Garmin Lily 2 Active review: a charming connected watch for budding athletes

Inaugurated in 2021, the Lily lifestyle range has long been neglected by Garmin. We had to wait until the beginning of 2024 to see the birth of the Lily 2, an improved version of the connected watch, but still poorly equipped for even occasional athletes.

To respond to criticism, Garmin is releasing the Lily 2 Active upmarket. It is equipped with a GPS, essential for knowing the distance traveled and pace in real time, and new sports profiles such as tennis, stand-up paddle, skiing or golf. Two physical buttons also appear on the right side of the dial and avoid having to refer to the touch screen for each operation. If the Lily 2 Active retains a monochrome LCD screen that is wider than it is tall, its case is bulkier: a more durable battery takes place and promises nine days of autonomy. Finally, its price also increases and reaches €350.

Construction

Charming, elegant, discreet: the aesthetic qualities of the Lily 2 Active are numerous. In this new version, the connected watch retains its place as a lifestyle watch in the Garmin catalog.

Aesthetics above all

A pattern is always represented on the screen of the watch so that it acts as a piece of jewelry once the screen is turned off. On the other hand, this aesthetic choice does not help in reading the time correctly. And with only 1000 cd/m², the maximum brightness of the dial is correct, but its low-contrast LCD panel makes reading a little more difficult, day or night. Damage.

In itself, this touch screen does not present any evolution compared to the Lily 2 Classic. It retains its Corning Gorilla 3 coating, and above all its oddity of being wider than it is high. Indeed, while the case is round, the display is not: it spans 1 inch wide and only 0.84 inches high. The LCD screen has a definition of 240 x 201 pixels and excludes colors. Monochrome, it still offers 16 different gray levels.

If the size of the Lily 2 Active's screen does not change, the aluminum case gains a little weight: an additional 8 g is displayed on the scale to reach 29 g in total. Obviously, it remains among the lightest cases in our comparison and surpasses the 34.6 g of the Withings ScanWatch 2. On the wrist, the Garmin is very small and is very pleasant to wear. On the other hand, Garmin prefers silicone to leather and this choice makes the watch lose its splendor.

An everyday connected watch

The Lily 2 Active is an everyday watch, easy to wear and take care of. Maybe too easy? This is also what this lifestyle range from Garmin has often been criticized for, namely abandoning basic functionalities common on connected watches, starting with physical buttons. Indeed, if you want to make things too simple, you end up making things complicated. This is why the Active version adds two physical controls on the right side of the dial, welcome to streamline navigation between the watch menus.

Still to get rid of this bad reputation, the Garmin is equipped with a GPS which was sorely lacking on previous versions. Thanks to it, the watch records a trace for each outdoor activity and delivers the pace in real time. The Lily 2 Active also has a heart rate monitor and a pulse oximeter, but abandons the altimeter reserved for more sporty watches, such as the Fenix ​​8. Finally, if the Lily 2 Active is waterproof up to 50 m, it does not have no depth gauge.

User experience

The two new buttons on the Garmin Lily 2 Active make navigation between the different menus much smoother. Well known to Garmin users – and more generally to sports tocantes users – the top button opens the sports activities menu. The lower control goes back and opens the main menu (dial, clock, settings) when held for a few seconds.

The Garmin retains its touch button located on the bottom of the panel, which is responsible for modifying the data displayed directly on the home screen. The user can then choose to read their step count, heart rate, weather, battery percentage, etc. Ultimately not very useful, we regret that this command eats up the surface reserved for touch and display, especially since this data is incidental as it is summarized by other screens, including the home screen.

To access these other screens, you have to swipe from right to left. In particular, you can find out the sleep time, the number of steps, the stress level, the “body battery” score dear to Garmin, the diary, the distance covered during the day. So much detailed data on the mobile application, which is also essential to correctly follow the measurements, as the display of the watch is minimalist and rather basic. We are far from the comfort of use offered by the Garmin Venu 3S or Venu SQ 2.

As such, the application does not change and continues to abound in information and analyzes of all kinds. The Epix Pro review covers its features in detail.

Finally, we regret a latency in the screen lighting when raising the wrist, always present when we press on the screen to turn it on.

Sports & Health

It's confirmed, the Lily 2 Active is intended to be more sporty and offers more activities to reach thirty profiles. Even more, it integrates new outdoor sports, such as skiing, snowboarding, stand-up paddleboarding, golf and tennis.

And to be relevant to these new activities, the connected watch can count on its integrated GPS. No need to go out with your smartphone anymore, the Garmin takes care of giving the exact route of the exit and the pace. During ours, the Lily 2 Active fulfills its mission and manages to follow us without difficulty, sometimes better than our smartphone. On the other hand, it takes us through a few buildings and takes turns that are too sharp. In any case, the GPS is more than sufficient for occasional outdoor outings.

The effectiveness of the cardiac sensor is variable. During an endurance session, it turned out to be correct and followed the trend of our reference measuring tool, the Polar H10 heart rate belt. The Garmin Lily 2 Active manages to record the maximum heart rate, but underestimates it overall with values ​​varying by 9%.

On a split session, although the differences are less significant, we still note variations compared to the results of the Polar H10. The Garmin has difficulty quickly increasing intensity and fails to soften afterwards. The two curves are then completely different, even if the variations recorded are less than 2%.

Finally, if this data is not taken into account in the rating, we still analyze good sleep tracking from this Garmin. She manages to capture the bedtime and wakeup time to within 3 minutes. Its small size and light weight make it all the more pleasant to wear at night.