Garmin VivoMove Trend Review: A Hybrid Smartwatch That Finally Charges Wirelessly

Introduction

For a long time, Garmin’s stylish VivoMove lineup has asked buyers to trade convenience for looks. The VivoMove Trend keeps the discreet analog design but adds a feature people have been requesting for years: wireless charging. Importantly, Garmin also kept the wired clip-on USB-C charger, so you get both options regardless of how you feel about Qi pads.

At $269 or $299 depending on the style, it sits well above the older VivoMove Sport and its $179 price, but it also brushes up against Garmin’s higher-end Vivomove Style and Luxe territory. It is not a one-to-one comparison with either, and that context matters when judging the value.

What’s New on the VivoMove Trend

The headline upgrade list is longer than the understated design suggests. Beyond wireless charging, the Trend adds Garmin Pay contactless payments, a barometric altimeter for stair counting, and an on-watch sleep score (existing VivoMove Sport owners will also get sleep score via an update). Under the covers, the display changes from OLED to LCD, the same panel type used on the tiny Garmin Lily.

That display change turns out to be one of the best improvements. Older stylish Vivo watches were notoriously hard to read outside; the Trend is clearly visible in sun and clouds, indoors and out. Garmin also enlarged the touch-sensitive surface to nearly edge to edge, increased the display resolution, and swapped the polymer bezel for stainless steel, giving the 40mm case a slightly more premium finish.

Day to day, the hybrid design works as you’d hope: raise your wrist or tap and the hidden display wakes instantly, while the analog hands physically shift out of the way whenever a widget or gauge needs the screen. Battery and status details live in a swipe menu, and there is a vibration motor but no audible alerts. One quirk: the analog hands can drift out of alignment over time, though a recalibration option in settings fixes it.

Everyday Features and Health Tracking

The widget system covers the basics well: steps with a weekly view, stair counting, intensity minutes, heart rate over the past four hours, respiration over seven days, stress, sleep score with sleep phases, weather, and phone music controls (there is no onboard music storage). Smartphone notifications appear on the watch, and Android users can reply to text messages; iPhone users cannot, because Apple only permits that on the Apple Watch.

On the health side, the watch offers blood oxygen readings, automatic at night or manual during the day. In practice, this is the weakest feature: it is a significant battery drain, tracked only a short slice of a full night in testing, and the readings were not especially accurate. Sleep timing, by contrast, fall-asleep and wake times, proved very accurate, which is where the sleep data is most trustworthy.

Hold the screen and you get a menu for starting workouts and accessing health stats such as pulse ox. Garmin Pay works through the same menu: set a PIN, tap your card, and pay. Support depends on your bank and country, and Garmin maintains a compatibility list; it covers a lot of banks, but not all of them.

Wireless Charging: A First for Garmin, With Caveats

The Trend supports the Qi wireless charging standard, so it works on ordinary charging mats: set it in the middle and it initializes within seconds. It also ships with a clip-on USB-C wired charger, the style Garmin uses for a handful of watches, and we appreciate that the wired option is still included.

The caveat is speed. Garmin’s guidance puts a full wireless charge at under two hours, and testing showed roughly 0.75% per minute, or about 11% in a 15-minute session. That is the same rate as the wired charger and slower than competitors, which typically finish in 45 minutes to an hour. Charger compatibility is also a bit of a wild west: a generic pad, a Tozo charger, an Anker battery pack, and even a Samsung watch charger all worked in testing, while an Anker wall charger and an older Qi puck failed to initiate charging despite charging a phone without issue. As long as the watch sits roughly in the middle of a compatible pad, it charges fine.

Workouts, GPS and Activity Tracking

There are 14 sport profiles, with up to 10 loaded on the watch at a time, and each is customizable. The watch has no onboard GPS; it uses connected GPS, borrowing your phone’s GPS over Bluetooth, and pairing happens almost instantly. During workouts you can configure multiple data pages and swipe through them, which worked flawlessly even mid-tempo-run with sweaty fingers. The display remains readable outdoors in all conditions, and unlike many hybrid watches, photos and video of the screen come out clean with no refresh artifacts.

One anticlimactic note: after saving a workout, the watch shows no summary. All the detail lives in Garmin Connect on phone or web, and the depth of data there is close to what you get from a much more expensive Garmin watch, including barometric altimeter information. Only the most geeky stats from flagship models are missing.

On accuracy, heart rate tracked very closely against a chest strap, an Apple Watch, and a Whoop 4.0 band during an intense indoor cycling session, with only slight lag on intensity changes. On an outdoor tempo run it matched the chest strap the entire time, aside from occasional unexplained spikes of around 8 beats per minute and the usual 5-10 second lag. GPS traces via the phone were very similar to dedicated GPS watches at a high level, with minor differences on sharp corners; for most people the accuracy is good enough. Note the optical sensor is not Garmin’s latest generation and there is no ECG support.

Things to Consider Before Buying

The price jump from the VivoMove Sport is significant, and the charging speed, wired or wireless, trails the competition. Blood oxygen is best ignored, and iPhone users lose text replies. If you want onboard GPS, music storage, or the newest sensor package, this is not that watch.

Who Should Buy the VivoMove Trend

If you want a watch that does not look like a smartwatch but still carries nearly all of Garmin’s health and wellness feature set, the Trend is a genuinely good option. The brighter display alone fixes the biggest complaint about this family, and wireless charging, even at its leisurely pace, is a welcome first step from Garmin.

Buy it for the design and the everyday health tracking; just set expectations on charge times and bank support for Garmin Pay before you commit.

Conclusion

The VivoMove Trend is a polished hybrid that finally addresses two long-standing complaints: a display you cannot read outdoors and no wireless charging. It is slower to charge than rivals and skips flagship extras like ECG and onboard GPS, but as a stylish everyday watch with serious Garmin health data behind it, it earns its place on the wrist.