Garmin Vivosmart 5: This Fitness Tracker Almost Does It All
Smartwatches
Speaker 1: The Garman Viro smart five is deceptively simple. It looks like a standard fitness tracker on the outside, but inside it packs many of the same features from garment's more expensive, smart watches. Let's check it out. I've been wearing the Viro smart five for a week, and I think it's really good tracker, but at $150, it is a little bit on the high side, especially considering some of the features you don't get. I'm gonna dive into [00:00:30] all of the main features and functionality of this particular tracker. You can skip straight ahead with chapters linked in the description down there as well. I also have latest pricing and availability and a link to my full review. Let's get started.
Speaker 1: There's really not that much to talk about when it comes to the design of the vivo smart five, it really just does look like your standard run of the mill fitness tracker instead of interchangeable straps. The actual body of the tracker itself just pops straight out from [00:01:00] the band like so, and you can buy different ones of these to change up the look of the band. I quite like it. It's simple. It's no fuss and no frills that simplicity also extends to the monochro screen. Now I was honestly a little bit surprised to see a black and white screen on a fitness tracker in 2022, especially one that does cost a hundred, considering most of its other competitors do have color screens, such as say the Fitbit charge five in [00:01:30] practice. It really wasn't as much of a downside. As I initially thought the screen is bright, easy to see in broad daylight, it does have an automatic brightness sensor.
Speaker 1: And for the most part I could make out all of my stats and work out, um, metrics really, really easily. The one thing I would say though, is that notifications might sometimes be a little bit more tricky to see on this. If you struggle reading smaller screens, then you might have a little bit of difficulty reading notifications that come through from either your iOS or Android [00:02:00] device on the screen of the Viva smartphone, just cuz it is so small. Unfortunately there is no way to change the text or font size on the clock face itself that said some of the main stats and metrics that you might only be interested in seeing like your steps and your heart rates do surface as really big on the screen. So that was nice to see, even if notifications are a little bit small, unfortunately there is no always on display.
Speaker 1: Like there is on competitors, such as the Fitbit charge five with this watch, you'll [00:02:30] either need to tap the screen to turn it on, press the button on the screen itself. Or you can use a raise to wake gesture to activate the watch face. So you can see the time and your workout stats. Navigation is really simple. You swipe up and down from the main screen to see things like your step count as well as the body battery, which we'll talk about in a little bit and things like your sleep score. You can also hit that main button on the screen itself just underneath it. And that will pull up your main menu, which gets you to your [00:03:00] activity tracking as well as your settings and things like being able to change the watch face.
Speaker 1: The vivo smart five does everything you'd expect for health and fitness tracking and a little bit extra. It does things like track your steps, track your sleep as well as having one of 14 different activity types that you can track all of your different workouts under including things like of course, walking, running, and cycling. You also get things like yoga, breath work and [00:03:30] hit workouts too. The Viva smart five does have 10 slots on the tracker itself to store your different workout profiles. And if you do wanna swap them out to your favorites, say, you wanna remove like, I don't know, running and you wanna swap in yoga. You can do that from the Garin connect app. Unfortunately this tracker does not have built in GPS like some of its competitors. So if you do wanna track distance and route information for your outdoor workouts, you will need to take your phone with you.
Speaker 1: Of course, the VVA smart five does track your heart 24 7. [00:04:00] And I do test the accuracy of a heart rate sensor against a chest strap. Now I found that resting heart rate was very close to the chest strap. It matched up within three beats per minute and there wasn't really much lag at all. When it came to a cardio based workout and a run, the Viva smart five, once it caught up to the chest strap, it was spot on, but it did take several minutes to kind of get there as you can see on this chart. So again, hopefully a software update can kind of lessen that latency [00:04:30] a little bit, um, and get it spot on from the moment you start your workout. The Viv smart five has high and low heart rate alerts on board, but it does not have an ECG or electrocardiogram like it's competitor, the Fitbit charge five.
Speaker 1: It's not all fitness stuff. Of course the Viv very smart five also tracks your sleep and overall recovery. You can wear this 24 7 if you want. Uh, because the battery does last a fair amount of time that we'll talk about in a little bit, sleep [00:05:00] tracking is good or the, it does present you with a sleep score, which sometimes doesn't always correlate with how I felt after I, you know, got up from my sleep in the morning, which is not unique to the vivo smart five. I often have this issue with other wearables that do present me with the sleep score, but the data is pretty comprehensive. You get to see things like your sleep stages, including REM and deep sleep, as well as your respiration rate. And of course you can track blood oxygen overnight or SPO two levels, although that does eat into your battery [00:05:30] life. Another element that this tracker has from garments, more expensive devices is the body battery. Now this takes into account things like your heart rate, variability, your stress levels, as well as your overall activity and gives you an idea of whether or not you should push yourself a little harder and maybe do that more intense workout. Or if you can give yourself a bit more of a chill rest day, I really like the battery battery score. And I think it's easy to read and interpret, especially if you don't really know too much about recovery.
Speaker 1: [00:06:00] All of your data is surfaced in the Garin connect app, which is a really comprehensive look at all of your health and fitness data that this little tracker can deliver. But I would say it is kind of overwhelming, especially if you're a first time user. So don't feel bad about seeing all of this information and kind of feeling like you have no idea what to do with it. Do take some time to go through the interface and really customize it to only see the pieces of information that actually really matter to you. One [00:06:30] more thing to note about the VV smart five is that it does not have Anter so it will be tracking elevation data using CA calculations from your phone.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's get into the smart features notifications. And of course the battery life, which is super important. Now, as I mentioned, iOS and Android compatibility for the vivo smart five, you can see calls and text notifications as well as app notifications come through from your phone. But you [00:07:00] can only send quick canned responses from Android. The Viro smart five also has music controls and these work with pretty much any streaming service or music app that's on your phone. There is no music storage on board, however, which is not a surprise given it's size and price like are the garment device as the Viva smart five does support live track. This sends a live location to selected friends or family members during your outdoor workouts. However, you do need to take your phone with you for this to work. Now [00:07:30] let's get into battery life. The Viva smart five does perform pretty well on this front.
Speaker 1: It's rated to get to seven days of battery life between charges. However, that is of course gonna depend on your usage patterns. For me, I do have probably a little bit more of heavy use than say that standard, that garment was measuring that against. Um, I've so far gotten about five full days out of Theus not five before needing to charge. That's taking into account things like doing a 30 to 60 minute GP S workout every day, [00:08:00] as well as having automatic screen brightness on. And I did SPO two or blood oxygen tracking one night during sleep tracking, but every other night I've had it turned off to do my sleep tracking just without SPO two. So not too bad, but not necessarily best in class.
Speaker 1: So there you have it. The vivo smart five is a do it all tracker almost with a couple of emissions, such as a color screen and no built in GPS. Just [00:08:30] connect to GPS. I think there are some trade offs here for the price, but if you are someone who is looking for their very first fitness tracker, or maybe you're someone who's already in the garment ecosystem with a higher and watch and just wanting something a little bit more simple to wear on a day to day basis, this could be a really good buy, but of course, stay tuned for lots more comparisons and reviews here on CNET. You can also read my entire full review on the Viva smart five. That's linked for you in the description below. Thanks for watching and [00:09:00] I'll catch you a.
