Review on Refurbished Garmin Vivosmart 4 Activity Tracker - Small/Medium - Black/Slate by James Thelin

Granted, everyone gets what they pay for, right? I purchased this item refurbished because I wasn't sure it would do what I wanted and didn't want to pay full price to find out. Let me add a little background: I recently took up running after a four year hiatus due to an injury that hasn't stopped. I'm notorious for overworking and raising my heart rate a bit so I have to keep an eye on that. I don't care how many steps I take or how many stairs I climb in a day. I'm on a treadmill, I'm doing it very, very slowly, which frustrates me very, very much, and all I really want to know is what my heart rate is and roughly how many miles I've run. Bonus if it has GPS when (if) I can get back on the road. I really need a harbinger. But my wrists are tiny, we talk less than the average teenage girl, and they're just too big. So I think I'll buy this little activity tracker, at least I can monitor my heart rate which is always around 175-80 but resolves fine and my doctor isn't concerned so why should I be concerned? I just want to track. Yes. The first device was not connected to the charger for a long time to charge the device. Called Revain and went through the troubleshooting process which I understand was necessary but we couldn't get it to stay connected to the charger long enough to fix the error so they sent me another one. The second device charges (YES!) and is fine for the first few runs. I found steps and flights of stairs and ounces of water and "breathable" things utterly useless, but like I said, I KNOW I really need a precursor, I'm just too small and cheap to pay that much for something huge. and clumsy, leaving big marks on my arm. I disabled most of the features of this thing on day one. A few runs, I look through the TM and feel a rumble on my wrist. I'm looking for "heart rate too low". At this point I'm jogging, I know my heart rate is usually above average so I scroll through the screens and it says my heart rate is 162. I take my hand and continue. Bzzz. I turn it over again. The heart rate is too low. Scroll through the screens.168. Obviously not too low. hand down Bzzzz.Arm up, works fine. I spent the rest of that run ignoring it. Every time my heart rate went over 160 (like I said, I run at a fast pace, so that happens a lot) he would insist it was too low. I adjusted the strap. Loose, tight, moderately difficult. Still did it the same way. After that I checked the app and in fact it recorded me as almost dead at 14 hours alternately or running at 168-174 hours. Two days later I tried again. He did the same. After the third annoying buzz, I ripped it off, tossed it around in the basement like the spirited princess that I am, and left it there under the ping-pong table. I started coming back after finishing my run, stretching and doing some yoga. By this point I had calmed down enough to recover from the hiatus. If you want to track your walk, how many flights you've boarded, how much water you've drunk and how much stress you're experiencing by checking your email and telling you the time, do it. If you just want to track your heart rate during high-intensity activities? skip it Save your money and hopefully you'll have a grown wrist and be able to buy a decent running watch.