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I woke up this morning from my first night with Garmin’s Index sleep band, and so far it’s exactly what I hoped for—super comfortable, and requires no thought to use. You just put it on when you go to bed, and everything is taken care of. I’m not yet convinced it’s worth $170, however. (I’m working on a full review of this device, and I’ll compare it to its rivals from Whoop and Amazfit.)
You don’t have to mess with the app to make it work
All I had to do was pair it, and set my smart alarm in the app, then set it aside until bedtime. (Yep, I’m trying out the smart alarm—hoping that it works better for me than the smart alarm on the Vivoactive 6.)
Best of all, you don’t need your phone to snooze the alarm in the morning, or even to turn it off. When the gentle buzzes woke me up, I reached over and slapped my arm. Nothing. So I knocked on the device twice, and that was the charm. It gave a little double buzz of acknowledgement, and let me sleep a few more minutes.
On phone alarms, I’m always mixing up the “stop” and “snooze” buttons in my grogginess. I wondered what I was supposed to do here when I wanted to fully turn off the alarm. Eventually I realized the answer is simpler than I thought: You just take the band off, and it knows you’re awake.
It’s ridiculously comfortable
I don’t know how well the band is going to wear over time—it’s thin and wide, and I worry about whether it might fray or pill. But as I got into bed, I appreciated that it wasn’t made of watchband-style elastic. (I’ve worn Whoop’s bicep band to bed many times, and it’s fine, but this is better.)
The strap is 2.5 inches wide, and has soft Velcro stripes all the way down its length. (I was between sizes, and got the small/medium band; it fits well.) The fabric is stretchy. So it doesn’t put pressure on any one part of your arm, and doesn’t have edges that dig in.
The alarm’s vibration is gentle
This is probably both a plus and a minus. The vibration level was set by default to the highest of three levels. When it buzzed to wake me up, there were cycles of four buzzes: light, medium, harder, harder, then starting over again with the light one. This let me respond to the lighter buzz when I first felt it, if I was sleeping lightly, but definitely woke me up just fine if I slept through that part.
And, yes, I tested this through many several snooze cycles in one morning. For science.
What I’m still curious about
My biggest question about this device is whether the smart alarm will actually work. I have my doubts based on my experience with the Vivoactive 6, the first Garmin to feature a smart alarm. Every night I was testing that watch, I’d set a wake-up window of 7:00 to 7:30 a.m., and every morning I’d be woken up at 7:30 on the dot.
I also want to see how the band stands up to wear and tear. It’s machine washable, they say. Extra bands cost $49.99, so they better last. I don’t pay much attention to reviewing the bands on most devices, since you can usually pick up a nicer watch band for $10-20 if you don’t like the one your watch came with. But when there’s only one option out there, it better be good.
