Garmin’s line of smartwatches for women has long prioritized a wide array of useful features with highly adaptable bands. The new Garmin Lily smartwatch for women has a svelte and sleep design frame that still maintains a list of advanced attributes, without some of the more burdensome features and modifications. So, what makes the Garmin Lily a great watch?
Every Garmin Lily review mentions the features that were left out, such as built-in GPS, but this smartwatch for women excels at activity tracking within a comfortable and well-fitting band. This watch comes with either a stainless steel bezel or aluminium depending on the customization.
In this in-depth Garmin Lily review, we are going to take a look at all the features and dynamics of this stylish smartwatch. We will discuss its pros and cons, its band and bezel, as well as all the smartwatch features it supports.
Read on to find out if this watch is for you based on its dimensions, features, and modification dynamics.
At a glance: Garmin Lily watch review
The Garmin Lily is a watch that is primarily targeted at improving the health and wellness of women and, in this Garmin Lily review, we will cover them all. The watch comes in both a sport model as well as a classic model, and both showcase useful features such as health stats as well as menstrual cycle tracking.
The Garmin Lily is constructed with women in mind, but its uses for fitness tracking and sleep tracking can be used by anyone.
The lack of built-in GPS makes it a bit ineffective for sports tracking, but this also reduces the bulkiness of the watch overall, in favor of a lightweight and sleek design.
The lack of built-in GPS also provides the watch with great battery life with a charge that can last up to five days.
Overall, considering the price, the quality, the color, the superior and adjustable comfort, as well as the seamless functionality, the Garmin Lily is a great watch for those not seeking a bulky, feature-packed smartwatch.
One of the standout details of the Garmin Lily is its overall size. This watch comes in at 34 mm, which makes it a lot smaller than other Garmin models that seem to hover around the 42, 45, and 46 mm watch bodies.
This is aided immeasurably by the inclusion of Gorilla Glass on the watch screen, which increases its overall durability.
The only key difference between the sport model and the classic model is that the classic has an Italian leather band, whereas the sport watch has a silicone strap.
With that in mind, you may want to consider the silicone model if you are going to be using this watch more for working out.
The Garmin Lily is sleek and features no buttons on the watch body. This is part of the watch’s appeal since it is aiming towards comfort and primarily smart features in a similar trajectory as the Apple Watch.
Also like an Apple Watch or the Apple Watch SE, the Garmin Lily comes with many of the advanced perks of other Garmin units such as Garmin’s body battery feature and unique Garmin Connect app features like hydration tracking and women’s health tracking.
Pros of the Garmin Lily Watch
- The Garmin Lily comes with a large array of fitness-tracking features
- Sets up easily in the Connect app, which reflects useful data across a wide range of fitness options
- Great battery life as well as body battery compatible
- Large selection of women’s wellness tracking features including pregnancy tracking
- Does offer connected GPS with a compatible smartphone
Cons of the Garmin Lily Watch
- No Garmin pay feature – which by now is something to be expected from a leading digital publisher
- Can’t make calls and only allows minimal smartphone notifications
- The touchscreen can be unresponsive at times, especially after intense physical activity
- No built-in-GPS; only connected GPS
- No onboard music storage
What does the Garmin Lily watch do?
The Garmin Lily sport or classic models are a dual set of Garmin watches that offer streamlined activity tracking.
Although there is no on board GPS or music storage, there is a heart rate sensor, SPO2 tracking -which allows you to utilize the accelerometer – and additional sensors to track a lot for your health, even if your phone is not connected.
As many Garmin Lily review models claim, the display is very bright and easy-to-read with great detail on all the numbers and screen displays. As a touchscreen, all you have to do is swipe up and down and left to right.
On the bottom of the watch, is a capacitive touch sensor which will immediately take you to the home screen to prevent having to scroll through all the watch features.
There are also menstrual tracking protocols, as well as pregnancy tracking in addition to all the basic features you can expect with a traditional watch by Garmin.
Key Features
The features are always the highlight of any Garmin Lily review, and this is because the Lily supports many different activities.
There is tracking for high heart rates and low heart rates, real-time continuous heart rate monitoring, 24/7 sleep tracking including REM sleep, idle alerts, and much more.
More advanced features include menstrual tracking, which allows women to track their cycle’s length, duration and any symptoms such as bloating or cramps.
Women can also track their pregnancy and pregnancy symptoms, as well as mood patterns throughout the day and the coloration of discharge.
The Garmin Lily has a water rating of 5 ATM, which means you go for a pool swim or wear the watch in the shower or during rainfall without having to worry about the watch malfunctioning.
There is also all-day stress monitoring, relaxation, breathing, and the ability to track your hydration levels.
The Garmin Lily also comes with all the basic watch functions, such as alarms, stopwatch timers, in addition to built-in Bluetooth technology.
Thanks to the watch’s small design and watch face, superior battery life and body battery, perfect syncing with Garmin Connect, and its features – the Lily is a stylish smartwatch whether you choose the leather strap or the silicone band.
Color
The Lily is available either in white, cream gold, or rose gold patterned lens and band colors.
Price
The various different models and bundles are not too expensive and generally retail well under $500.
How to Use the Garmin Lily
The very first thing to do is to wake up the screen, and since this watch does not have an always-on display, you will need to double-tap the watch. Another option you can try is to raise it to wake and all you need to do is turn it towards you and the screen wakes up.
You can turn this feature on and off if you like, because it does use a bit more battery life overall.
Then you can simply slide down the watch screen to find all of the control menus. There are features for alarms, do not disturb, assistant features, music controls, messages, and a convenient ‘where’s my phone’ feature.
You can also change what is on the menu screen in the Connect app if you do not like the main features that are displayed in the menu.
If you swipe left, you can see all of your daily metrics such as steps, active minutes, calories burned, heart rate, stress level, body battery dynamics, and more.
You can essentially see all of the apps you have available on the watch within this screen, which also includes menstrual cycle details on the screen labeled “cycle.”
There is also a small, circular button on the bottom of the watch face that releases a vibration when you press it. This button allows you to scroll through another range of features such as activities, a range of watch display designs, clocks, settings, and more.
The activities model includes: walking, running, cardio, strength, pool swimming, and biking.
Who is the Garmin Lily for?
Due to the inclusion of female tracking features, the Lily offers a range of details that are geared towards women. With that in mind, the Lily offers features that can also appeal to any user.
There is strength training, walk and run options, and features that also align with sports watches of varying levels of participation and intensity.
Should I buy the Garmin Lily?
As a sports watch, the Lily sport or even the classic, has a wide range of sports profiles to choose from, and this is attractive even though the watch offers built-in GPS only as a connected model to a smartwatch.
For many, the watch not offering on board GPS is a problem in nearly all Garmin Lily review collections on product pages, but if this is known beforehand, the range of activities and comfort of the watch is certainly enough for those who are not looking for GPS distance tracking.
So although the Lily is not indicative of other sport models in terms of GPS, it does have a huge arsenal of sports features to choose from, granted you carry along a cellphone if you want distance tracking.
The Lily is a bit like the Garmin Vivoactive series without the battery drain commonly seen with those models. There is something convenient in knowing that you can track heart rate and other performance dynamics without having to worry about recharging the watch constantly.
The Lily also has sleep tracking, which thoroughly tracks the time spent in different sleep stages throughout the night, as well as blood oxygen levels, respiration rates, and an overall excellent relay of your total sleep quality from your previous night’s rest.
Overall, the many different widgets that track such a wide range of performance features, as well as an excellent build quality make for a very convenient and superior watch sans the GPS.
Either the Lily classic or sport unit is a perfect watch for women who want a suitable watch with tracking details across activities suitable for health statistics within everyday life.
The one size fits all design does not always hold true for ladies, and the Lily does a wonderful job of addressing this with adjustable bands in different varieties. Every Garmin Lily review does focus heavily on the lack of GPS and some issues with Garmin Connect, but the activity profiles are certainly a plus.
FAQs
How do I make my Garmin Lily battery life last longer?
A great way to ensure that your battery lasts for as long as it can, at least as long as the 5 days advertised is to consider turning off the always-on display. This feature is already reduced a great deal thanks to the need to tilt the watch forward to illuminate the screen, but by only pressing the bottom button to activate the screen- this can save a great deal of battery.
Another way to preserve the battery of the Lily is to decrease the screen brightness as well as the timeout feature. Doing this will also drastically reduce battery drain, and this is also universal across practically any type of smartwatch.
Reducing the vibration level of the watch is also a great way to reduce battery depletion, and this is true for both the Lily classic and the sports edition. Reducing Garmin calls and also trying to minimize as much use of the patterned lens as possible, can also help to preserve the battery.
Notifications are an often unknown or misunderstood cause of battery depletion on a smartwatch, and since the Lily does not feature GPS, a lot of the battery is targeted towards features like this.
Turning off the wrist gestures is also a great way save on battery. As you can see, there are many things you can do to save battery.
Why is my Garmin battery dying so quickly?
As mentioned above, there are many different things that can cause the battery to die quickly. Obviously, leaving the watch on all the time – although advertised as okay – is really not great since the battery literally never gets a moment to rest.
Utilizing the manual backlight of the watch instead of increasing the brightness to its highest level is also a hidden feature that many do not realize uses a great deal of battery. The GPS connectivity of the Lily, for example, can also lead to battery depletion since it must sync to a smartphone.
How do I change the settings on my Garmin Lily?
The first thing you would need to do is to scroll to the settings option on your watch. This can be done by hitting the bottom button and swiping to the settings screen.
Once there, you can select ‘Garmin Devices’ and then select the Lily under the type of device. This will bring up a wide range of settings menus to choose from. You can customize your watch display and layout according to your preferences by completing this step.
Garmin is always ensuring that other future brands in some way carry over the convenience of past models, therefore, the settings options are somewhat universal on different units.
Does the Garmin connect app work well with the Garmin Lily?
In addition to complaints levelled against the Lily and GPS, the other range of issues that are typically found relates to the device’s relationship with the Connect app.
The Lily is not very fast at relaying information between the app and the device and this seems to be a problem that is individual to the Lily and not does not affect any other series in the Garmin smart device family.
Users will sometimes have to request information a second time and at other times, the information does not transfer at all.
Conclusion
In summary, the Garmin Lily is a great smartwatch for women as well as for users who want a comfortable watch band with just enough essential features to fulfil sports profiles. It must initially be understood that there is no built-in GPS with this model, so the only way you will be able to track distance is to connect to your compatible smartphone.
Regardless of the minor cons, this watch tracks heart rate well and even offers Garmin body battery which brings it in line with other recent Garmin models.
I would rate this watch 8/10 overall.
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