Garmin Vivoactive 5 GPS Watch Overview

Backside Line

The Garmin Vivoactive 5 is a flexible GPS smartwatch designed for energetic life. It blends health monitoring, good options, and dependable battery life in a glossy package deal. Its vibrant AMOLED show affords glorious visibility, whereas the light-weight design ensures all-day consolation. It’s the thinnest and lightest watch in our lineup. Its glossy design and hardly noticeable weight earn it a spot in our lineup of finest GPS watches.

Geared up with a extremely correct GPS and plenty of exercise varieties, the Vivoactive 5 precisely tracks working, biking, swimming, energy coaching, and extra. Well being monitoring is a serious focus of this watch. In truth, it leans extra towards a health and well being tracker than a GPS look ahead to backcountry use. It comes outfitted with coronary heart price monitoring, coronary heart price variability, sleep insights, stress monitoring, and Physique Battery power monitoring to offer a complete view of wellness.

Whereas the Vivoactive 5 is nice for front-country use and recording well being metrics, it lacks some options wanted to depend on it within the backcountry. It doesn’t come outfitted with an altimeter or the power to navigate utilizing the watch. Its average battery life is just not sufficient for day-long actions, however it adequately powers the intensely vibrant display screen for day by day use.

For these searching for a well-rounded health smartwatch with robust well being monitoring and on a regular basis utility, the Vivoactive 5 is a prime contender.

How We Examined

We put the Vivoactiv GPS watch to the take a look at – taking it on sweaty path runs, epic backcountry ski adventures, and simply sporting it round day-to-day. After huffing and puffing with this look ahead to a pair months straight, we’ve killed the batteries extra occasions than we are able to rely, tracked our miles via every kind of terrain to see how correct it truly is, and strapped in for hours on finish to verify it doesn’t drive you nuts.

Accuracy

The Garmin Vivoactive 5 supplied dependable GPS accuracy all through our assessments on a loop of identified distance and testing in several terrain varieties. 

The one space through which it struggled was in dense tree cowl. There have been some skips and jumps within the observe, and the gap was barely off. That is frequent in single-band GPS watches, however it was notably noticeable within the Vivoactive 5. 

Whereas it lacks dual-frequency GPS, the Vivoactive 5 nonetheless performs properly for many customers. Its stability of accuracy and battery effectivity makes it a reliable alternative for informal runners and health lovers.

Battery Life

The Garmin Vivoactive 5 claims an  11-day battery life in commonplace smartwatch mode, although we discovered that real-world utilization varies extensively throughout our testing. 

It was exhausting to make this watch final greater than 5 days with day by day GPS recording of 1-1.5 hours and common smartwatch use. Garmin claims the Vivoactive has upwards of 17 hours of steady GPS use. We discovered that to be a unicorn state of affairs stat. The actual-life assessments proved it’s decrease. Battery saver mode helps prolong utilization, however the Vivoactive is just not our prime decide for all-day actions or spending a number of days between dependable charging.

Consolation & Wearability

The Garmin Vivoactive is the lightest and slimmest watch in our lineup. 

Weighing in at 35 grams, we hardly seen it on our wrists. It’s one of many thinnest watches we’ve examined with a thickness of 11.1 mm (.43 inches). Whereas its 1.2-inch show measurement is commonplace for a lot of different watches, the general dimensions are extraordinarily slim. 

For those who’re somebody with slender wrists, you’ll love this watch. It’s snag-free on backpacks, gloves, and sleeves. This can be a nice low-profile watch to put on and neglect it’s there.

Options

The Garmin Vivoactive 5 comes with sufficient options to make it an ideal day by day health and wellness tracker. It has a vibrant 1.2-inch AMOLED show, providing sharp visuals and a light-weight design. 

The watch helps over 30 sports activities modes, together with working, biking, swimming, and extra obscure sports activities like gaming and platform tennis. The Vivoactive additionally tracks coronary heart price variability, sleep, and stress. It additionally options Garmin’s Physique Battery, which helps monitor power ranges all through the day. 

Nonetheless, this watch is clearly meant to be a health tracker reasonably than a smartwatch or backcountry-oriented GPS watch because of the lack of some key options. It doesn’t have smartwatch options like offline music, Garmin Pay, or the power to answer messages. It additionally lacks an altimeter, offline maps, routes, and breadcrumb monitoring. 

The Vivoactive 5 is a strong alternative for these searching for an all-around health tracker with some good capabilities, although it is probably not enough for these after extra specialised capabilities.

Ease of Use

The Garmin Vivoactive 5 affords a user-friendly expertise with its intuitive interface and simple navigation. 

The touchscreen is responsive, making it easy to scroll via menus and settings, whereas the AMOLED show ensures clear readability in varied lighting situations. With solely two buttons, the choices for navigation are streamlined with a lot of the manipulation taking place via the contact display screen. 

The watch pairs with Garmin’s long-standing and well-designed companion app for in-depth evaluation of well being metrics and exercises. We beloved with the ability to customise the exercise varieties and watch face straight from the watch and it’s simple to navigate to show the exercise metrics you’re after. 

The simplicity of the design is nice for these new to health trackers. Whereas it lacks some superior options, the Vivoactive 5 affords a easy, environment friendly person expertise for these searching for an easy-to-use health smartwatch.

Ought to You Purchase the Garmin Vivoactive 5 GPS Watch?

For those who’re on the lookout for a easy, streamlined health tracker, the Vivoactive 5 is your watch. For those who’re on the lookout for a burly watch with a battery life for recording actions for days at a time, you might look elsewhere. 

The Vivoactive 5 excels at day by day well being and wellness however is rapidly out of its depth for navigation and even most smartphone options. The battery life is in the course of the pack, and we needed to cost extra often than others in our lineup. 

Nonetheless, for day-to-day use the place entry to charging is frequent, the Vivoactive 5’s glossy profile, trim design, and low weight are exhausting to beat. You probably have a skinny wrist, this can be the proper day by day watch.

What Different Watches Ought to You Contemplate?

The Garmin Vivoactive 5 GPS watch is a superb choice for the fitness-focused out of doors go-getter. Take a look at extra of our examined and reviewed favorites in our full GPS watch gear information.

Garmin Forerunner 165 Overview: With an identical battery life however barely extra options, the Forerunner 165 is a trail-ready look ahead to a virtually similar value.

Garmin Intuition 2 Photo voltaic Overview: If the battery lifetime of the Vivoactive 5 left you wishing for extra, the Intuition 2 Photo voltaic can file for days at a time repeatedly, because of its glorious battery and photo voltaic charging watch face.

Coros Tempo 3 Overview: One other nice choice for somebody not trying to spend some huge cash, the Tempo 3 has nice battery life for lengthy days on the go.