Garmin Lily 2

The Garmin Lily 2 is a small, fashion-minded smartwatch that hides its screen behind a patterned lens and tries to pack the essentials of Garmin's health tracking into something closer to a piece of jewellery than a sports gadget. Garmin introduced it on 8 January 2024 together with the Lily 2 Classic, and the company said both were available immediately, with the plain Lily 2 listed at a suggested retail price of $249.99. This page is based on the published specifications and manufacturer information, and it looks at what the watch offers, what it deliberately leaves out, and who is likely to be happy with those trade-offs.

Where it sits in the Lily lineup

Garmin describes the Lily 2 series as the next generation of its petite, fashionable smartwatches, offered in two models. The Lily 2 is the base version. The Lily 2 Classic adds Garmin Pay contactless payments, and Garmin's own announcement states that payments are available only on the Classic, so the standard Lily 2 does not carry that feature. The Classic also started at a higher price, $279.99 according to the same announcement. Later in 2024 Garmin widened the family with the Garmin Lily 2 Active, which keeps the hidden-display look but adds built-in GPS and a longer battery rating of up to nine days. If you are weighing the two directly, the Lily 2 vs Lily 2 Active comparison lays the numbers side by side.

Design and display

The main design idea is the one Garmin calls a hidden display. The watch has a metal case, and on top sits a lens printed with a pattern. When the watch is idle, you see the pattern and not a screen. A tap or a turn of the wrist wakes a bright touchscreen, and the time, notifications or data appear to float through the pattern. In the official images the lens carries a repeating geometric motif on the silver model and a softer decorative texture on the gold one, which makes the whole front look like a decorative dial rather than a gadget.

Garmin offers colour combinations such as Cream Gold with a Coconut band, or Dark Bronze with Mulberry, and the wider series is sold with Italian leather, nylon or silicone bands that can be swapped easily. The product images for the standard Lily 2 show silicone straps, for example in a cream shade and in lilac, while the leather straps are shown on the Classic. Garmin also lets buyers mix bands and bezels through its Your Watch, Your Way tool on its website. The company does not publish a screen size, resolution or case dimensions in the announcement, so this article does not quote any. If size matters for a small wrist, check the dimensions on the official product listing before buying.

Health and wellness tracking

Most of the value in the Lily 2 sits in its health features, and Garmin has packed in a respectable list. Heart rate, respiration, Pulse Ox and stress are tracked day and night. Body Battery energy monitoring estimates your energy through the day so you can pick better moments for activity and rest. A sleep score rates the previous night and breaks it into stages, with heart rate, stress, Pulse Ox and respiration data alongside it. Garmin adds a morning report that summarises sleep, the calendar and the weather when you wake up.

There are also guided meditation and breathwork activities for stressful moments, and women's health tracking that covers menstrual cycle and pregnancy tracking along with exercise and nutrition education. Garmin includes the usual caveat that the watch is not a medical device and that Pulse Ox is not available in every country, so treat the readings as wellness information and not as a diagnosis. Everything feeds into the free Garmin Connect smartphone app, where you can see your history, connect with friends and join challenges.

Fitness features and the GPS question

The Lily 2 tracks steps, calories burned and intensity minutes, and it includes built-in sports apps for cardio, yoga, strength training and more. A new dance fitness activity was added for this generation, covering styles such as Zumba, Afrobeat, Bollywood, EDM and hip-hop. Move alerts remind you to get up after a stretch of sitting, and the new suggestions offer small movements such as neck rolls, side bends and squats, including options you can do seated.

The important limitation is location. The standard Lily 2 does not have its own GPS. Garmin describes a connected GPS feature: when you walk, bike or run outdoors, the watch borrows the GPS of a compatible smartphone to produce accurate activity statistics. In practice that means you need to carry your phone for a mapped route, pace and distance. Anyone who wants to leave the phone at home for a run should look at the Active model instead, or at a sportier watch such as the Garmin Vivoactive 6.

Smart features and phone compatibility

The watch works with iPhone and Android. Emails, text messages and other alerts can show on the wrist. Garmin also highlights incident detection: when the watch is paired with the Garmin Connect app and a compatible phone, a message with your name and location, if available, can be sent to chosen emergency contacts after a detected incident. Garmin points to separate pages for the requirements and limitations of that feature, and it is worth reading them because the function depends on the phone connection. There is no payment support on this model, no built-in music storage mentioned in the announcement, and no mention of cellular connectivity, so the watch is clearly a companion to a phone and not a replacement for one.

Battery life

Garmin rates the Lily 2 at up to five days in smartwatch mode, which is the figure on both its announcement and its product listing. That is a manufacturer figure for a standard use pattern, and real results depend on screen use, notifications and how often you track activities. Five days is a comfortable result for a small fashion watch with a touchscreen, and it is meaningfully better than many full-colour smartwatches that need charging every day or two, but it is also well below the nine days Garmin quotes for the later Lily 2 Active. Garmin does not give a charging time in the material used for this page.

Who it is for

The Lily 2 suits people who want a discreet watch that tracks sleep, stress, energy and steps without looking like a fitness tracker. It makes sense for those who value interchangeable straps, a small footprint and a calm, low-key display, and who are happy to rely on their phone for GPS. It also suits someone buying a first Garmin who mainly cares about wellness data and women's health tracking. If you prefer a mainstream smartwatch ecosystem with apps and mobile payments, Apple's Watch Series 10 is a very different proposition, and the Lily 2 vs Watch Series 10 comparison shows how far apart the two are in features.

Compromises to weigh

• No built-in GPS. Outdoor tracking depends on a connected phone.
• No Garmin Pay. Contactless payments are reserved for the Lily 2 Classic.
• Hidden display. The patterned lens looks elegant, but it is less direct than an always-visible screen and may not suit everyone.
• Five-day battery. Good for the category, yet shorter than Garmin's own Lily 2 Active.
• Few published details. Garmin's announcement does not list screen size, weight or water rating, so confirm those before you commit.

Overall, the Lily 2 is a deliberately focused product. It trades sports depth and independence from the phone for style, a small size and a solid wellness toolkit. If that balance matches how you wear a watch, it is a considered choice from Garmin's women's-focused line, and the smartwatch rankings show how it stacks up against the rest of the field.