Garmin vívosmart 5 Review | 171 Data compared

The Radio Times Garmin vívosmart 5 review awards the fitness tracker an overall rating of 4.4 out of 5 stars, praising it as an excellent and affordable option for health monitoring. Key advantages highlighted include its extensive health features (such as heart rate, respiration, hydration, and women's health tracking), effortless 20-minute setup, and a lightweight, compact design that sits comfortably on smaller wrists. Additionally, it boasts a week-long battery life, 5 ATM water resistance for swimming, and useful Bluetooth-dependent safety features like automatic incident detection and manual SOS alerts. Crucially, unlike its main rival Fitbit, Garmin provides full access to its deep metrics and sleep scores on the Garmin Connect app entirely for free without a premium subscription. However, the reviewer notes several prominent drawbacks, most notably the lack of built-in GPS, which forces users to carry a smartphone to track outdoor activity routes. The physical hardware also falls short compared to modern competitors; the display is strictly monochrome (black and white), and the screen is made of smudge-prone acrylic rather than durable Gorilla Glass. Furthermore, the touchscreen interface was...

The Garmin Vivosmart 5 ($150) is a slim, comfortable fitness tracker designed for data lovers who appreciate rich graphs and detailed stats within its comprehensive app. On the positive side, the device boasts exceptional step-counting precision (differing by an average of just 13.7 steps from a manual counter), accurate distance tracking, and a large screen that remains highly visible even in direct sunlight. It provides high utility for workout tracking through customizable interval settings and features a strong suite of secondary health indicators, including stress detection, blood oxygen monitoring, menstrual tracking, and an impressive battery life of up to seven days. However, the tracker falls short in several key performance areas, making it less competitive at its current price point. Its core disadvantages include a laggy heart rate monitor that struggles with sudden pulse changes, a severely limited selection of only 15 trackable activities, and a subpar, basic dieting feature that is restricted solely to logging water intake. Additionally, the screen lacks touch responsiveness, the textured band struggles to slide past clothing straps, and it lacks advanced health sensors like...

The Garmin Vivosmart 5 is a lightweight, low-profile fitness tracker that excels at daily health monitoring but embraces a highly simplistic, understated design. On the positive side, it is incredibly comfortable to wear, features a physical button for reliable navigation, and delivers a robust seven-day battery life. It provides deep health metrics, automatic activity tracking, and an excellent companion app that unlocks all features without requiring a paid subscription. However, the tracker suffers from several notable limitations, particularly its small, monochrome OLED display that can feel outdated and cramped when reading smartphone notifications. The touchscreen interface can be fiddly during sweaty workouts, and the device completely lacks built-in GPS, requiring a constant smartphone connection to map your routes. Additionally, it lacks modern lifestyle features like Garmin Pay or onboard music storage, making its main competitor—the feature-packed Fitbit Charge 5—a more compelling purchase for the same money.

The Garmin Vivosmart 5 is a lightweight, comfortable, and responsive fitness tracker that serves as an excellent, uncomplicated entry point into the advanced Garmin Connect ecosystem. It features a significantly larger touchscreen and a dedicated hardware back-button compared to its predecessor, allowing users to easily glance at metrics like 24/7 heart rate monitoring, Body Battery, stress tracking, and Fitness Age. While its optical heart rate sensor delivers impressive core accuracy during workouts, the tracker introduces handy smartphone-connected safety notifications and incident detection for outdoor activities. However, the Vivosmart 5 struggles to fully justify its premium price tag when compared to rivals like the Fitbit Charge 5. Its biggest drawbacks include the lack of built-in GPS, inconsistent sleep tracking algorithms that frequently misreport deep sleep stages, and a basic monochrome OLED display that feels outdated. Furthermore, while the battery can last up to seven days with standard use, enabling the Pulse Ox blood oxygen monitor overnight heavily drains the battery, cutting the device's overall juice down to just three or four days.

Garmin Vivosmart 5 Review Summary The Garmin Vivosmart 5 introduces incremental hardware changes to the fitness tracker line, featuring a 66% larger monochrome display, a physical navigation button, and user-swappable bands. It upgrades the charging interface to standard Garmin ports and introduces software features like safety tracking, respiration rate, and an on-device sleep score. Notably, the device tracks core health metrics like steps, 24/7 heart rate, and Body Battery without requiring a paid subscription. Additionally, its optical heart rate sensor delivers highly accurate tracking during workouts and supports Bluetooth broadcasting to external apps like Peloton. However, the review highlights significant drawbacks regarding the device's pricing, features, and outdoor usability. Priced at $149, it lacks internal GPS—relying entirely on connected smartphone GPS—and completely removes the barometric altimeter, which eliminates stair tracking. The display lacks an always-on option and is notoriously difficult to read outdoors under bright sunlight. Furthermore, connected GPS performance proved highly unreliable during cycling tests, resulting in massively inflated distance tracking errors. Given these limitations, the review concludes that the Vivosmart 5 struggles to compete in value against AMOLED-equipped...

The $149.99 Garmin Vivosmart 5 is characterized as a satisfactory, comfortable, and lightweight ( 0.9 0. 9 -ounce) fitness tracker tailored for beginners, boasting excellent 5-6 day battery life and comprehensive health monitoring, including heart rate, SpO2, and Body Battery. However, PCMag notes significant drawbacks, specifically the dated, cramped black-and-white OLED screen without an always-on mode and the lack of built-in GPS. The review further highlights the absence of advanced sensors like ECG, lack of contactless payments, and minor accuracy issues during testing. Compared to rivals like the Fitbit Charge 5 at the same price point, the Vivosmart 5 offers lower overall value due to its hardware limitations.

The Garmin Vivosmart 5 is positioned as a reliable, straightforward fitness tracker featuring a physical button, swappable bands, and a 66% larger display for improved navigation and readability. It offers excellent, subscription-free health insights, including Body Battery, stress tracking, and detailed sleep analysis. However, the tracker lacks an altimeter for tracking floors, lacks built-in GPS, and features a monochrome display that feels dated compared to competitors. The $150 price point is high considering the similar functionality of the cheaper Vivosmart 4.

The Fitbit Charge 5 wins the overall face-off for users seeking a premium design and accurate outdoor workout tracking, primarily due to its bright, colour AMOLED display and built-in GPS capabilities. Key pros include an always-on display option and a more beginner-friendly user interface. However, its major con is a restrictive subscription paywall; users must pay for a monthly Fitbit Premium membership to access detailed sleep cycle breakdowns, the Daily Readiness Score, and advanced health data like EDA and ECG scans. Alternatively, the Garmin Vivosmart 5 stands out as the superior choice for comprehensive, subscription-free health metrics, providing deep analytical data entirely for free via the Garmin Connect app. Its pros include real-time Body Battery tracking, granular post-workout metrics (like sweat loss), and a lack of hidden operational costs. On the downside, its design is held back by a lower-resolution Grayscale OLED screen and a lack of built-in GPS, forcing the tracker to rely on a connected smartphone that can result in slightly inaccurate distance tracking during runs or walks.

The Garmin Vivosmart 5 updates the previous generation with a wider monochrome OLED display and a highly practical physical home button. Retailing at £130, this lightweight fitness band introduces a free, feature-rich companion app with no paywalls, alongside new metrics like a Sleep Score, 24/7 blood oxygen tracking, and incident detection. Its performance shines in gym tracking, matching more expensive Garmin models for heart rate, stress monitoring, and Body Battery data. However, the tracker presents significant drawbacks by omitting built-in GPS and NFC for contactless payments. It also loses the barometric altimeter found in its predecessor, meaning it can no longer count the stairs you climb. Furthermore, using smartphone-tethered GPS results in wildly inconsistent distance tracking during outdoor runs, and the small display limits customisable fields to just three options.