Garmin’s Vivoactive 3 Music smartwatch gets LTE (but no music streaming—yet)

Enlarge (credit: Garmin)
Another first is coming to Garmin smartwatches: LTE connectivity. Garmin announced at CES today that it has partnered with Verizon to bring cellular connectivity to its Vivoactive 3 Music smartwatch. The already powerful wearable will get the ability to download music anywhere and share the wearer's location to contacts without a smartphone present.

Unlike on the Apple Watch, Wear OS, or Samsung devices, the LTE connectivity in the new Vivoactive 3 Music isn't primarily used to stream music. Garmin says that constant connectivity will let users download tracks from services like Spotify and Deezer for offline listening from anywhere. That's news in itself, as Garmin recently announced that Spotify would be available on its Fenix 5 Plus smartwatches. Its CES announcement shows that the Spotify Connect IQ app will soon make its way onto the Vivoactive 3 Music as well.
Garmin's announcement highlights the location-sharing conveniences of cellular connectivity. Those wearing a new Vivoactive 3 Music will be able to press and hold one of the watch's buttons to send a text to emergency contacts with their real-time location at any time. The new 'incident detection' feature adds another level of protection, sensing when the wearer experiences an impact while walking, running, or cycling and sending a location-sharing text to emergency contacts automatically.
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