Garmin Lily 2 review: A beautiful smartwatch that’s lacking in fitness tracking

There are many options for smartwatches on the market. From more “traditional” smartwatches from Apple and Samsung to fitness-focused options from brands like Fitbit and Garmin, choosing your perfect smartwatch can be overwhelming — especially if you want something with form and functionality. 

Personally, I’ve been an Apple Watch user for several years, but — while I love the convenience of my Series 4 — I’m kind of tired of wearing it. The appearance of my Apple Watch was never my favorite, but many other options on the market sported the same problems. They’re either too square, too clunky, too sporty, or too big — which is why I was thrilled to see that Garmin had released its new Lily 2 smartwatch. 

Billed as a fashion-forward smartwatch for women, the Garmin Lily 2 ticked a lot of the boxes I didn’t know I was looking for. With a smaller watch face, a hidden display, and six different color options available, it certainly looks better than most of the smartwatches I’ve seen on the market — but is it worth the $249 price tag? 

I decided to try it out for myself, and here’s what you need to know: 

The Garmin Lily 2 smartwatch looks absolutely stunning 

Straight out of the box, the Lily 2 is one of the prettiest smartwatches I’ve seen. I chose the Garmin Lily 2 Classic in cream gold with a tan leather band, and I was impressed by how well-made this watch is. The patterned watch face isn’t something I thought I’d appreciate, but it’s a subtle feature that lends an Art Deco feel to what is already a beautiful watch.

The watch face itself is small and sturdy, with two different finishes on the cream gold exterior, and the Italian leather band is a far cry from the silicone bands I’ve used in the past. The watch itself also holds a water-resistant rating of 5 ATM — up to a depth of 50 meters — which Garmin says should withstand splashes, rain or snow, showering, swimming, and more. (However, the band you choose might impact how you treat the watch around water.)

The watch also features a hidden display, which is beautiful in theory, but I found the lack of analog watch hands slightly disappointing. Other Garmin watches sport physical watch hands — allowing you to tell the time without “activating” the digital display — and I felt like this feature would’ve given the Lily 2 a little bit more polish. Plus, the display itself is grayscale and somewhat pixelated, making the experience feel slightly less luxe than the physical watch.

The Garmin Lily 2 looks great on the surface, but the digital display was lackluster.
Credit: RJ Andersen / Mashable

The swipe functions were also a little slower than those on my Apple Watch, which meant the experience of using the Lily 2 didn’t quite match the way it looked. It’s a beautiful accessory, yes, and it packs a powerful punch with health tracking — but the smartwatch functionalities were a bit lacking compared to other options on the market. It does include Garmin Pay, and it’s compatible with both Apple and Android smartphones, so you can receive texts, emails, and calendar alerts on your watch. However, it’s also highly tethered to your phone — so you’ll need to carry your phone with you to get features like GPS data on workouts, weather data, etc. 

Most of Garmin’s tracking features were incredible

While I was impressed by the Garmin Lily 2 out-of-the-box, many of the tracking features were even better than I expected. The Lily 2 boasts a suite of Garmin’s best health tracking features — including the sleep score — allowing you to track everything from your heart rate, steps, workouts, respiration, stress levels, and more. As someone new to Garmin watches, I was particularly impressed by the “body battery” score, which estimates your energy levels throughout the day by utilizing your heart rate variability (HRV), stress levels, sleep quality, and exercise activity. 

Compared to my Apple Watch — which also tracks things like steps, exercise activity, respiration, and heart rate — I found that the addition of the stress score, sleep score, and body battery gave me deeper insight into the data I was tracking. Not only did this help me monitor my stress and energy levels throughout the day, but it also helped me better interpret my own health data.

My Apple Watch Series 4 compared to the Garmin Lily 2.
Credit: RJ Andersen / Mashable

Because the stress score is based on physiological stress not just emotional stress, for example, I started discovering which things contributed to a high-stress score — like a heavy meal, an intense workout, or my tendency to pace on phone calls — which allowed me to adjust my habits throughout the day. If my body battery was depleting faster than I wanted it to, for example, I’d switch my workout for a meditation session (or a nap). As someone who is an avid proponent of energy management, this made the Lily 2 an incredible companion for structuring my day to maintain optimal energy. 

And surprisingly? Most of the data seemed pretty accurate. I don’t love wearing watches or bracelets at night, but I did sport the Lily 2 for a week of bedtimes, and the sleep score was a helpful piece of information. That being said, I wasn’t quite health-obsessed enough to want to keep wearing it at night, but the rest of my information — like my Stress Score and Body Battery — still felt pretty accurate even without tracking my sleep. 

What I liked about the Garmin Lily 2: Tracking, aesthetic, connectivity

Obviously, the Lily 2 gave me a lot to love. The aesthetic of the watch was incredible, aside from minor disappointment with the display, and the tracking features were a great asset. I loved being able to use the watch to manage my energy levels, understand how different choices impacted my well-being, and change my habits accordingly. Plus, the battery life held up to the five-day estimate, and — since it charged incredibly fast — I was able to take the watch off during a shower and put it back on, fully charged. 

Not only is it a stunning smartwatch packed with some great tracking functionalities, but the Lily 2 also paired easily with my Apple iPhone 11 Pro, meaning I could receive text messages, notifications, weather updates, and more. Whether I was working out, going for a walk, or deep in my workday, the watch was cute, comfortable, and surprisingly convenient — except for a few key features.

What I didn’t like about it: Activity UX and the Garmin Connect app

While the Garmin Lily 2 worked great most of the time, it fell flat in a few key areas: activity tracking and the Garmin Connect app. 

With activity tracking, the watch generally performed okay, but certain activities offered some serious issues. Treadmill activities, for instance, didn’t log any distance — everything else was tracking just fine, including my step count and heart rate — but after half a mile on the treadmill, I glanced at my watch and saw it had registered a distance of zero feet. 

I hopped off, opened the app to troubleshoot, and spent the next thirty minutes battling with the Garmin Connect App. I tried searching for solutions on Garmin’s support forms, restarted my phone and watch, and even reset the watch back to factory settings, but nothing seemed to work. I could modify the distance in the Garmin Connect online portal to match my treadmill’s reading — and the distance seemed to work just fine on outdoor walks and runs — but treadmill workouts continued to be a source of frustration. 

Other activities seemed to function fine  —  distance logged correctly on outdoor walks and runs — but it felt like the “activities” feature on the app was surprisingly lacking for a fitness-focused smartwatch. Once I started an activity, for example, I was locked into tracking it. I couldn’t access anything else on the watch without stopping the activity, and I couldn’t find the option to even pause and resume an activity once it was started. 

Take a look under the hood.
Credit: RJ Andersen / Mashable

Again, it felt like the data I was receiving was incredible — aside from my hiccups with the Treadmill activity — but the actual experience of using it fell short. It wasn’t necessarily bad, but it just didn’t feel quite as good compared to other smartwatches I’ve tried. 

Unfortunately, my experience with the Garmin Connect app was also somewhat lackluster. The app worked fine, but it was cluttered, overwhelming, and confusing — even for someone who is fairly tech-savvy. Some settings were buried under multiple menus, while others seemed to be accessible only on the Garmin Connect online portal, not the app itself. 

While I’m rarely a fan of companion apps, especially when they’re unnecessary, the Garmin Connect app is necessary — which made the lack of user-friendliness even more frustrating. Some days my information wouldn’t appear on the “my day” window at all unless I refreshed my watch’s connection several times, and trying to understand the different settings under the “more” section felt impossible. That being said, it wasn’t necessarily a deal-breaker for me — the app’s functionality didn’t seem to impact my experience with the watch, aside from the issue with distance measurements on treadmill workouts — it just felt unnecessarily complicated.

Is the Garmin Lily 2 worth it?

If you’re looking for a small, beautiful watch with some simple everyday health-tracking functionality, the Lily 2 might be the perfect smartwatch for you. Garmin has clearly built an amazing piece of hardware with this watch, but as I mentioned above, it’s the software that feels a bit lacking. However, not everyone will notice (or care) about those things, making the Lily 2 a great option for someone who wants a stylish, simple smartwatch to track activity without a ton of bells and whistles. 

As a smartwatch for the fitness-obsessed, however, I found myself wishing for more. The watch is stylish, yes, but it doesn’t stand up against more powerful sports watches — and it’s certainly not as “smart” as other smartwatches. So if you’re looking for a great workout companion — or you want to try out more advanced smartwatch features — you might want to look elsewhere.