Garmin Vivosmart 5's wellness tracker centres in on comfort and practicality

Garmin launched the Vivosmart 5, its next up-to-date wearable wellness tracker, after a four-year hiatus for this lineup.

Unlike most smartwatches and some wearables that either do too many things (and become cumbersome to use) or offer too little to be practical, the Garmin Vivosmart 5 does its best to balance comfort and practicality. 

While it features an OLED touchscreen display 6 per cent larger than its predecessor, the rounded band design curves the Vivosmart 5 around the user’s wrist, making it comfortable to wear no matter what health metric you’re tracking.

The device features interchangeable bands, is swim- and shower-proof, and packs a seven-day battery life for extended use. 

Tracking features found on the Garmin wearable are familiar to most health-minded folks.

For instance, you can get at-a-glance statistics for Pulse Ox (blood oxygen saturation), 24/7 heart rate monitoring, Body Battery (an estimate for physical energy reserves), and all-day stress tracking.

These are included next to basic wellness tracking features like sleep monitoring, steps counter, and built-in sports tracking for activities like pool swimming, cycling, yoga, etc.

Other exciting tools on the Vivosmart 5 are Fitness Age, which motivates users to stay at a fitness level that belies their actual age, and the ability to fire distress alerts to emergency contacts when you hold down its only button.

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As an OEM wearable, it works just fine with both iOS and Android smartphones (via its app).

Since it’s a compact band, you’ll need to pair a phone if you want to tap into GPS-related features.

The Garmin Vivosmart 5 retails at $229 in three colours: Mint Green, Morning White, and Midnight Black.

It can be found on Lazada, Shopee, Garmin Online Store, as well as physical Garmin Brand Stores and authorised retailers. 

This article was first published in Hardware Zone.