This watch is a step up over the Garmin Vivoactive 4. I own both the Vivoactive 4 and the Vivoactive 5. The Vivoactive 5 has a clearer display and the battery stays charged much longer than my vivoactive 4. I only get about two days of charge with the vivoactive 4. The Vivoactive 5 gives me eight days before I need to charge again. I like the Vivoactive 5 very much.

I won this watch and thought it was a pretty good watch. My old VENU was due for an update. It has a bright display, and was pretty easy to navigate. I did decide to upgrade to the Venu 4 for the flashlight.

I had to get my original watch replaced because of battery drain. The new watch drains just as fast as the old one! I paid for a watch that worked! Instead I got a watch that still doesn't work.

I bought the Vivo Active 5 as an early Christmas gift to myself and have really enjoyed it so far. I had been working on lifestyle improvements for about 6 months prior to buying the watch and the information it gives me has really helped me keep my fitness and nutrition goals in mind and on track for the most part. Once I tailored the watch to my personal preferences I have been really pleased with the tracking and review system. I like the periodic motivational notes and reminders. The nudges to move are not too intrusive and are helpful reminders to get up and move if you are like me and sit for long periods of time for work. It has also been interesting to track my physiological information as I process stressful experiences psychologically. Super cool! I bought the vivoactive 5 instead of 6 because of the reviews on them and the fact that the vivoactive 5 watch does not need to contact "the Mothership", keeping the tracking information private, which was particularly relevant for me. The choice to connect to the app on my phone remains mine alone and does not force me to connect to be able to use the features of the watch. I would recommend this to anyone who is curious about their basic sleep, exercise, HRV, breathing, etc. I imagine focused athletes would require something a little more detailed. I may upgrade in the future!

It’s an excellent watch and the battery wow that’s crazy

I bought this for myself as a Christmas gift. It does a great job of keeping my stats for my mountain bike rides.

Hello I just received a Garmin vivoactive 5 on Christmas and was very excited. One of the features that I was really excited about was the battery life, but so far very disappointed. my battery doesn't last more than 24 hours! I've tried all of the things to do, drained the battery entirely and cleaned the ports and no success!

This is my first Garmin watching and I'm loving it so far

I have had Garmin products for at least 10 years. I had the vivofit 3 and 4 and loved them, but I had bought several 4's and they kept dying on me after I changed the batteries. So, I decided to give the Vivoactive 5 a try. I love it! I love the features and I love the GPS!

Was great when I first got it, then stopped receiving notifications on the watch. Tried everything suggested to get notifications to come through. No success. Will probably have to purchase a new watch - wont be Garmin

I bought this a month ago and it’s okay, but from everything I had seen the reviews everything I was really let down

This Garmin even has more features and functions then my past one. Awesome watch...

I switched from a FitBit and it's fantastic! It definitely tracks my heart rate better and overall is more accurate compared to the FitBit. I am using it 24/7 to get a baseline on activity, sleep, and overall health - so far so good! Quick syncing to my phone and other apps makes this a no brainer!

Achat il y a deux semaines pour remplacer vivoactive 4 , écran noir subitement, reset impossible, 4 ans d’âge. Ma vivoactive 5, a deux reprises est devenu avec un écran noir, durant 4h la première fois, une nuit complète la deuxième fois, rest impossible puis soudainement, tout redevient normal. Il semble que ce soit fréquent avec la 5

# Garmin vívoactive 5: Great Fitness Watch, Terrible Sleep Tracker ## Rating: 2/5 for Sleep Tracking I’ve been using the Garmin vívoactive 5 for sleep tracking over several weeks, and while it’s a solid fitness watch, the sleep tracking is fundamentally unreliable. If accurate sleep data matters to you, look elsewhere. ## Major Sleep Tracking Failures ### 1. **Completely Misses Sleep Periods When You Change Locations** The watch frequently fails to track entire sleep sessions if you move to a different bed or room mid-night. Multiple times, I woke up in the middle of the night, moved to a different bedroom, went back to sleep for 2-3 hours, and the Garmin simply stopped tracking—pretending I was awake the entire time. This isn’t a minor glitch; it’s a fundamental flaw that makes the data useless for anyone dealing with fragmented sleep. ### 2. **Cannot Distinguish Between Sleep and Watching TV** The watch regularly mistakes lying still on the couch watching TV for sleep. On multiple occasions, it logged 1-2 hours of “sleep” that was actually me lying down watching Stranger Things or other shows. If the device can’t tell the difference between unconscious sleep and conscious TV watching, what’s the point? ### 3. **Fails When You Remove the Watch** If you take the watch off during the night (for a shower, for example), it ends the sleep session entirely. No recovery, no second tracking period—just missing data. This happened multiple times and makes the watch unusable for anyone who might need to remove it briefly during the night. ### 4. **Co-Sleeping Interference** When my toddler slept in bed with me, the watch’s tracking became even less reliable. Movement from another person seems to confuse it, leading to either missed sleep periods or wildly inaccurate wake time calculations. ### 5. **Inconsistent Data Accuracy** Comparing the Garmin’s data to my actual sleep experience revealed huge discrepancies: - **Dec 14**: Watch showed 3h 45m of sleep ending at 3:26 AM. Reality: I was awake 2:30-6:00 AM (3.5 hours), then slept until 8:30 AM. The watch missed an entire sleep period. - **Dec 15**: Watch claimed I went to bed at 10:51 PM. Reality: I was watching TV until midnight. - **Dec 17**: Watch showed no data at all despite wearing it all night. When your sleep tracker can’t even get the basic start/end times right, the detailed sleep stage data (deep/light/REM) is meaningless. ## What Actually Works To be fair, the watch does work reasonably well when: - You sleep in the same bed all night - You don’t remove the watch at any point of the night and reapply it - You’re sleeping alone - You go straight from awake to bed (no TV time) In these ideal conditions, the sleep stage breakdown seems plausible, and the efficiency calculations are probably in the ballpark. But who has perfect sleep conditions every single night? ## The Bigger Problem The fundamental issue is that the Garmin treats sleep tracking as a simple motion + heart rate algorithm. It has no way to verify whether you’re actually asleep or just lying still. It can’t handle anything outside its narrow assumptions about how sleep “should” look. For someone trying to address chronic sleep issues—the exact use case where accurate tracking matters most—these failures make the watch actively unhelpful. You can’t identify patterns or measure progress when the data itself is fiction. ## Bottom Line **Buy this watch if:** You want a fitness tracker with decent battery life and you only care about general sleep trends (e.g., “I usually sleep 7 hours”). **Don’t buy this watch if:** You need accurate sleep data for medical reasons, sleep therapy, or tracking actual sleep patterns. The tracking is too unreliable to be useful for serious sleep ----- **Tested with:** Garmin vívoactive 5 **Testing period:** December 2024 (2+ weeks of nightly use and external journaling) **Use case:** Sleep restriction therapy for chronic middle-of-night insomnia

I love all the ways to track my activities on the watch and on the app on my cell phone. There so many ways to track many different activities, more than I will be able to use. But for many people it can be wonderful tool for real active individuals. I had a vivoactive 3 watch for many years before I decided to upgrade to this new vivoactive 5, GREAT move. I liked mine so much that I got the same watch for my wife. It has been very great for us to share the data we are gathering on our health.

I was able to order this one.. Came in and what great functionality.. Has everything I needed

Took me a while to figure it out. Way more features than I'll ever need.

I bought this about 3 weeks ago and it’s amazing! I love how it helps me with overall health. I love how I am Now more disconnected from my phone. Because has an Apple Watch previously.

Stopped tracking heart rate correctly in less than a month. Tried all the troubleshooting and resetting and still doesn’t work. Target won’t allow a return.