Garmin’s main wearable announcement of CES 2024 was the Garmin Lily 2 – a follow-up to its women-focused smartwatch that landed in 2021.
According to Garmin, Lily has ben a surprising success, with traction from its female audience of its super-slim smartwatch.
The Lily 2 isn’t a huge leap on, but brings some notable upgrades that keeps it treading water with the rest of the company’s huge range of wearables.
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There are two versions: the Lily 2 and Lily 2 Classic with a slightly upgraded design.
The case size has grown around 1mm, up to 35.4mm, which still makes it one of the smallest smartwatches in existence.
It’s really tiny when viewed in person, and even more so against some of Garmin’s other watches, including the 42mm Vivoactive 5S.
The Lily 2’s screen turns off when not in use, but features a textured MIP panel that means there’s an attractive pattern even when it’s turned off.
On tracking front, the company has added the improved Body Battery, which is smarter and will recharge if you take a rest.
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You can cycle through Garmin’s list of wellness metrics, and on the small screen you get three data points at a time.
There’s no GPS on board, so this isn’t an option for runners or especially fitness-orientated women. It’s more of a general wellness smartwatch, and a smaller and more elegant alternative to the company’s Vivomove hybrids.
Sleep tracking gets the Garmin sleep score, but the company stopped short of adding the tracking of naps, like we’ve seen on Venu 3.
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The Lily gets the Elevate Gen 4 sensor, which is the last generation optical PPG. We’ve seen exceptional results from the new Gen 5 – but women wanting that will need to go for the Venu 3S.
Elsewhere not much has changed for the new Lily 2. It’s still a unique wearable aimed solely at women.
Garmin does have female-focussed features such as cycle tracking (via a calendar) and there’s a pregnancy mode, too.
Wareable Verdict
A strong option for women looking for Garmin’s improving wellness metrics – the Lily 2 is tiny, elegant and unique.
It’s still basic in terms of the metrics and standard of tracking on offer – and we’d love to see the Lily range expand to become more potent fitness devices one day.
How we test
James is the co-founder of Wareable, and he has been a technology journalist for 15 years.
He started his career at Future Publishing, James became the features editor of T3 Magazine and T3.com and was a regular contributor to TechRadar – before leaving Future Publishing to found Wareable in 2014.
James has been at the helm of Wareable since 2014 and has become one of the leading experts in wearable technologies globally. He has reviewed, tested, and covered pretty much every wearable on the market, and is passionate about the evolving industry, and wearables helping people achieve healthier and happier lives.