CES 2024: Garmin’s Lily 2 is still lovely but there isn’t much that’s new

Garmin hasn’t announced much at CES 2024, but what it has brought to the show is pretty good: an update to the Garmin Connect mobile app, a new women’s heart rate monitor – the HRM-Fit for women – and the Garmin Lily 2 fitness tracker, which we’ve just had a look at on the show floor for the first time.

The Lily 2 is as slim and light as fitness-tracking watches get, looks great and has decent battery life. If you’re not a fan of chunky, DayGlo sports wearables, this is the perfect antidote.

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Garmin Lily 2 hands-on: Specifications

• All aluminium body and bezel with Gorilla Glass 3 lens
• 25.4mm x 21.3mm greyscale display (240 x 201 pixels)
• Colours: Sport – metallic lilac with a lilac silicone band; gold with a white silicone band; Classic – gold with a light brown leather band / bronze with a dark brown leather band
• Dance fitness tracking, indoor rowing, HIIT tracking
• Up to 5-day battery life
• Dimensions: 35.4 x 35.4 x 10.1mm
• Weight: 24.4g

Garmin Lily 2 hands-on: Key features and first impressions

The watch doesn’t look all that different from the first-generation Lily, but if you take a close look you’ll see some improvements worth having. In particular, there’s less plastic than before – all of the Lily 2’s compact body is now built from aluminium and comes in a new selection of colours.

The Sport edition is available in metallic lilac with a lilac silicone band or cream gold with a “coconut” silicone band, while the Classic is available in gold with a light brown leather band, and bronze with a dark brown leather band. If you don’t like these combinations, Garmin also allows users to combine any which way they like via its Your Watch, Your Way page on the Garmin website.

Just like the previous model, though, the thing that sets the Lily 2 apart from the fitness-tracking competition is its patterned lenses. Instead of showing a blank face to the world when not in use, the Lily 2’s face is etched with attractive geometric patterns, with fitness tracking stats only appearing in a bright white LCD overlay when you raise your wrist to look at the watch or give it a tap with your finger.

And it really is an incredibly small and light watch, measuring a mere 35.4mm across and 10.1mm thick and weighing a feather-light 24.4g. Garmin markets it for women but it would be a great wearable for anyone with slender wrists who doesn’t get on with chunky wearables like the Garmin Fenix 7S.

Attractive as it is, though, the most significant upgrades are all happening under the skin of the Lily 2. No, there’s no native GPS upgrade as yet, which is a shame, but Garmin has added some useful features here (and you can get pace and distance via connected GPS, if you’re desperate).

First up is a more advanced heart rate sensor than before, which could improve heart rate readout accuracy. There’s also support for Garmin Pay, although only in the more expensive Classic model, and Garmin has also added its Sleep Score feature to the watch. The previous Lily could do sleep tracking but it wouldn’t give you a score when you woke up.

The Lily 2 also adds incident tracking during some activities and a few more fitness tracking profiles. Dance fitness has been added this time around with options including Zumba, Afrobeat, Bollywood EDM and hip-hop sessions. And there’s also a new indoor rowing and HiiT session tracking profile.

These add to all the usual tracking and health features from steps to calorie counting, Garmin’s Body Battery feature and more.

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Garmin Lily 2: Early verdict

This isn’t an update to get current Lily owners to upgrade. If Garmin ever adds proper GPS that will be the time. However, the new colours, aluminium body, extra features and upgraded heart rate sensor are certainly welcome changes.

The one big downside is the price: the Garmin Lily 2 is available to buy right now but costs a hefty £250 for the Sports version and £300 for the Classic.