Modern but unexpected: this is Lily 2, the small and elegant
smartwatch. Lily 2 even helps you tune in to your body by
tracking your steps, sleep, heart rate, energy levels, women's
health data and more.
Review: Fantastic watch, particularly for monitoring energy
limiting conditions - Heads up, this is a LONG detailed review.
But to sum up, this watch is absolutely ideal if you have small
wrists and want to monitor your health and triggers, particularly
if you have an energy limiting condition or POTS. I haven't had
any of the problems other reviewers have mentioned...as of yet.
I've been wanting a smart watch for quite some time in order to
monitor and record my health stats, sleep and for notifications
from my phone. I tried on some of the more popular ones,
including Samsung, Fitbit, Google and also had a cheaper non
branded version, which was the same size as the Apple watch,
however I felt that they were all too bulky on my small wrists
for me to be able to tolerate wearing consistently, especially
overnight. I then came across this watch. At 35mm it was quite a
bit smaller than the 41mm sizes that the Samsung and Google
watches came in, so I felt that this would be my best option.
I've had the watch around a month now and have been wearing it
consistently, including every night, and so far, I'm really
impressed. Positives: - It's comfortable to wear all day and
sleep in - It looks good on my small wrist - The heart rate and
SpO2 measurements are accurate, as I measured these against my
pulse oximeter, which I also know to be accurate as I recently
compared it to the ECG monitor during a cardiology appt and it
gave the same results. - I like the Garmin app, I find it very
user friendly and customisable to my own needs. - The sleep
tracking seems mostly accurate and is providing some good
insight. - I like the stress tracker, which measures HRV, and is
important for me to monitor as I suffer with M.E. This is also
showing some good insight into my triggers throughout the day.
When it notices that you're highly 'stressed' it will then prompt
you to do a 5 minute breathing exercise to bring down your HRV,
which again I've found really useful. - It has a 'body battery'
function which, depending on your sleep quality and I think
potentially your stress/HRV levels, tells you how much energy you
have left in your tank to give for the day/rest of the day. Again
I've found this useful as I have an energy limiting condition. It
takes a few weeks for this to start reporting and be accurate as
it wants to monitor your stats first to work out your baseline. -
At the end of each day it asks you, via the app, to record your
'behaviours' under lifestyle logging, and again these can be
customised so that you can monitor different triggers to your
health etc. - It monitors your menstruation cycle. - It can
monitor your water intake via the watch itself. Initially I found
this helpful but unfortunately after about 7-10 days I started to
forget to log this. - You can log your blood pressure. This needs
to be taken manually, the watch does not do it for you, but it
can be logged via the app to keep track of it, if needed for
medical reasons, so all your health stats are in one place. - The
step counter seems very accurate and you can change your step
goals at any time. It also alerts you when you have reached your
goal. - It tells you your sleep quality on the watch each
morning, as well as the weather and any events you've put in your
calendar for the day. - It goes into sleep mode at a time which
you can choose and then back into normal mode again at a time of
your choosing. In sleep mode it turns off the screen and
notifications so it does not wake you during the night. - The
notifications via various apps on my phone are very handy, and
you can pick and choose which notifications it displays on the
watch by toggling on/off on the different apps via the Garmin
app. I would regularly miss calls and texts when out and about as
I wouldn't hear my phone in my bag, but now I feel a vibration on
my wrist when these come through so I never miss them. - It comes
with an emergency mode which you can add emergency contacts to.
If you need help or assistance you tap 10 times on the watch face
and it will activate that mode and send text messages to your
emergency contacts to alert them that you may need assistance. -
It has find my phone alert on it, which has proven useful when
I've put my phone down somewhere indoors and can't find it! -
It's lightweight and not at all bulky so I have gotten used to
wearing it consistently without a problem. - I like the strap,
it's like a silicone type material but looks leather. It's also
easy to fasten independently. - The battery life on it seems
pretty good. I get around 4-5 days out of it per full charge.
Draw backs: - Whilst the sleep tracking seems to be mostly
accurate, I have found a few times that it's said I was in REM
sleep in the morning when actually I was up and feeding my cat! -
The charger is a bit fiddly and annoying. The cheap non branded
watch I had came with a magnetic charger which was much more user
friendly. This one you have to clip onto the watch and you have
to get the prongs in the exact right positioning. - It's a basic
watch in a sense of that it does not come with a coloured dial,
pictures, ECG, GPS, or things like Garmin Pay etc. The Lily 2
Active comes with GPS however. All in all, I'm very pleased with
the watch. It does everything that I need it to do for monitoring
my health and receiving notifications. I don't personally feel
that I need any of the added extras that the bigger watches come
with, as I either have these on my phone or I don't require them.
You do need to play around with the app and settings to fully
customise the watch to your individual needs, which I found
fairly straight forward. It won't just do everything I've
mentioned above straight out of the box. I haven't commented on
the 'activities'/ sports modes as I have not used these due to
health limitations. I would highly recommend this watch to anyone
who has small wrists like mine and wants to track and monitor
their health needs, particularly if you have conditions like M.E,
Fibromyalgia, POTS etc.
Review: Good stylish fitness watch - As i only have a small wrist
i was looking for a replacement fitness watch for my fitbit luxe.
The garmin Lily 2 whilst still bigger gives me the same type of
features i need to monitor health and fitness levels but still
looks a nice stylish watch that suits the smaller wrist. Some of
the watch features and the app are understandably different to
fitbit, but within a couple of days i had gotten used to it. The
battery life is good, i charge it every 4 days and the screen
clarity is also good tho i do have the brightness set higher to
provide better contrast. I have found the fitness and health
tracking to be accurate enough and on a par with my old fit bit.
