Garmin - vívosmart 5

If you want Garmin stats like body battery and stress you **have** to wear a Garmin, no way around it. Right now Garmin doesn't have anything without a display to do what you want. I think the vívosmart 5 would get you the closest, it is a smallish simple band with a small black and white oled screen. There have been rumors of a screen free band like whoop or a ring from Garmin but nothing solid. So unless Garmin does launch or announces such a product, you will either have to make do with a Garmin that has a screen or go to a competitor like Oura or Whoop like Ski-Mtb said. edit: fixed a letter.

I recently got a Garmin Vivosmart 5 to replace my Fitbit Charge I had for many years. Can’t believe I just made the switch, personally, the Garmin blows the Fitbit out of the water!

Slightly outside your price range, but if you were considering the Garmin Swim 2 you might want to consider the Garmin Vivosmart 5. My criteria when I was looking for a fitness tracker were very similar to yours when I was looking, and that's what I ended up going with. Fitbit locks you out of a lot of metrics unless you pay for premium, so you'd want to consider that in your budget. Garmin Connect being free makes up for the extra $50 in my opinion. Plus the build quality and customer service seems much better in my experience. I've been using it for swimming the last two months, 3 times a week, and it's been very reliable.

Yep! It actively displays your current distance during the workout. It's usually only off by 25-50m after a 1500m session. The sleep tracking seems to be fairly accurate as well. I definitely feel more rested on the days that it shows I slept better. IIRC sleep tracking is one of the things behind a paywall with Fitbit

As a long term user of Garmin devices I my suggestion biased towards garmin vivosmart 5. Have used multiple garmin devices over last 15 years and all have been great for activity tracking. Used it so far for steps, cycling, swimming, running, strength training, open water rowing, hiking (My garmin instinct has a 24 day battery life which can do gps tracking for a long 20+ day hike without 2nd charge). Garmin connect is one hub for all my Garmin devices. Tracks activities which in my case currently is gym, steps, swimming, sleep, HR monitoring, O2, body battery (recovery from workouts). Can setup challenges for myself and friends. Have goals and track progress. I don't pay for any premium subscriptions. I would say it can be a bit overwhelming sometimes if you just want a simple health and wellness device. Garmin are built to withstand abuse and for training.

Are you wanting an actual watch? Can you get by with just a fitness band? The Vivosmart 5 will do everything you need.

Vivosmart 5 is great. But I feel like the instinct series are more “future-proof” due to its simplicity. Also I feel like you should look at what the instinct can do, don’t let the simple looks fool you- it’s packed with activity tracking features. I recently got a Garmin and I have to say it’s literally been life changing for me.

I just got a Garmin Vivosmart 5 and I can definelty recommend it if you’re the type of person that forgets to turn it on during a WOD.

It means I got a fitness watch and I keep forgetting to use it.

I wear a Garmin Vivosmart 5 on my right hand, along with other bracelets, so it doesn't look too odd when I also wear my watch on the left hand.

I work in the tech industry and I’m anti Apple Watch or anything that connects to my phone past fitness tracking because I believe it’s detrimental for neurological health to be bound to notifications. I have a simple Garmin watch I love that does the job of tracking steps and workouts really well. It’s incredibly well designed and engineered tech, especially for the price point. Highly recommend. 

Yes! I have a vivosmart 5! Love it. 

After I got a Fitbit Charge 5, I handed down my Garmin Vivosmart 4 to my daughter (her Fitbit Luxe had died), and now I kinda regret it. I recently managed to find a new-in-box Vivosmart 4 on eBay, but if I hadn't I'd probably have switched to the Vivosmart 5. (I had tried the Vivosmart 5 right when it was released, and strongly preferred the VS4, but if I hadn't already had a VS4 I'd probably have been content with the VS5.)

It's been 2.5 years, but I wrote a review on another website, so I was able to go back and see what I was thinking then. form factor - VS4 smaller than VS5 altimeter - VS4 has it, VS5 does not (uses phone GPS for elevation change estimates) button - I liked the haptic button on VS4, and I did not like the stiffness of the physical button on the VS5 (I had to press hard enough that I was pressing the unit against my wrist every time) breathing exercise - I preferred the simple look of it on VS4; it looked different and fit more awkwardly on VS5 screen screen brightness - VS4 significantly brighter than VS5 auto-detect - always reliable for my hikes and walks with VS4, but didn't work well on VS5 manually-started walk - on VS5 the distance walked was oddly low, despite correct stride length, while VS4 was always fine for me during activity - on VS5, I couldn't navigate to audio control features once I had started an activity (VS4 does not have audio controls, and that was the main reason I wanted to switch); also, HR would not display during activity, which by itself was a dealbreaker for me (hopefully that was just a bug?!?) Maybe some of these things have been resolved with updates, and maybe the VS5 button would have loosened up with enough use. Notably, the VS4 does not have a replaceable band, which could mean I'll need to upgrade a lot sooner.

i’ve had a few and i like my fitbit charge 6 a lot! however i don’t use alerts but think they’re possible on this one. excellent sleep tracking. great app! i really really hated the garmin app and the watch itself wasn’t great either. i didn’t find the body battery helpful at all either

Here is an option. I have the Garmin VivoSmart 5. It is more fitness tracker with some smartwatxh features. It is not big an bulky which i like.

I use a Garmin vivosmart 5. To me, it is a watch that tracks my activities. Especially swimming. I made sure nothing connects (calendar, text, emails...) I kept it bare. Management is ok.

I use a vivosmart 5 that includes tracking for the items on that list, and integrates fine. I also broke down and got a Index S2 and Index BPM, both of which likewise connect well and let me accomplish my goal of not having to look at what I am tracking if there is some day I'm worried at how much it is going to affect my mood. I disagree with the other poster, though. They are technically correct, but the accuracy of any wearable in terms of telling you good calorie counts for what you expend is poor, just because all those estimates are poor. It's not the worst thing in the world, but it leads people to misalign their diet. This is also the complaint that I have about the V5, which is that it is supposed to have these fancy tracking systems to specifically track your workouts for you, but what it spits out is pretty far from what I did, most of the time. But you can turn both off, or for the later just track the raw time and for the former in CoM to track, but not have them affect your targets. So I still recommend.

Fitbit is dying after been merged with google. I am a fitbit addict since 2017, so it's 8 years of tracking. I am a big fan, as it helped me a lot with weight control. I had Fitbit Charge HR from 2017 to 2020, Fitbit Inspire HR from 2020 to 2023 and Fitbit Inspire 3 from 2023 till now. Inspire 3 is a perfect device from the Hardware PoV. Sensors are accurate, it has a lot of sensors for the size (SpO2, Skin Temperature, HR) and the ios app was always good. BUT the device firmware is crap. They messed up with the interface and since 3 years they don't offer a heavy stat screen. So you can't see distance, steps and pulses at the same screen. They only make it worst, as now with the newest firmware, you have another stupid thing hiding part of the screen when you want to see something that shows that is not connected to the phone or something. As I am for long battery life and simple tracking (I can't have a tracker that needs charging every day like the smart watches), I am considering moving to Vivosmart 5. Hardwarewise is a downgrade (has similar specs to inspire 2 with half the battery life) but I am kind of fed with having a tracker which misses the obvious: stat screen! The concern is raised by users on their forum since 2022 and they just don't care.

I use the garmin vivosmart 5 and so far i'm happy with it. It's simple, easy to use, no frills way to track my walks

I’m very disappointed with my garmin vivosmart. It doesn’t automatically sense when you’re going for a cycle, you have to set it, and it’s really small and fiddly and you need your glasses. There are apps on your phone that are better.

i have a garmin vivosmart, i don't really like the bulky look of a full watch (i've had a samsung gear in the past as well). Its comfortable and does a good job tracking my activity. The garmin connect interface is also pretty good and user friendly.

This is what I do. I have a Garmin Fenix as my sports watch and switch to the Vivosmart when I am wearing my Speedy.

I use a Garmin vivosmart and the visible free app. The HR alerts aren’t completely what we need, but at the time the Garmin was better than available alternatives. I try to check it manually when I’m active to see if it’s inside my pacing envelope. Like you I’m waiting for full visible rollout in Canada.

I was in the same position 2 years ago. One of the factors for me was being able to properly sync with NRC, so FitBit was off the table (not sure if they’ve made any changes since 2022). I ended up getting a Garmin Vivosmart. It’s simple, durable, non intrusive, tracks pretty accurately, and also syncs with NRC. Another benefit is you can track your run in the Garmin App and everything syncs to NRC so you don’t lose run level progress.

Garmin watch! I have the vivoactove. But they all track sleep, down to rem, deep, light sleep, and hours. It also uses AI to assess it. Helps a lot cause nights get foggy with a baby.

Oh yes I swear I charge maybe every 2 weeks. For me it’s relatively reliable as far as I can tell. It’s hard to tell on the nights that there are a lot of wake ups of course. But I can attest that the nights where I don’t have wake ups it has been pretty accurate!

I have the v5. Took my v3 diving and snorkelling and was fine. Just make sure washed well after. You can get some rubber covers that go over the charging port on them. V5 is good for basic fitness. I’ve had mine about a year. No issues with it when running or in gym.

People have to stop comparing these. These are for two different people. I would never wear an Apple Watch based on battery life alone. I specifically got the Garmin for a wrist based gps and mapping tool to track and orient myself. You buy an Apple Watch to use smart features and be connected to your phone. Garmin has never been in that market. It’s a whole company based on gps systems for outdoor activities . You buy an Apple Watch to have Apple ecosystem. you can’t use half the feature of the fenix on an iPhone bc they only want you to use their watch… Garmin are all specifically made for their audience even down the the model . Apple watches are just to keep you plugged into your phone and have no bearing on actual outdoor activities despite calling it ultra. The Millitary has been orienteering with Garmin wrist based gps systems forever. You’d never catch an Apple Watch on patrol in Afghanistan. 😂