Garmin Vivosmart 5 review: fifth time’s the charm

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I was a fan of the Vivosmart 4 when it was launched. It was a chic yet capable fitness band, with a great set of fitness tracking features for the price. It was almost perfect, except for one flaw. Swipes didn't register the way they were supposed to, and the button was more difficult to use. I breathed a huge sigh of relief when I unboxed the Vivosmart 5. There was a button at the bottom of the display.

In this case, adding a button is a game-changer. The touchscreens in the lineup have always been unresponsive. It was still frustrating to use the Vivosmart 4 even though it was an improvement over the Vivosmart 3. Swipes wouldn't register properly, and sometimes you ended up hitting your wrist just to start an activity. It's the sort of annoyance that builds up over time until one day you just leave an otherwise excellent tracker to collect dust in a drawer.

The Vivosmart 5 uses a combination of a physical button and a touch screen. That means you can use your fingers when it makes sense. It means you can use the button to head back to the home screen and previous menus, as well as stop an activity. It's easy to use and eliminates all the problems I've had with previous models. It is more satisfying to press a button. The buttons on other fitness trackers don't feel right.

You can now swap bands to fit your style. Huzzah! One of the biggest flaws of the Vivosmart 4 was its design. It may have been stylish, but you had to commit to the model you wanted at checkout. I appreciated how easy it was to put the tracker in and out. There are no finicky pins here. You have to use official accessories from Garmin, and the selection is limited. It doesn't mean that third parties won't come out with additional options down the line, but it's something to keep in mind.

The Vivosmart 5 will feel familiar if you liked the 4. The overall vibe was changed by Garmin instead of completely changing the design. The Vivosmart 5 is more sporty than its predecessor. It's similar to what Garmin did with the Vivomove Sport, which went from a sophisticated luxe look to one that I would describe as fashionable athleisure. It is lightweight and comfortable to wear 24/7.

The Vivosmart 5 doesn't add features we haven't seen before. You still get connected through your phone, blood oxygen monitoring, and continuous heart rate monitoring. You can use Body Battery to see how much energy you have for exercise based on your sleep quality and activity levels. Basic smart features like push notifications, timers, and media controls were available on the Vivosmart 4. For health features like sleep tracking, stress tracking, breathing exercises, and high/low heart rate notifications, the same holds true. The main feature of this tracker is its safety features. That includes the company's take on fall detection, the ability to let trusted contacts track you in real-time during an activity, and emergency SOS alert.

The barometric altimeter is no longer included in the Vivosmart 5. It is not a huge loss. In my experience, this is a notoriously inaccurate metric and not helpful for the average person. You have an optical heart rate sensor, an SpO2 sensor, and an ambient light sensor.

Most of the changes made by the company are smart. I have mixed feelings about the display. It is 66 percent larger this time around, and that does help with readability. It may not be enough. Although I have corrective glasses, it is still hard for me to read small text. When running in bright sunlight, I ended up squinting at the display. It is not a dealbreaker. It works well for screening notifications. If you want to read full text messages from the wrist, it's inadequate.

Almost every fitness band had this type of display a few years ago. If you preferred this form factor over a watch, you dealt with it. Many fitness bands have moved to color. Even the $79.99 Amazon Halo View has one. A better choice for someone like me is a brighter color display on a fitness band. It's hard to reconcile the fact that not everyone needs this type of display and that the Vivosmart 5 is better than the Fitbit Luxe. They have the same features and target audiences. The Luxe gives you a more vibrant display and a less expensive retail price.

The Vivosmart 5 is best for casual activity. It is good for counting steps and how many minutes of intense activity you get per week. If you want a rough log of your physical exercise, the Vivosmart 5 is more than enough. It is a good device for people who feel they are committed enough to stick with an outdoor sport for a long time. Many of the in-depth metrics provided by the Garmin Connect app are not needed by beginners, but could be useful as someone progresses.

It is a decent tracker for outdoor activities. Sometimes you have to help it along and open the app, but for the most part it never takes long for the Vivosmart 5 to connect to my phone. I was happy with the distance tracking. Sometimes with trackers that rely on connectedGPS, you end up with results that are not what you want. That wasn't the case with the Vivosmart 5. On an easy two-mile run, it recorded 2.09 miles compared to the 2.0 miles recorded by my Apple Watch Series 7. I expect to see a discrepancy between these three tracking methods. The metrics of the Series 7 and the Vivosmart 5 were on par.

It's difficult to tell if a tracker with a connected gps is good or bad because of the small differences on short runs. I ran-walked 2.3 miles with a friend and the Vivosmart 5 recorded it as 2.43 miles instead of the Series 7's 2.3 miles. If you're not running for long, a 0.13-mile difference isn't that bad. If you want to build a consistent routine, you shouldn't worry about inaccurate results. You will still be able to track your progress and get credit for it. If you have precise, distance-related goals, this doesn't really matter. In that case, you would be better served by a device with built-in gps.

The Vivosmart 5 has an estimated 7 days of battery life. As long as blood oxygen monitoring was turned off, that bore out. When you turn all-day monitoring on, the battery life goes down. When you enable the feature, you will be warned about the battery drain. It seems like a tracker with 7 days of battery is more drastic than a rugged watch with 21 days of battery or more.

It's not a good idea to turn on all-day blood oxygen monitoring when you can also turn it on during sleep. There is no reason to trade battery life for metrics that you won't use. I wouldn't rely on sleep tracking for much more than that, because it's good for getting a big picture of your sleep patterns. My sleep scores often didn't line up with how I felt, and the device had a hard time determining light sleep from me lying awake in a late-night staring contest with my hungry cat.

The Vivosmart 5 is a solid fitness tracker that improves upon the flaws of its predecessors instead of introducing a host of new ones. If you're thinking aboutUpgrading from a Vivosmart 3 or 4 do it. The button is worth it. There is at least one reason why I would still choose this over a tracker with a color display. The company has stated multiple times that it doesn't plan to lock your data behind a subscription. Many of its best metrics are behind a $10 monthly paywall. This kind of commitment is rare these days because of the popularity of Subscriptions with Wearables and Connected Fitness.

It was nice to take a break from wearing the Vivosmart 5 after weeks of testing. The heyday of the fitness band may be behind us, but there's something to be said for a device that's not trying to be a mini phone on your wrist. I missed having a beautiful display, but it also encouraged me to be present in the moment. I was able to take in the cherry blossoms on my running path because I wasn't constantly checking my wrist. I didn't fiddle with settings for 15 minutes before getting out the door. I just hit the button. The screen limited what I could see and I was less distracted by my notifications. The Vivosmart 5 was in the background of my life until I wanted to use it. If that is the type of experience you are looking for, this tracker is for you.

Victoria Song is a photographer.

Every smart device now requires you to agree to a series of terms and conditions before you can use it. It is impossible for us to read and analyze all of these agreements. We're going to start counting how many times you have to use devices when we review them since they are agreements most people don't read.

To use the device, you need to pair it with a phone. The phone's terms of service, privacy policy, and any other permission you grant are included. To use the app, you have to create an account.

You are agreeing to this by setting up the Vivosmart 5.

Privacy and legal policies are available within the app. You have to grant the app certain phone privileges. LiveTrack comes with an end- user license agreement. You have to agree to individual terms and policies when you integrate your activity data with other services.

Whatever your phone requires, plus three mandatory Garmin policies and four phone permission for smart features. There are policies for health and safety features.