Garmin Lily 2 Active Review | Now with Built-In GPS & Almost Twice the Battery Life

At PlayBetter, we just got our hands on a new fitness smartwatch! The Garmin Lily 2 Active was released on October 2, about nine months after the Lily 2 and Lily 2 Classic in early 2024. 

So why did Garmin release another version of this watch? 

Well, while the Garmin Lily 2 filled the niche of stylish fitness tracker for smaller wrists, it was missing a couple of things Garmin is known for: long battery life and on-watch GPS tracking.

As with many affordable fitness trackers, you can get GPS tracking when your Lily 2 smartwatch is paired with your phone. And even the lowest battery life on a Garmin watch beats the pants off of a lot of the competition.

But more active types like not having to charge their fitness watch for a week. And getting your GPS pace, time, and distance on the wrist is sweeter for some who don’t want to pull their phone out every five seconds on a hike, run, or ride.

Read on to find out everything that the Garmin Lily 2 Active has to offer and how it’s different from the previous Garmin Lily fitness smartwatches. Hopefully by the end of this article, you’ll know if it’s the right fitness tracker for you!

Garmin Lily 2 Pros & Cons

Pros

• More battery life
• Built-In GPS
• Plenty of options for activity tracking
• Chic design with interchangeable bands for more accessorizing
• Built for smaller wrists
• All stats are available in Garmin Connect app for free
• 24/7 health and wellness: heart rate, sleep, SpO2
• Many useful widgets to customize metrics
• Garmin Pay
• Attractive patterned display with a touchscreen

Cons

• No barometric altimeter for tracking stairs climbed
• Not a color display
• Cannot broadcast your heart rate via ANT+ or Bluetooth Smart
• No navigation

What’s New on the Garmin Lily 2 Active

It’s true, the list of new features on this Lily 2 model is not long. But the differences are pretty significant, allowing a more active person (hence the name) to do more—while still having an elegant watch on their wrist! New features include:

• Built-In GPS
• Significantly More Battery life!

Garmin Lily 2 Active Specs

How’s It Different from the Original Garmin Lily and Lily 2?

Like the Lily 2/Lily 2 Classic released earlier this year, the Lily 2 Active has a lot of upgrades from the original Lily that came out in January of 2021. For a recap on the differences between the Lily 2 and Lily 2 Classic, check out this article.

So, like the other Lily 2 models, the Lily 2 Active has these new features and improvements:

• Features a metal case vs original Lily’s plastic case
• Lily 2 features standard 14mm band design vs previous 14mm proprietary design
• Adds Sleep Score and Sleep Details on watch widget
• Adds incident detection and safety alerts
• Adds Garmin Pay (contactless payment) to the Lily 2 Classic model
• New sport profiles: HIIT, Row Indoor, Walk Indoor, Meditation
• Adds Dance Fitness Feature, with Dance Types: Afrobeat, Bhangra, Bollywood, EDM, Hip Hop, Latin, Line Dancing, Pop & Jazz, Video Game, Cardio

But beyond these, the active has the built-in GPS and the enhanced battery life in smartwatch mode. It now gets up to 9 hours in smartwatch mode, while the original Lily and the ones released earlier this year get only 5 hours. 

Best Features on the Lily 2 Active

Best smartwatch for health monitoring

This Garmin watch has the rich and robust suite of health and wellness features that Garmin is known—and loved—for. Get these features in this petit, elegant fitness watch:

• Body Battery™ energy monitoring: Monitor energy levels throughout the day to help find the best times for activity and rest.
• Sleep score: Receive a score for last night’s sleep quality, plus insights on how to do better. 
• Fitness Age: Want an estimate of how fit you are compared to your actual age? Consider the fitness age value a helpful reminder that healthy choices and regular physical activity can help you feel fresh and revitalized. And remember, if your fitness age is older than your actual age, even small steps in the right direction can have a substantial impact on how you feel.
• Women’s Health: Log periods and symptoms (including mood, discharge, physical symptoms and more) while receiving guidance based around nutrition, training and general health throughout the different phases of your menstrual cycle. If you’re pregnant, you can pause your cycle predictions and get displays of your baby’s gestational age and size, providing weekly education relating to exercise and nutrition during pregnancy and offering even more logging options from the other cycle types.
• Also keep track of different sleep stages, heart rate, stress, Pulse Ox, and respiration.

Garmin Pay

This contactless payment solution is available on the Lily 2 Active. Whether you grab a cup of coffee after your morning run or get a bite to eat while out on a ride, Garmin Pay lets you make purchases quickly and almost effortlessly with nothing needed but your watch. No wallet? No phone? No problem.

Activity Profile Options

• Strength
• HIIT 
• Cardio
• Elliptical Training
• Stair Stepping
• Indoor Rowing
• Dance Fitness
• Jump Roping
• Walking 
• Pilates
• Yoga
• Breathwork
• Treadmill Running
• Running
• Biking
• Pool Swimming

Elegant Style for Smaller Wrists

The Garmin Lily 2 Active features a metal watch case and a beautiful patterned lens. Plus, with a quick tap or wrist turn, the Lily 2 smartwatch reveals a bright display on this touchscreen fitness GPS watch.

Does the Garmin Lily 2 Active Make a Good Running Watch?

If you’re just looking for a bare bones running watch, you can get by with the Lily 2 Active. Unlike Garmin’s range of more serious running watches, it shows up as a GPS fitness tracker. You’ll get treadmill and outdoor running activity profiles, as well as GPS-based distance, time, and pace.

You’ll also have access to Garmin Coach training plans from expert coaches to help you train for your next 5K, 10K, or half-marathon. Safety and tracking features can offer peace of mind when you’re out on a run.

But you won’t have a compass for navigation, preloaded maps, a barometric altimeter for elevation metrics, or a whole lot of the very specialized Garmin features that measure performance and plug it into a personalized history to help you recover and train more efficiently.

Nor does it have on-watch music storage that a lot of runners like to have for phone-free listening. Although you will be able to control the music on your phone with the Lily 2 Active.

If you are looking for a running GPS watch that offers more training integrated with your health and wellness, as well as some or a lot of maps and navigation, you’ll want to check out the Garmin Forerunner lineup:

• Garmin Forerunner 165 (Most affordable; most limited training and navigation features)
• Garmin Forerunner 265 (Bright AMOLED display; mid-level training features; limited navigation)
• Garmin Forerunner 965 (Bright AMOLED display; most advanced Garmin features; full-color topo maps) 

Who’s This Fitness GPS Watch for?

The focus with a Garmin Lily watch has always been on health and wellness, fitness tracking, and a stylish design for ladies who want a watch designed for smaller wrists. The Garmin Lily 2 Active continues with this tone, but is many times more convenient with up to 9 days of battery life in smartwatch mode and built-in GPS—so you don’t need to pair it with your phone for tracking your activities.

The woman who wears this watch likes the look of a piece of jewelry over a clunky sport watch but with Garmin’s unbeatable GPS and health and fitness DNA inside it.

If that's you, PlayBetter has the Garmin Lily 2 Active available in all three colors:

• Lunar Gold with Bone silicone band
• Silver with Purple Jasmine silicone band
• Jasper Green with Jasper Green silicone band (it's very Jasper Green)

And if you need something more or different, feel free to check our entire sport watch collection.

PlayBetter has been a Garmin authorized dealer for over a decade. We always offer free 2-day shipping, free 60-day returns (on watches), and unbeatable customer service. Go ahead, put us to the test. We want to help you find the right watch for you.