The Lily is the smallest smartwatch/fitness tracker Garmin has made so far, and it is the company’s first model made just for women. Starting at $199.99, it has an attractive, patterned face and a 14mm band that is much thinner than most smartwatch bands, so you can wear it with other jewellery. The Lily is more than just a pretty watch. It can keep track of your blood oxygen level, calories burned, energy level, heart rate, breathing, sleep, steps, stress, and workouts.
Garmin Lily: Description
It also has more typical smartwatch features like alerts from your phone, controls for playing music, and different widgets. It doesn’t have a color display, an always-on screen, and a few other things that Garmin’s Vivoactive 4/4S does, but it costs a lot less. Even though it’s about the same price as the Fitbit Versa 3, the Lily is a great choice if you want a fitness-focused smartwatch that’s stylish and won’t break your budget.
The Classic model comes in gold with a black band, gold with a white band, or dark bronze with a matching band. The Sport model comes in gold with a white band, rose gold with a tan band, or midnight orchid (a purple color) with a matching band. The Lily’s slim 14mm band and buttonless 34mm case are connected by T-bar lugs. A matching metal clasp completes the look.
Pros and Cons
Pros
- Great fit, for even the slightest of wrist sizes
- Simple, easy to understand UI
- Accurate heart rate tracking
- Detailed, accurate sleep tracking
Cons
- No built-in GPS
- Lacks a color display
- Expensive for its feature setNo contactless payments
Garmin Lily: Specifications
| Size | 34 mm |
| Battery life | 5 days |
| Swim-proof | Yes |
| Heart rate monitor | Yes |
| SpO2 | Yes |
| GPS | No |
Design and Screen
If you’re used to bigger smartwatches, even the smaller ones that are usually made for women, the case size and strap of the Garmin Lily will be the first things you notice. At 34mm, it’s the smallest smartwatch we’ve reviewed on and a real answer to the idea that connected watches are too big or only made for men. It is definitely made for women who think smartwatches and sports watches are too big or too ugly.
The 14mm strap makes the Lily feel a lot more like a “real” watch, like one of those stylish metal and leather watches we used to wear to tell time. The T-bar connector brings it up to date by giving it a modern and useful look. It also closes with a standard watch strap buckle, not with Velcro, magnets, or straps that have to be tucked inside themselves.
The Classic model has a black, brown, or white leather strap, while the Sport model has a white, sand, or orchid silicone strap (purple). You can also buy replacement bands if you want to change how it looks or switch between leather during the day and silicone during exercise. We tried out the Classic model, which had a light gold bezel and a black leather strap. It fit snugly and comfortably on our thin wrist and gave us a good reading of our heart rate. It’s also very light, so you won’t notice it’s there for long.
The screen itself is a monochrome LCD (240 x 210 pixels) that is entirely touch-sensitive. There are no buttons or even a fake crown. The screen doesn’t stay on all the time. When it’s not being used, it turns off to save battery life. You don’t have a completely blank watch face, though, because the Lily has patterned glass that gives it a little bit of style even when the screen is blank. It’s a nice touch that does make it look better on your wrist than the Apple Watch SE or Fossil Wear OS watches as you go about your day.
Garmin Lily: Smartwatch features
The Garmin Lily doesn’t work with apps and faces from the Garmin Connect IQ store, but you can choose from a wide range of widgets by tapping and swiping the screen. Notifications from apps show up with a soft haptic feedback, and you can check them or get rid of them by swiping down. Swiping down on the Lily also brings up the settings menu, Find My Phone (which is very loud), the alarm, the music player, and the “do not disturb” mode.
When you tap the menu button (indicated by a circle at the bottom of the face), you can track your activity. Swiping left or right lets you see the hydration widget, your daily activity and health stats, and the period tracker. With the addition of period tracking and, more recently, pregnancy tracking to its app, Garmin has made big strides in women’s health.
The Lily puts these features front and center, so you don’t have to go into Garmin Connect to record your symptoms during your cycle. The Lily works on the assumption that you’ll always have your phone with you. Since it doesn’t store music itself, you can use the Lily to control music playback on your phone. It has buttons to play, pause, skip, and see the current track and artist. It’s easy and works well.
The Garmin Lily can track your deep, light, and REM sleep throughout the night, and in the morning, it will give you a report on how well you slept. There is also a pulse oximeter, which checks SpO2 levels while you sleep and can be used for spot checks. Many devices in the same price range only record SpO2 while you sleep, so if you want to use it as a fitness measure, this might tip the scales in favour of the Lily.
Fitness and health tracking
The Garmin Lily is all about wellness, and the watch can track a number of different fitness metrics. Garmin says that the Lily’s two most important features are its ability to track your period and your pregnancy, which go hand in hand. The first one is used in wearables and even some smartphone apps. On the other hand, other Garmin watches, like the Venu, have this feature.
It’s good for pregnant women who want to keep track of things like their blood sugar levels and when their baby is moving. The Menstrual Cycle module of the Garmin Connect app is easy to understand at a glance. It shows a split, color-coded ring right away that tells you about your fertility, period, and ovulation. Its Cycle Calendar uses the same colour system and also shows when your period and ovulation are likely to happen.
You can add as much or as little information as you want, about things like hormonal birth control, how long your period lasts, and other things. If you don’t want to track your cycles, you can turn it off. The Garmin Lily and the app that goes with it can only make better predictions if you give them more information. You can enter your menstrual cycle in two ways: directly from the Garmin Lily or through the Garmin Connect app on your phone.
Garmin Lily: Battery life
The Garmin Lily uses the same clip charger as other Garmin watches. It clips onto the edge of the watch and takes about 90 minutes to charge from 1% to 100%.
Garmin says that the battery should last for up to five days if you use it normally and turn off the pulse ox mode. With the pulse ox on, the battery life was close to four days, and it dropped by about 10% overnight. More exercise will also drain the battery a lot faster. We found that a 20-minute run would drain the battery by about 15%, so you’ll probably need to charge it about twice a week.
Price and availability
At the time of this writing, you can buy a Garmin Lily. There are two kinds of it: Sport and Classic. The Garmin Lily Sport, which I’m testing, costs $199.99, while the Classic models cost $249.99 you can buy this smartwatch directly from Garmin’s website.
If you’re always on the go, the Sport model is probably the best choice. It comes in three different colours and has straps made of silicone. If you want a smartwatch with a little more style, the Classic model’s two-tone leather straps might be more your style.
Final Words
The Garmin Lily is not a replacement for the Apple Watch Series 6 or the Fitbit Versa 3. Even though I like the way it looks, the screen is smaller than any other smartwatch I’ve used, and it’s taking me a while to get used to it.
Still, for $199, the Garmin Lily could be a good choice for someone who has never owned a smartwatch before or for someone with smaller wrists who wants a stylish watch. It looks nice and is easy to use, and its small size won’t get in the way of anything else you wear on your wrist.
FAQs
Can Garmin Lily answer phone calls?
When you get a call on your connected phone, the Lily device shows you the caller’s name or phone number. To take the call, choose. NOTE: You must use your connected phone to talk to the caller. To turn down the call, choose.
Can you use Garmin Lily without phone?
You must use a phone or computer to set up the Lily watch before you can use it. When using a phone, the watch must be paired directly through the Garmin Connect app, not through the Bluetooth settings on the phone. Get the Garmin Connect app from the app store on your phone.
