Garmin vivosmart 5, Smart Health and Fitness Activity Tracker with Touchscreen, White, Small/Medium

Nice simple smart watch bought this as a replacement for my wife see finds very comfortable to wear easy to use good battery life good watch

After my Fitbit health tracker band finally gave up the ghost, I decided to look for the closest equivalent I could find. The Garmin Vivosmart 5 seemed the best fit for me regarding size and function. In fact, this device exceeded my requirements for trackers for Heart Rate, Blood Oxygen, Step count, Sleep monitoring, etc. I wanted a band size similar to my old FitBit and a sub £150 price tag. So far so good. I am pleasantly surprised at the Vivosmart 5. Functionality outstrips my old FitBit, and the companion Garmin App actually gives me most (if not all) what I would have to pay extra for by having to subscribe to FitBit’s premium subscription. Battery life can be quite short (approximately 2 days) if the Blood Oxygen readings are set to constant (Pulse), but I get approximately 4 days use (permanently on my wrist) without charging if this function is turned off. I can of course switch this on again if I require a check, so I know it’s available. My only minor niggle so far is that if I want to use non-metric weights and distances, the weather temperature (synced from the app on my phone) displays in fahrenheit rather than celsius. Even though it's celciius on my phone. It seems this cannot be changed unless I select metric weights and distances. Not a major issue for me, as the weather apps on my phone suffice for this data. So, in conclusion, after a few days of ownership, so far I’m impressed. If I could score 4.5 stars I would.

Really happy with this purchase. Everything works as expected. Great if you want an uncomplicated solution to tracking your activity and sleep. It does also give you notifications for calls and messages but I have turned that feature off.

It is easy to set up and seems to be fairly accurate with its readings. The battery life is nowhere near 7 days if you have all of the monitoring on, at best 3 days! My only real disappointment is with the poor delivery from Amazon. The driver just threw the package over my 5 bar gate at the top of my garden. The package got wet from the rain and was there until we found it. I expect more from Amazon, as a prime customer.

This is the first 'smartwatch' I've bought so didn't know what to expect. Having used it for 6 weeks I can now say it is absolutely useless for measuring your heart rate when running. It grossly overestemates the heart rate. For example, I have an old Nike chest heart rate monitor which tells me my my running heart rate is between 90 and 110bpm. The Vivosmart 5 says 130 to 150bpm. If that were true I'd be coughing up blood. In fact I'm not even breathing heavy. I think the device is picking up my cadence rhythm rather than heart rate. I've also compared it to a blood pressure monitor after a run. Again it was off by 40bpm! I've tried wearing the watch on the left and right arms, tight and loose. It still over estimates the heart rate. When walking or using the exercise bike the Vivosmart 5 works ok, the values match the chest band monitor (although one 4k walk had me down as walking faster than Roger Bannister's four minute mile! But sadly when running I have no idea what it's doing. How it measures your sleep quality is beyond me also. After a poor night's sleep it tells me my sleep score is 92. After a great sleep it gives me a score of 41 explaining my late night activity (running I hasten to add) impacted my sleep quality... Having had a triple heart bypass last year is my excuse for being somewhat over critical of it's poor performance when measure running heart rate. In Garmin's favour, the Connect app is a good motivator although at times it can increase your stress levels with some of its bugs.

This is great for basic health monitoring, heart rate and sleep - excellent feature for strength training with counting reps which is accurate most of the time, the pulse ox meter is also useful for checking your oxygen levels. It obviously does not have GPS function, so you must carry your phone with you if you wanting to map and record distance for an activity. I bought this watch because I already own an Edge 540 for my bike rides and therefore didn't want the GPS function. I do wish that it would read a Heart rate strap for more accurate results when running. All in all a good watch for the price.

This watch did not fit my wrist - which is slim but not that slim (I’m a size 10). I ordered it to replace my Vivosmart 4 which I loved. I particularly like the slim, elegant style of the watch but in order to record stats accurately it needs to be in contact with the skin at all times. This wasn’t possible with the vivosmart 5. When I returned the product I asked if there was a smaller size but have still not heard back from the company. My conclusion is that if you’re a slim woman don’t bother ordering this product!

I bought this 5 months ago to replace the fitbit charge HR I had previously (two watches having the battery die within 6-8 months drove me to a change). So far so good. It does all the basics that I want, reminds me if I haven't moved, tracks my exercise, links to strava. I went for a swim and like that you can enter your lap length and it will measure the distance for you - saves counting laps. It doesn't seem to autodetect exercise, which the fitbit did, so if I forget to tell it I've started a bike ride, it will give me intensity minutes but no activities, which is irritating. I quite liked the body battery function to start with but I'm not convinced it's actually helpful. It quite frequently tells me I've had a terrible night's sleep, not due to being awake or tossing and turning but due to 'high stress levels', which means I can get a sleep score of 50 with my body battery bottoming out early but still feel as fresh and awake through the next day as if I have a sleep score of 90. Overall, I will probably stick with this next time but the key will be the battery life, so only time will tell.