Garmin says Lily is ‘the smartwatch women have been waiting for’

Garmin has launched a new smartwatch called Lily, and its main selling point is that it is designed by women, for women. The Sport Edition, which is made of aluminum and has a silicone bracelet, costs $ 199, while the stainless steel Classic Edition costs $ 250 and comes with a leather strap.

Garmin claims that it is “the smartwatch women have been waiting for”, which seems based on its size and design, which is very modern. However, as proofreader Lily Katz of Android Authority points out in his analysis of Lily, the watch may have given up some important features to achieve those visuals.

Image: Garmin

One of Lily’s main selling points is that she is small. It is circular, with a diameter of 34.5 mm, while the smaller 40 mm Apple Watch SE is a 40 by 34 mm rectangle. In terms of area, this means that the Apple Watch occupies 1,360 square millimeters on your wrist, while Lily occupies only 935. By my calculations, this means that Lily will cover 31% less of your wrist. It’s the smallest smartwatch from Garmin, and I imagine it would look comically small alongside the company’s robust Fenix ​​watches.

The watch is circular, to look more like a “classic” non-smart watch, and has a patterned background. The screen is touch-sensitive, but monochrome, which seems a bit absent when similar price offers from Apple, Fitbit and Samsung have color screens. That said, it’s probably to help preserve battery life, as Garmin says it should last up to five days, which is quite impressive given its size.

If the design of the watch band is important to you, though, you may want to look elsewhere: Lily’s bracelets are proprietary and it doesn’t look like Garmin is selling more in their store yet. Plus, you can’t mix and match bands – the colors match the case.

Image: Garmin

Garmin focuses heavily on fitness and wellness tracking with his smartwatches, and Lily can monitor steps, exercise, sleep, stress levels, blood oxygen saturation, periods and pregnancies. Of course, none of these things are exclusive to this smartwatch – most other Garmin smartwatches feature fitness tracking, and there are at least two others that feature menstruation and pregnancy tracking.

This means that you have to decide if you like Lily’s appearance enough to make some changes. Lily does not have GPS, offline music or Garmin Pay embedded like Garmin’s Venu Sq, which is sold for the same price. There are also other $ 200 smartwatches from other brands that are richer in features than Lily, but to some they may not look so beautiful. A smartwatch may have all the features in the world, but it will be totally useless if you find it too ugly to use.

There are also not many competing smartwatches that are as small as Lily, so shoppers worried about having something occupying most of their wrist may also be interested. It is only worth considering what resources you are willing to give up and whether you are willing to deal with some of the other caveats that reviewers found. The watch is now available on the Garmin website.