As the brand new Apple Watch 9 and Garmin’s personal Venu 3 smartwatches launch with $450-and-up pricetags, Garmin’s new Vivoactive 5 is a extra inexpensive various. It gives wearable health requirements and iOS and Android compatibility for $150 lower than the competitors.
At $300, the Vivoactive 5 even takes a $50 value lower from its predecessor, however that is not the one enchancment over 2019’s Vivoactive 4. Garmin’s new midtier watch has a extra slender design with thinner bezels, trying extra like a Pixel Watch than the clunky health watches of yesteryear. It has extra intuitive sensors, detecting health metrics when the wearer is shifting in wheelchairs or napping.
Garmin’s saved the Vivoactive 5 at its median smartwatch value by leaving off a number of of the bells and whistles. To take telephone calls and ship voice-transcripted textual content messages in addition to get a handful of different premium options, you will have to pay up for Garmin’s extra premium Venu 3 watch.
Nonetheless, the Vivoactive 5 gives a 1.2-inch OLED show and options like pulse oxygen monitoring, heart-rate variance monitoring, menstrual cycle monitoring, accident detection and help, contactless funds by way of Garmin Pay and as much as 11 hours of battery life when in smartwatch mode (or as much as 21 hours in GPS-only mode). The smartwatch inherits its predecessor’s exercise monitoring, health recommendation and sleep teaching.
The Vivoactive 5 is available for purchase as we speak and is available in 4 shade combos. The respective watchband-and-case colours are black and slate; ivory and cream gold; navy and metallic navy; and orchid and metallic orchid.
