Garmin Lily review

Our Verdict

The Garmin Lily is a fashionable, midrange smartwatch with a slap-up brandish and useful health tools for female users.

For

Stylish, lightweight design
All-time display of whatsoever Garmin lifestyle watch
On-lath pregnancy tracking app

Against

No born GPS
Incompatible with Garmin Connect IQ app store

Tom'due south Guide Verdict

The Garmin Lily is a fashionable, midrange smartwatch with a keen brandish and useful health tools for female users.

Pros

+
Fashionable, lightweight design
+
Best display of any Garmin lifestyle sentry
+
On-board pregnancy tracking app

Cons

-
No built-in GPS
-
Incompatible with Garmin Connect IQ app store

Garmin Lily quick specs

Price: $199 (sport), $249 (classic)
Size: 34 mm
Battery life: 5 days
Swim-proof: Yes
Centre rate monitor: Aye
SpO2: Yes
GPS: No
Notifications: Yes

The Garmin Lily is a modest and stylish smartwatch that will make you forget the beefy GPS wearables the brand is best known for. A new offering designed with first-time, female smartwatch users in mind, the $199 Garmin Lily is a gamble for the visitor that's paying off based on my experience so far.

In the days I've spent working on this Garmin Lily review, I've enjoyed its barely-there experience and fashionable advent, which is accentuated by a patterned lens that somehow doesn't obstruct the display. Of all the best smartwatches and all-time fitness trackers I've tested in contempo memory, this one looks the nearly similar actual jewelry. Yes, even more than the Fitbit Luxe.

And it'due south not just aesthetics. The Garmin Lily is positioned every bit a Samsung Galaxy Watch Active 2 and Fitbit Versa 3 rival thanks to a bounty of health and fitness features for active users. That said, the lack of on-board GPS makes Garmin's newest midrange watch impractical for outdoor sport enthusiasts. So who is this spotter for?

Garmin Lily review: Price and availability

The Garmin Lily is available for purchase as of this writing. It comes in two variants: Sport and Archetype. The Garmin Lily Sport, the version I'm testing, costs $199.99, while the Classic models costs $249.99.

If you lot pb an agile lifestyle, the Sport model is probably best for you. It features silicone straps and comes in iii color options. If you're interested in a smartwatch with a smidge of elegance, the dual-tone leather straps of the Classic model might be more your speed.

Garmin Lily review: Design and display

The Garmin Lily doesn't look like any Garmin watch nosotros've seen before. Between its 34-millimeter push button-less case, intricate hardware details and sparse straps, information technology'south squeamish compared to the the beastly Garmin Instinct I wore a few months ago. The affluent bezel, which is a beautiful rose-gold color on the model I'm testing, reminds me more than of the Garmin Venu, if I were to draw an in-brand comparing. But again, the Lily is significantly smaller.

Garmin's lifestyle watch segmentation hasn't wowed in the by. When I tested the Garmin vivomove Luxe, another mode-first wear, the hybrid analog-digital display frustrated me whenever I wanted to check my notifications outdoors. Plus the leather straps weren't conducive to my daily workouts.

It seems like the Garmin Lily has sought out to solve those displays woes with a responsive, monochromatic touchscreen I can see clearly fifty-fifty in direct sunlight. Instead of an analog overlay, each Lily model has a unique pattern lightly printed on the glass. I feared the swirling semi-circles on my review unit of measurement would distract from checking the fourth dimension, but when the display is activated the design seems to vanish. Information technology's a dandy effect.

Garmin Lily review: Health features

Like many of Garmin'due south other watches, the Lily provides insight on a serial of health metrics, viewable in the Garmin Connect app.

In addition to centre rate and blood oxygen (SpO2) monitoring, the Lily offers stress and sleep tracking. Information technology besides benefits from Garmin's Body Bombardment characteristic, which shows you your estimated free energy levels so you can program your practice and recovery accordingly.

For female users, the Garmin Lily offers menstrual cycle tracking, every bit well as a pregnancy tracking guide that gives expecting mothers get a more consummate overview of their health. Although the Lily isn't uniform with the Garmin Connect IQ app store, the pregnancy tracking app is i of options that comes pre-installed on this smartwatch.

In terms of activity, the Garmin Lily supports conditioning tracking for yoga, Pilates, cardio, treadmill and more than. Only if you want to keep tabs on your location for outdoor exercise, you'll need to bring your smartphone since Lily is i of the few Garmin watches without built-in GPS.

Garmin Lily review: Battery life

Garmin rates the Lily smartwatch for five days of bombardment life, including overnight wear for sleep tracking. So far, I've plant the display settings take the biggest bear on on battery life. At max brightness, I lost more than xxx% of juice in one twenty-four hour period, simply when I relied on automobile-brightness, the battery drain charge per unit slowed.

When my Garmin Lily'due south battery is getting low, I tin can accuse it back up through a clip-shaped proprietary charger. Garmin doesn't say how long the accuse time should exist, but I got my review unit from dead to full battery in under ii hours.

Garmin Lily review: Verdict

The Garmin Lily isn't a replacement for the Apple Sentinel Series six or Fitbit Versa 3. As much equally I'1000 attracted to the pattern, the display is smaller than whatsoever smartwatch I've ever used, and it'southward taking time to adjust.

That said, for $199 I believe Garmin Lily could be a keen option for a commencement-time smartwatch owner, or someone with smaller wrists who prefers a fashionable design. It'southward as easy to navigate as information technology is on the eyes, and its compact size won't conflict with whatever else you already wear on your wrists.

For the toll, it's also i of the best inexpensive smartwatches yous can buy now.

Kate Kozuch is a senior author at Tom's Guide covering wearables, TVs and everything smart-home related. When she's non in cyborg way, you lot tin find her on an exercise bike or channeling her inner glory chef. She and her robot army will rule the world i mean solar day, but until and then, achieve her at kate.kozuch@futurenet.com.