vívoactive 5 GPS Smartwatch, AMOLED Touchscreen

I've had this watch now for 3 days, and so far I am very happy. Look and feel - it is relatively small and comfortable to wear - I've been looking at Garmin watches for a while, but not ordered because I was worried they would be too heavy and bulky (my wrist is 140mm/5.5inch around). It is a little bulky, but very light, and with a smaller strap (not the one included with the watch) it fits my wrist pretty well. I have been able to sleep with it for 3 nights without feeling uncomfortable. It does feel a bit... cheap and plasticky, but I guess that is why it's so light, so I will take that over a heavier stainless steal model. It *IS* also relatively cheap, compared to the heavier models. Battery time is great - I've used it for 2.5 days / 60 hours since last charge, and it is down to 67%. This has been pretty heavy use (setting up, chancing screen layouts, learning how to use the watch, a couple of workouts etc, with all sensors and features switched on), so I expect it to last even longer with "normal" use. Gesture to see time works well - I wear the watch face on the inside of the wrist, and I've had problems in the past with smart watches not understanding the gesture when I turn my wrist to see the time - I had to manually press a button for the watch face to light up or use the always on feature. Responsiveness - I find the screen a little less responsive than other smart watches. There is a small delay between button/screen press and screen update. It's not too laggy, so I can live with it. But when I just want to see the time and the screen comes on automatically, there is that small delay that makes me almost go for the button before it comes on. Still better than actually having to press the button, like I did on other watches. Easy to set up - it was very easy and quick to set up and connect it to my phone and wifi. Connectivity to phone - the app doesn't seem to sync/update until you open it, which is a little bit annoying for me as I use the step count to connect to many other apps, but at the same time I guess it preserves phone battery, so I'm ok with having to open the app to update step count. Watch interface and app is well documented - I do not find the watch or the app very intuitive/easy to use, but so far I have managed to find everything I wanted quickly by searching it or asking AI. Very customisable - I've been able to make my own watch face the way it suits me, and change many settings to what works for me. More customisable than other brand smart watches I've had in the past. Screen size - the screen is quite small, and there is a wide, black frame around what is ACTUALLY the screen. This is not noticeable until you change the background to something other than black. I guess the smaller screen is what you trade in return for battery life and weight. Brightness of the screen - I've had no problems seeing the screen outdoors, and at night there is a red light mode to make it less bright. I don't think that comes on automatically - you have to switch it on manually. Waterproof - this is the one feature I really wanted, and I haven't tested it yet. My previous 3 smart watches (FitBit Versa 2, 3 & 4) were NOT waterproof even though they claimed to be, so I am really hoping to actually be able to swim with this one. I will update in April, once I've been swimming in the sea. App/subscription - the app is FREE, and you don't have to pay for any of the features (you can buy watch faces if you want). Overall - so far this is the winner out of the 3 brands of smart watches I've tried.

I use to only use Fitbits but decided it was time for a change. This is a fantastic watch and I'm so glad I bought it. As a fitness tracker it's not the cheapest on the market but it's good value as you get so much for your money. It tracks all the usual stuff plus lots more. I liike the indepth sleep reports and body battery feature which gives me an idea of how well I'm looking after myself. The sleep tracking seems to be in line with what I expected each night, especially the start ands end times. I like the nap feature but find it only pickls up some of my naps regardless of whether they are 20 minutes or 3 hours but I'm happy to set it going manually so not the end of the world to me. I use it to track my gym sessions which is so easy to do, press a button to start and stop each set which means it also records rest periods. After the workout Garmin guesses what each exercise was and surprisingly it gets some correct like flat bench press but it's easy to correct/add any it missed which then also highlights what parts of the body you worked amongst other things. I like that Garmin is compatible with so many othyer platforms. I use Zwift and although I rely on my bike for stats including heart rate (chest straps will always be more accurate) it's nice to get my stats included into all my other Garmin stats including seeing the details of my rides on my phone or watch. I use Conquerors challenges but I manually log steps and get activites indirectly from Strava as I found linking Garmin directly double counted steps i.e. added my overall steps each day plus the same steps from activities such as walking on top of that. Contact them and they blame Garmin which is an annoying shame. As a watch it is bright, easy to read, well made, looks sleek and customisable. The battery life really does last around a week or so, I don't tend to use GPS very much so can't comment on battery with it's use. I like features such as the find my phone, which I've used lots of times. I like the meditation on the watch including the follow along programmes but mostly I just set it running while doing my own thing just for ease of recording. Lastly, I love the fact you get so much without subscription fees unlike Fitbit which would require you to pay to get all stats.

Bought as a gift for my husband so will provide as much information as I can. He has had a Samsung gear watch from about 7 years ago which still worked fine but he was due an upgrade. He was definitely well used to the Samsung watch and how to work it. The watch was easy to set up and paired fine with his Samsung Galaxy phone. Price point for this watch was reasonable, not as expensive as the Samsung watch but he wanted something that had the features of a smart watch but was more accurate for fitness too. The battery life on this watch is amazing, it's usually lasting over a week, sometimes a bit less depending on how much he uses it for working out etc, and that's with all the notifications coming through (social media, news, emails etc). The watch itself seems to be very sturdy and of good quality, so it should withstand a few knocks and hopefully it won't cause any issues. The watch face is a nice size, a bit smaller than the previous Samsung but still plenty big on a man's wrist. I also tried it on myself and it didn't feel too big as some fitness trackers/smartwatches can. It seems to be very accurate for steps compared to the previous watch, and you can see steps increase as you are walking. It doesn't appear to be overly sensitive to movement so it doesn't track steps when you scratch your head which some other watches do! There are a lot of features still being discovered and it will take time to get through them all, but so far it looks great.

The watch is great, with support for everything I need as a regular runner who dabbles in a range of other sports. Only four stars because after every "update" the watch seems to drain battery incredibly fast, which does seem to sort itself out after a multitude of restarts and some time. This is even more annoying now as one of the recent updates has removed the option to refuse or schedule an update, so you have to just accept that every couple of weeks the watch will be crap and drain battery at about 1pc per hour until such time as it sorts itself out. This is a real shame as the battery life is otherwise amazing. Garmin support for this has been to offer a refund, which I may have to accept, but it feels like this is a software issue, not the hardware, so they should be able to fix it.

After trying a few different watches, i settled on the Vívoactive 5.. it accurately measures all my sports and activities, steps, HR , calories, etc.. as well allowing me to connect a HR chest strap for added spinner, Elliptical HR accuracy but i also like that it doubles as a smart watch with a bright AMOled screen and smart watch features. i also can upload music straight onto the watch or use an app to stream it.. i haven't used it enough to comment on sleep accuracy or battery life, but so far everything else has been on point.. i can even measure and enter my stride length through garmin connect app for bang on step count accuracy.. Im loving it so far, Im giving it 5 stars but My only issue is it only comes in 42mm size, instead of an alternative 45 or 47mm screen, which after using a 645 music, is a bit small.. but i will get used to it. Great buy. Recommended

I have always been a Garmin supporter. The Vivoactive 5 does not disappoint. Accurate - top quality - easy to set up and looks great on the wrist. Love the colour too. It’s also easy to forget you are actually wearing a watch as it’s so light.

smraLa ehGreat starter watch. My first smart/fitness watch. Due to disabilities I do not use the watch for fitness, the stress feature has been a great tool for pacing and keeping an eye on my health. I really like the meditation, yoga and pacing activities with in the watch, The alarms are very useful as the watch vibrates and reminds me to take medication when set. I didn't think the sleep data was very accurate to start with but after extended use it did show insights to my quality and duration of sleep accurately. The display on the watch is beautiful and crisp, no lagging, I like to customise every week and I can add my own photos to the display. Set up is very easy, connectivity is perfect and battery life is very good, full charge usually lasts approx a week, and only takes an hour to charge up at most. Over all I would buy this again and would 100% recommend to chronically ill sufferers and adhd'ers.

This is my first Garmin and not the one I wanted - this will eventually be just a backup, for which it will be fine. I first started using trackers a few years ago. My first tracker was one of those really cheap options that you got for less than £20.00 and found that I used it a lot and yes, it kept me on my toes and made me more active, so I decided to upgrade to something that would track swimming too and I moved onto a Fitbit Charge 3 (which died within 7 months) - at this point I got the watch that I really wanted which was the Fitbit Ionic. Brilliant watch! Unfortunately, they all got recalled and in all honesty the Fitbit app has been decimated by Google so I did not really want to get another Fitbit. The day arrived that I had to sort the recall of my Ionic out but I needed something that would take it's place while I saved up for the Fenix 7s pro, so I got the Vivoactive 5 at a price point that was similar to the Ionic 3 years ago. Now don't get me wrong, it's not a bad piece of tech, but there are a few issues given its price. Issue number one for me is that it does not have an altimeter. Admittedly, at the price point it was of over £200.00 I did not even think to check this and I assumed that it did as it seems to be quite a basic component in most trackers/smartwatches. If your exercise activity has included the GPS it will give you incline and decline details in the stats of that activity but it uses location details to work it out so may not be all that accurate, however I do think that the GPS is pretty accurate, but the incline/decline may not be. That said, you can start runs and walks but you cannot start a hike which seems ridiculous! If you do go on a hike, you will have to record it as a walk and then edit the activity afterwards in the Garmin Connect app or online. My other big issue with this watch so far, is the sleep functions - the amount of times it thinks that I have had a nap when I am sitting at my desk in a meeting is insane - same thing happened when I watch a movie in the cinema and again at home while I was reading. The other issue is it seems to think I have gone to bed before I have actually gone to bed. I have to edit my sleep times through the app probably about 4 or five times a week. The nap things seems to be a known issues as I found many people online complaining about the same thing! The only other niggle I have is with the strength training - now maybe I just don't have the hang of it yet but when I do my weights I want to not mess about with the watch. The first time I used it for strength training I started the activity and just let it run - later when I came home I edited it and put in the reps and weight used - unfortunately, I did find that if you use gym equipment for some weight training, the exercise that you do may not be available as an option, in which case you have to just try and find something close. However Garmin claim that this model watch is a good fit for strength training so I will persevere for a while and edit this review if my opinion changes but for now - it's not great. Do I regret my purchase, honestly, I have to say I do a little bit, but that is based on what I want to use it for. If your main exercise is walking or running I think it may be okay except for it not having an altimeter (if that aspect is important to you which it is to me). I have also done some open water swimming with it and for this purpose it was okay. It is also good that you can listen to music stored on the watch so you can effectively go phone free if you want. This watch is capable of a lot, but the devil is in the details with the way it is marketed! I have to say though, just because I find this particular watch to be lacking does not mean I have changed my mind on Garmin and yes, I still plan on getting a better Garmin (with an altimeter and better sensors for sleep etc.) I would suggest that you check every function that you want is available before making a decision - for example, I do a lot of hiking and when you check if this feature is available (which I did) everything points to yes, BUT - you cannot record a hike from the start, you have to record it as a walk and then edit it in the app - the devil is in the detail - also don't assume that because of the price it has what I think these days is a basic feature, such as an altimeter!!!