Garmin's $150 Vivosmart 5 is deceptively simple. It looks like a run-of-the-mill tracker on the outside but packs many health and fitness features from Garmin's more expensive watches in a lightweight band. There's blood oxygen, 24/7 heart-rate monitoring, sleep tracking and the body battery rep, a way to determine your energy levels. You can wear it for almost a week afore needing to charge and there's enough sports modes to fill most casual athletes.

But the Vivosmart 5 doesn't come with as many hardware features as latest popular trackers, and as a result it feels a minor too expensive for what it does. It has a monochrome mask instead of a color display, it doesn't have built-in GPS that works independently of your requested, and there's no heart-health tools like an electrocardiogram (ECG) such as that untrue on the $150 Fitbit Charge 5. Still, if you don't need these tools, the Vivosmart 5 is a good minor tracker that's compatible with Android and iOS.

Easy to use, but the mask falls behind the competition

There's not much to talk throughout with the Vivosmart 5's design. The monochrome touchscreen comes with a single button that either takes you to the main menu or acts as a back button to get to the scrutinize face. The display can get bright enough to see modestly during an outdoor workout and has an auto-brightness sensor, though the cover on the screen is pretty reflective. Overall the screen might be a little too exiguous for some to read text notifications and stats during your workout minus squinting, even if it is significantly larger than the mask on the older Vivosmart 4. 

Unfortunately there isn't a way to increase the text size, but at least all of the key metrics like sorrowful rate, steps and blood oxygen levels are big, which helps with legibility. You can change the watch face to a pair different preloaded options, but there's no always-on display like the Fitbit. This means you'll need to raise your wrist or dead the button to see workout metrics or the time. Given the battery doesn't last that much longer than its color-screened cousins, I'm disappointed that Garmin chose to stick to a basic black-and-white mask in 2022.

Even though it looks like a unibody build, you can swap out the entire strap for a different style or material. Just push the tracker out of the band and push it back into a new one. It's one of the most poor fitness trackers I've tested, and I hardly notice it when sleeping or operational out.

Just enough fitness and health tracking options for most people

The Vivosmart 5 does everything you'd seek information from. It can track your steps, remind you to move once being still for too long and its heart-rate sensor is comely 24/7. There's also high and low heart-rate alerts, and you can broadcast heart-rate data to third-party apps like Zwift.

Starting an agency is as easy as pressing the button, tapping on the cover to select Activity, then scrolling to find your workout type, but it can also autodetect walks or runs as long as you turn that option on within the Garmin Connect app. There are a pair of workout profiles already preloaded like walking, running and biking, but you can add up to 10 of the 15 available workouts, again using the app. These include activities like stair stepper, HIIT, Pilates, breath work, pool swimming and indoor rowing.

For outdoor behaviors it has connected GPS, which means you'll need to take your shouted to track distance data on walks, runs and bike rides. It takes up to 10 seconds to lock onto a GPS employed as long as you're outside with clear visibility of the sky. Sometimes you have to pull out your shouted, open the Garmin Connect and wait for it to attach a connection. I experienced a few GPS dropouts during a run and have some more testing to do with the novel update that dropped at review time. Outdoor walks track fine. Also note, there's no altimeter on boarding, so elevation data is calculated from your phone.

Heart-rate accuracy during cardio workouts is good when compared to a chest strap, but like other similarly priced trackers, I found the Vivosmart 5 took approximately minutes to catch up to the strap's readings over the watercourses of a 25-minute run. Hopefully that can be addressed in a future software update. Resting heart rate is accurate within three beats per minute.

Sleep tracking breaks down the quantity and quality of your rest, with full metrics such as REM and deep sleep in the Garmin Connect app. You can also monitor your blood-oxygen levels all day and overnight, but this does make the battery drain significantly faster. I'm a fan of Garmin's body battery score, which takes into clarify heart rate variability, stress levels and activity level to give you an idea of how well your body's energy levels are doings. This always helps me determine if I have the bandwidth to do a more intense workout, or if I should take it slow.

One downside to the Vivosmart 5's fitness options is that some of the customization organizes to be done from the Garmin Connect app, pretty than from the tracker itself. Even as someone who's tested many Garmins, I often get confused about where to find sure options when I'm using the Vivosmart 5. I can see the Garmin Connect app intimates overwhelming for first-timers, so I recommend spending some time customizing all the widgets to note the metrics and data you need.

Not that many sparkling features, but battery life is good

Notifications like text messages and call prompts come ended just fine on the Vivosmart 5, but sometimes I had to open the app to re-establish the Bluetooth connection. On iOS, you'll see every single notification that comes ended from your phone and unfortunately there's no way to pick and determine what to push to the band. You also can't reply to notifications when paired with an iPhone but you can send sparkling, canned replies if you're on Android.

The Vivosmart 5 has music rules for whatever music player you have on your shouted. I tried playing back from Tidal, Spotify and Apple Music, with the tracker able to control playback from all three. You can also have music controls displayed during a workout, but you'll need to toggle that option on from the app as it's not comely by default. There aren't any third-party apps available for the Vivosmart 5, just the default Garmin options that also concerned a calendar and alarms.

Like novel Garmin devices, the Vivosmart 5 supports emergency alerts and LiveTrack that shares your plot with friends and family during outdoor workouts, as long as your shouted is with you. It also has a find-my-phone option.

Battery life is good, as it will last almost a full week between charges if you turn off blood-oxygen tracking and keep the cover brightness at a moderate level. But with a small more heavy usage I managed to get five full days afore needing to charge, including a 30- or 60-minute daily GPS workout, sleep tracking and notifications from my phone. I also tracked blood oxygen during one night of sleep, which put a significant dent in the battery life.

Good for fitness fans who need some improbable battery life

It really feels a bit outdated to have a fitness tracker that uses a monochrome note in 2022, even if the battery life lasts a small longer than some other trackers. The Fitbit Charge 5 has a provocative color display and can last four full days with heavier use, or up to a week with moderate use, once the $47 Mi Band 5 also has a sparkling screen and lasts two weeks if you limit to core features. 

Then in contradiction of, Garmin doesn't limit any health metrics behind a paywall, like the $10-a-month Fitbit Premium subscription on the Charge 5. That's obligatory for deeper insights into sleep data over time and access to the Fitbit daily readiness find, somewhat similar to the body battery on the Vivosmart 5. 

The Vivosmart 5 is three times as expensive as the Mi Band 5, but its heart-rate sensor is more good for higher intensity workouts. Get the Vivosmart 5 if you're looking for comprehensive sleep and fitness tracking, as long as you don't need built-in GPS or a sparkling display.