved over the sometimes slow waking of the original Lily (as noted by a reviewer), as well.
In most indoor and standard outdoor situations, visibility is decent. However, the monochrome LCD technology may struggle in bright, direct sunlight, where even on max brightness, the interface is not easily readable. The aesthetic of the display has been likened to an “e-reader feel,” which is a far cry from the punchy, colorful visuals of AMOLED displays seen on the Apple Watches, Samsung Galaxy Watches, or even Garmin’s own Venu and Vivoactive families.
This choice of display is not arbitrary but a strategic choice, with specific trade-offs. The monochrome LCD is key to giving both the unique hidden-display aesthetic and class-leading multi-day battery life. By valuing long-term use and understated visuals over screen vibrancy, it helps the Lily 2 Active stand out among its peers. This strategy could well be polarizing. Users used to the lavish screens on other premium smartwatches may find the Lily 2 Active’s display underwhelming or dated. This is to say that the watch isn’t about to be the watch that converts everybody en masse but that it has a narrow target audience: those users who actively prefer or at least are the type of customer willing to settle for a less-than dazzling screen if that means more battery power and a device that fades more into the background than one that makes a flashy statement as a shot of tech.
Behind the Scenes: Important Specs and Clever Features
The Lily 2 Active, despite its small size, comes with a decent set of sensors and connectivity — setting it apart with features over the base Lily 2 models. At its heart is Garmin’s Elevate Gen 4 optical heart rate sensor for continuous monitoring. It also features a Pulse Ox sensor to measure blood oxygen saturation (SpO2), usually while you’re asleep, and an accelerometer to track steps and other movements. The Active model also comes with a built-in GPS for tracking outdoor activities without a phone, and a compass, all unique to that model. There’s NFC for Garmin Pay contactless payments, which the Lily 2 Classic has, but the base Lily 2 doesn’t.
Smart features touch on the basics. Users can receive notifications for incoming calls, text messages, and other app alerts from a connected smartphone. Android users also have the added advantage of being able to quickly respond to texts from the watch. More conveniences include a calendar view for checking out daily schedules, weather forecasts and music controls which allow playback management on the connected phone (the watch itself has no on-board music storage, however). It also comes with a ‘Find My Phone’ feature.
Garmin’s safety and tracking features, including Incident Detection (which can detect a fall or crash when you fall off the bike or other similar activities) and Assistance (triggered manually). Once configured and linked with a smartphone that has a data signal, both features can transmit the user’s real-time location to designated emergency contacts. Also requiring a phone connection, LiveTrack enables one’s friends or family to track the user’s activity in real time.
The pairing with smartphones and syncing with Garmin Connect app is done via Bluetooth. The Active variant adds ANT+ support, allowing you to pair with external sensors, such as heart rate straps, speed/cadence sensors for cycling, running footpods and for Tempe temperature sensor, which is a big plus for more serious fitness tracking There is no word yet on battery life, but the watch can pair with both iOS and Android smartphones.
Garmin announces Health & Fitness Suite: Get in touch with your body
Garmin’s known for full-on health and wellness tracking, and the Lily 2 Active gets a lot of this ecosystem. It includes 24/7 wrist-based heart rate, continuous tracking, and detailed sleep tracking with a Sleep Score for every night plus breakdown and time spent in light, deep and REM phases of sleep with actionable insights.
Other classic Garmin features are included, too, such as Body Battery™ energy monitoring, giving you a score from 1-100 based on energy reserves, predicted based on your activity, stress, and rest. Stress tracking throughout the day is based on your heart rate variability (HRV) which can be used to track stress levels and provide you with reminders to relax and do guided breathing (Mindful Breathing, Meditation profiles). The watch also monitors breathing rate and blood-oxygen levels using the Pulse Ox. Hydration tracking by manual logging of fluid intake. Dedicated Women’s Health—track your ovulation and pregnancy with targeted know-how.
The Lily 2 Active adds a few features over the base or Classic versions for even greater wellness capabilities. Among them are monitoring your overnight Heart Rate Variability (HRV) status, an essential marker of your recovery and overall health. Automatic Nap Detection records daytime naps and determines their overall enhancement effect on Body Battery. The Morning Report offers a customizable wake-up summary of sleep quality, the day’s calendar, the weather and more. Health Snapshot lets people measure important data points such as HR, HRV, Pulse Ox, respiration, and stress in under two minutes to produce a report that can be shared.
All this data syncs to the Garmin Connect app, where users can view trends, get more detailed insights and connect with friends, all with no paid subscription needed – a big advantage over platforms such as Fitbit Premium.
Get Fit: Sports Apps, G.P.S. and Coaching
As its siblings are design forward, the Lily 2 Active is a step-up fitness-focused device but still maintains a stylish look. It has a larger variety of built-in sports apps, including common activities such as Running (outdoor and treadmill), Walking (outdoor and indoor), Cycling (outdoor and indoor), Pool Swimming, Yoga, Strength Training, HIIT, Pilates, Elliptical, Stair Stepper, and Indoor Rowing. It also has profiles for SUP, Golf, Skiing/Snowboarding, and different Dance Fitness modes (Zumba, Afrobeat, Bollywood, EDM, Hip-Hop). The Active has about 15 more profiles than the standard Lily 2.
The Active’s fitness upgrade is built around the GPS readout. This means users can track outdoor workouts such as runs, walks, and bike rides – including distance, pace, and mapping the route – without needing to take their smartphone with them. This is in contrast to the base Lily 2 and Classic models that are tied to the phone’s GPS (connected GPS).
And to further reinforce its active image, the Lily 2 Active works with Garmin Coach, providing free adaptive training plans for 5K, 10K, and half-marathon distances delivered by top coaches straight through the Garmin Connect app. It can also download and follow structured workouts created in Garmin Connect or pushed via third-party platforms like TrainingPeaks. For swimmers, it gives advanced pool swim metrics such as stroke count and type. The watch uses workout data to estimate VO2 Max (a measure of cardiovascular fitness), calculate Fitness Age, track weekly Intensity Minutes (another measure of fitness), and provide Move Alerts to encourage you to get moving.
The Active model also has ANT+ compatible native Bluetooth functionality for pairing with external sensors for improved accuracy during intense workouts, cycling speed and cadence sensors, running footpods for indoor distance/cadence, and even Tempe temperature sensors. It can also broadcast wrist-based heart rate data over ANT+ to compatible gym equipment or apps like Peloton.
These new features all elevate the Lily 2 Active well past a basic activity tracker. That thread and how it relates to the real world actually makes it into a legitimately useful, if somewhat less intensive, training unit for those who run, cycle, swim and exercise frequently — are already in love with Garmin, but are just searching for the new shape of the Lily series. This expanded functionality keeps it relevant to a more fitness-focused user than the original Lily design likely appealed to. That said, prospective buyers should understand Garmin’s typical product segmentation. The Active model gets significantly enhanced features, but still lacks certain benefits that are in the higher-tier Garmin wearables, like stair tracking with a barometric altimeter, onboard music storage and advanced running dynamics. Also, Garmin’s lifestyle lines (for example, Vivoactive and Lily) and the devices in them usually get less major feature refreshes post-launch versus its sports-focused Forerunner and Fenix series. So the key point is to evaluate the Lily 2 Active for what it can do right now, not what you expect it to do in the future — at least when it comes to software, as you would with something like an Apple Watch.
Testing the Waters: Analysis of Real-World Performance
Finding Your Way: Understanding GPS Accuracy
One of the main improvements of the Lily 2 Active is built-in GPS now, meaning you no longer need to be tethered to your phone for tracking outdoor activities. The most reputable reviewers have done performance testing and confirm that within the compact chassis of the watch, Garmin has managed to engineer in a dependable GPS chipset. The Lily 2 Active’s GPS accuracy was surprisingly solid across a variety of real-world running scenarios — from trail runs laden with trees and cliffs to road runs through the canyon of buildings that typifies half of Manhattan, often tracking almost identically to far more expensive, high-end devices that could easily double the price (like a Garmin Fenix 8 and an Apple Watch Ultra 2). So, the small size doesn’t necessarily detract from GPS reception or accuracy for common use cases, making it a more viable fitness device than you might expect. It was also said to be fast at connecting to the GPS. Though there have been some anecdotal user reports of inaccuracies, expert testing generally reflects reliable performance when it comes to mapping routes and calculating your pace/distance during outdoor workouts.
At the Heart: Performance of Heart Rate Monitoring
For example, the Lily 2 active uses Garmin’s Elevate Gen 4 optical heart rate sensor, which is proven and found on many of their devices. Reviews indicate this sensor sits somewhere between the ones that can deliver very accurate and reliable HR data with extended steady-state and moderate-intensity activities and those that will report wildly unreliable heart rates during exertion. But, as is the case with many of these wrist-mounted optical sensors, it has some limitations. Because of the latencies, minor hiccups may happen in periods of high heart rate fluctuations (i.e. HIIT or when climbing steep hills). In limited testing, it had very solid performance, occasionally equal to or slightly better than mosaic sensors on premium watches in some interval workouts.
The Gen 4 sensor is not the newest sensor that Garmin offers (the Gen 5 is, which can be found in devices like Venu 3 and includes ECG capabilities), but it is likely more than enough for the users that the Lily 2 Active is targeted at — those users being less in the category of high-end performance-focused athletic workout tracking and more in the camp of general fitness trackers, wellness trackers, and style trackers. If you’re one of those people needing the most accuracy they can get, especially during something like interval training or weightlifting, the barrier line for that is the Active model, which couple be paired with an external chest heart rate strap over ANT+.
Reality Check on Going the Distance: Battery Life
Battery life is often a key differentiator in the smartwatch space, but it’s a major strength of the Garmin Lily 2 Active. The Active model, for instance, has officially stated battery life of up to 9 days in regular smartwatch mode and up to 9 hours with continuous GPS use. That’s a huge improvement over the standard Lily 2 and Lily 2 Classic, which are rated for 5 days max.
For the most part, real-world testing backs these claims, especially for the Active variant. Reviews are reporting 6 to 9 days of actual usage on a single charge, including daily wear, notifications, night tracking, and a few GPS-tracked workouts in the week. A few remarked on surpassing 9 days — one reviewer reportedly lasted 2 weeks at a time with modest GPS use. The GPS endurance seems to be in line with the 9-hour claim too.
Battery life is a central value proposition for the Lily 2 Active, with this multi-day performance standing in stark contrast to rivals like the Apple Watch (18-36 hours on average) and Samsung Galaxy Watch (roughly 30-40 hours maximum). For reference, that’s a significant improvement over the Fitbit Sense 2’s 6-day claim, too. Such longevity, made possible in part by the otherwise power-hungry monochrome display, is a direct response to a significant pain-point for many smartwatch users, and a major reason to get this device.
That said, user experiences seem a bit more mixed, especially regarding the 5-day claim for the (non-Active) models, with some users noting far shorter periods before re-charging was required. Heavy usage of certain features, like Pulse Ox monitoring or GPS, will naturally affect battery life on any model.
The Lily 2 series connects with Garmin’s standard USB-C charging cable, a step-up compared to proprietary connectors used on previous-gen models. It takes about 1.5 to 2 hours to fully charge. Some users have expressed frustration over issues such as the charging clip requiring exact alignment, or the absence of a wall adapter in the box (now standard practice) that means users need to supply their own USB-C power source.
Smooth Operator? : Search Engine UI Responsiveness and Reliability
Controlling the Lily 2 Active is a mix of touchscreen swipes, taps and — importantly — two physical buttons that have been added to this model. These buttons are a major improvement in usability over a touch-only interface like the standard Lily 2 and original Lily. They make starting, stopping and lapping workouts far easier and more reliable, particularly with sweaty hands or while you’re wearing gloves. Generally, the top button is select/confirm and the bottom is back/escape.
Even the button upgrade does little in fundamentally revising the already vestigial interaction that apparatus is left to the touchscreen alone when scrolling through widge and menus. Opinions on touch screen responsiveness are a bit of a mixed bag. Generally, it works well, but some reviewers and users say the interface can feel just a bit clunky at times, not as flowing or immediate as the extremely well-tuned operating systems on Apple Watch or Wear OS devices. This perception is helped by the monochrome display and Garmin’s default UI layout.
Reviews have praised reliability over the first-generation Lily (which had problems with things like false exercise pauses), but some users report that reliability is still not perfect — there are reports of tracking just stopping during workouts, gesture mode giving up on people, and other failures. These reports hint at possible variability in user experience or possible software bugs, but don’t seem to be major complaints in professional reviews. In all, these buttons add a palpable usability to the Active model for fitness use, but users who expect the optimal fluidity of today’s market-leading smartwatch OSes may find Garmin’s interface, found here on the Lily 2 Active, to be more functional than incredibly slick.
Behind the scenes of Living with Lily: User experience
Setup: Getting Started and the Garmin Connect Ecosystem
The initial setup of Garmin Lily 2 Active involves charging the watch and then pairing the watch with the smartphone (iOS or Android), just like all other smartwatches via the Garmin Connect app and Bluetooth. The app walks the user through some initial configuration, setting up a personal profile, and notification permissions.
The watch collects all your health, wellness, and activity data in the Garmin Connect app. It is rich in data, so you can drill down to sleep patterns and stress trends, Body Battery, workouts, and long-term progress. App interface is quite simple and works as needed, and you can also configure favorites on the main dashboard to give priority to the metrics you are interested in. Social features, which enable users to add friends, join challenges, and earn badges, are also part of the package.
This data can be daunting, especially for Garmin newcomers. The depth is also a strength for data-driven users. One clear advantage, especially compared to Fitbit, is that Garmin lays all tracked data out on the app with no paywalled subscription content; you don’t need a premium subscription to view granular metrics like sleep stage breakdowns or historical trends. With a relatively spartan on-watch display and interface, the Garmin Connect app is especially important with the Lily 2 Active for scrutinizing data, spotting trends and adjusting settings. A user’s satisfaction rating of the watch as a whole will most definitely be colored by their use of, and willingness to use, the extensive Connect app.
Navigation, Notifications and Ease of Use
Day-to-day interaction with the Lily 2 Active consists of raising the wrist or tapping on the screen to wake the display, then using swipes to scroll through widgets and taps or button presses (on Active) to select options. Swiping from the watch face to the left and then to the right (or right to left, not sure about the order) you will cycle between customizable widget screens that show information like “My Day” (steps, intensity minutes), Health Stats (HR, stress, Body Battery), Weather, Calendar, Sleep Summary, etc. Tapping a widget will sometimes reveal more information.
Smartphone notifications — Alerts for calls, texts, and configured app notifications through Garmin Connect come through reliably. The procedure for dismissing notifications is simple. It is pretty easy to access core functions like starting a workout (using the top button on Active or through the activity menu) or checking a Body Battery score or initiating a Garmin Pay transaction, once the user knows how they navigate.
Most users find it easy to navigate, not as overly complicated as more feature-dense smartwatches. The Garmin Connect app is frequently mentioned for being useful for tracking activity and sleep. But some users do experience frustrations with touchscreen responsiveness or the reliability of particular features, as we’ve noted in the past.
Critical Takeaway: Where the Lily 2 Active Excels and Falls Short
Also: Garmin Lily 2 Active review: Side stepper in a racing worldThe Garmin Lily 2 Active embraces a defined niche within the smartwatch space, other areas being excelled and others being compromised on.
Strengths:
Style & Discretion Heretofore Unmatched: Its primary strength is its design. It’s genuinely slender, light and graceful, a third cousin to a fashion accessory rather than a run-of-the-mill smartwatch, perfect for those who care about looks and demureness.
Excellent Battery Life: The claimed 9-day battery life (frequently met or improved on in real world use) marks a real upside over nearly all competitors, solving a common smartwatch woe
Active version’s built-in GPS, multitude of sports profiles, Garmin Coach feature, and pairing capabilities with external sensors make it a capable fitness tracking device for casual to moderate fitness enthusiasts.
Extensive Health/Body Monitoring (No Subscription): It has all of Garmin’s health features (Body Battery, Sleep Score, Stress, HRV status, Nap Detection on Active) without needing ongoing subscription fees.
Improved Usability (Active Model): Two physical buttons make a big difference in navigation and access, especially during workouts.
Standard 14 mm Quick-Release Bands: The switch to standard 14 mm quick-release bands there make it possible for easy and huge customization.
Weaknesses:
Display Limitations: The glareless, not-always-on LCD screen, though allowing for battery stamina and the conceal design, lacks the liveliness, resolution, and arguably the sunlight presence of their rivals’ AMOLEDs, creating the impression of staleness.
No onboard music storage: Users cannot listen from the watch itself, so the watch must be connected to a phone during workouts to hear the music.
No Barometric Altimeter: The watch cannot track floors climbed, a feature common on many other trackers and smartwatches.
Missing Advanced Health Sensors: It does not support ECG (electrocardiogram) to detect Afibs, can’t measure skin temperature sensing, both of which you get with competitors like the Fitbit Sense 2, Apple Watch, and pricier Garmins like the Venu 3.
Interface / Responsiveness Weirdness: Buttons were improved, but the touchscreen still had some odd moments of unresponsiveness or clunkiness at times, and the overall Garmin UI is just not as intuitive as competitors.
No Watch Face Customization: Not as many built-in watch faces as on other Garmin models, and no access to the Connect IQ store for third-party watch apps or faces.
Possible Reliability Issues: A few user reviews highlight problems with providing an always accurate track record or one feature or another not working, but not necessarily echoed across experts.
Internal Competition & Value Proposition: The Garmin Vivoactive 5 is more competitive with a vivid AMOLED display and onboard music storage at a similar or lower price point, making it hard to compete if prospective buyers give more weight to features than they do to the specific aesthetic of the Lily.
The Lily 2 Active may be a little quirky proposition. It helps make huge leaps by adding essential fitness features like GPS and boosted battery life to its uniquely fashionable form factor. But the very deliberate omissions — especially the absence of an AMOLED display, music storage, and even an altimeter — required to achieve its design, its battery aims, and its price point, leave a scenario where it may well seem tantalizingly close to perfect but short a few key features for various potential purchasers. That tension is further accentuated by the price-comparable Vivoactive 5, leaving little wiggle room to opt for the Lily’s standout style over the Vivoactive’s more robust feature set.
Competitive Landscape: Lily 2 Active vs. The Rivals
When it comes to choosing a smartwatch, it is all about features, aesthetics, ecosystem, and pricing. So just how does the Garmin Lily 2 Active compare to its key rivals in the stylish/fitness-focused space?
A. Head to Head: Battle of Features and Performance
vs. Apple Watch SE (2nd Gen, 40mm): Depending on their philosophy, you can tell them apart. The monochrome display-focused Lily 2 Active favors subtle style and impressive battery life (up to 9 days compared to Apple’s 18 hours) over features. The Apple Watch SE has a bright, color Retina display, a radically richer app ecosystem, deeper smartphone integration (calls, richer notifications, Siri) but requires an iPhone and daily charging. Fitness tracking is solid on each, but Garmin offers more in the box (Body Battery, HRV, Recovery) without needing a subscription, while Apple depends more on third-party apps for specialized tracking. The Lily 2 Active is compatible with both iOS and Android, while Apple Watch only works with iPhone. In terms of price, the Lily 2 Active ($299) normally runs pricier than the base Apple Watch SE ($249).
vs. Fitbit Sense 2: The Sense 2 features a more square-ish design and a colorful AMOLED display compared to the round, hidden monochrome screen on the Lily. For battery life, the Lily 2 Active is the winner here (9 days vs 6 days for the Sense 2). The Sense 2 has more sophisticated health sensors including ECG for Afib detection, an EDA sensor for stress response, and skin temperature tracking — none of which are found on the Lily 2 Active. But Fitbit only lets you see detailed sleep data and readiness scores if you are a Premium subscriber, while Garmin has every possible flavour of this data free at the point of service. Both come with built-in GPS and NFC payments. This means Garmin’s native sports tracking options tend to give finer granularity. The Sense 2 is normally even cheaper ($250 MSRP, with plenty of sales).
vs. Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 (40mm): As with the Apple Watch comparison, this is Garmin’s focused approach versus a full-featured smartwatch OS (in this case, Wear OS). The Galaxy Watch 6 features a crisp Super AMOLED screen, rotating bezel (on Classic) or touch bezel, onboard apps, optional LTE connection, and the ability to place phone calls from your wrist. The Lily 2 Active scores major points for battery life (9 days vs. 30-40 hours) and a more discrete fit. Both have GPS and NFC. While Garmin’s native health and fitness ecosystem is by far considered to be the most mature and in-depth, Wear OS does allow far more app level flexibility. Galaxy Watch 6 for Android Users (Samsung Phone Owners) They are similarly priced out of the gate, too, with the base Galaxy Watch 6 40mm going for $300.
vs Garmin Vivoactive 5: This is the key internal comparison. Both are priced closely ($299 MSRP, but VA5 also goes on sale fairly regularly). The biggest trade-off is style and display vs. features. The Lily 2 Active includes the unique, smaller, more jewelry-like design with the hidden monochrome display. The Vivoactive 5 is a bit more conventional (albeit still relatively svelte) but has a bright 1.2″ AMOLED display. The Vivoactive 5 also features onboard music storage (a big gap on lily), and possibly a longer smartwatch battery life (11 days max, though less with always-on display on). The same GPS, Garmin Pay, core health tracking (including Body Battery, Sleep Coach, HRV on the VA5), and hundreds of sports apps. The Vivoactive 5 also features stats for wheelchair users, as well. It all depends whether the user values the Lily’s striking style and slightly more compact profile over the Vivoactive 5’s larger display and better music options.
B. Comparative Analysis Table
To give a clear comparison of these trade-offs, the table below summarizes key specifications and features:
