Garmin - vívoactive 5

(former apple watch se user) just switched over to a vivoactive 5. i’ve had it on my wrist for 6 days and i have 53% battery left. the only thing you cannot do is respond to a text message. which was honestly a pain to do with an apple watch because the screen is so small i was typing out individual letters to come up with a response. the vivoactice gives you only notifications of incoming texts and calls. i use it for mostly swimming and it gives me so much data! (swolf, pace, calories & speed) i swim 3x a week for 30 min.

I have the vivoactive 5 and it's fantastic. Great battery life and gives me everything I am looking for in a fitness tracker.

Not dumb. I use the flashlight all the time. Never use maps though, in fact I am here to post a question and comment how horrible some navigation is on it. (There's a one way fire road on my house and it literally dictates every single turn it's annoying AF) OP, buy once cry once, get the 970, it's the best OS/ui (they are different watch to watch) and I had a previous Garmin called a vivoactive 5 and it sucked compared to the 970. If you get anything less then that one you're going to always look back and regret if you had just only gotten the 970. Also you are right that it is better than the Fenix if you're going to run, that watch is a lot heavier.

It only had two buttons, which to me created the most nonintuitive navigation. I couldn't believe how bad it was and was confusing to me. but kept reading how great Garmin was, so almost out of frustration went out and bought a higher end watch. Lol Once I did that, now I get it. I just did not like that watch at all. In contrast I LOVE the 970, all 5 buttons and screens.

I recently got into fitness this year and lost about 60 pounds, I got an apple watch to track my activity (I mainly do cardio workouts) but I didn’t like how it looked on my wrist and the fact that it wasn’t that accurate. Also the battery life was trash, I’d leave my new series 10 in the drawer charged and it’d be dead the next day. I bought a new Venu 3S, it’s beautiful, I exchanged a Vivoactive 5 for it and I can say the Venu’s appearance is better and feels smoother however Vivo wins in terms of battery life. Venu dies much quicker, and I feel like the software design of Garmin feels a little lackluster however I’ve grown used to it and I love the comfortability, accuracy, battery life and design of garmin. I wont be going back to Apple, however the new paid subscriptions and having to pay for some watch faces that look decent, and then the watch itself being very pricey feels a bit like a drawback. The strap doesn’t really feel that strong and having to buy more is just more costs, not to mention it didn’t come with a charging block and it requires a USB port, so I have to use my apple one to charge it. All in all, I love the device for fitness and how much better it looks but there are some downsides imo.

I’m surprised as well but my Venu battery goes down quicker than it did with the Vivo, not sure why. Maybe it’s something wrong with the individual devices.

Yes i’m using the same watch face but I don’t know about settings I didn’t alter anything differently from each other as I’ve only had both for a little bit of time. I also didn’t workout with either yet just did walks. I don’t have the vivo anymore so I can’t really compare but I did notice my Venu goes down a bit quicker

Agree, Vivo 5 seems very accurate. From sleeping rate to high activity, all good

Big feature on the FR165 is a barometric altimeter, which they removed from the VA5. This will aid in stair counting and elevation changes when running. The other two features I preferred on the FR165 were the 5 button layout and the extra running metrics. As a runner, FR165 for sure, and if an advanced runner, I’d look to see if you can get a 265 on sale this holiday season

I'm using Garmin Vivoactive 5. Love it. Up to 11 days battery life. Can't text nor voice chat but I don't need that. Pretty much recommend Garmin if you don't wanna be charging your watch every day.

I have a Garmin Vivoactive 5. I bought it for about $220 USD. I use it for the same reasons you list and I’m okay with not having all the other Apple Watch features. VA5 is the lower end so you won’t get the most accurate readings but it works perfectly and I have zero issues with it. 100% recommend for your needs.

If you really end up getting into running, I would not suggest Vivioactive 5. The pace shown on the watch is NOT the pace you are running. You won’t see your actual pace until after you run and sync to the app. I’ve learned a way to know “appropriately” what pace I’m running by setting up the watch with .25 mile laps so it will show me the .25 average. Also, I start a separate run activity for both slower warmup and another one for the slower cool down. For weight workouts in the gym, I just use the cardio activity but it’s really just to see approximately how much time and calories I’m supposed earning. Pool workouts are decent for counting laps, just one lap off. Maybe the low-level Forerunner would have been a better option for my running. I’ve only had mine a few months but it’s durable. I’ve worn it doing lots of hiking, over rocks etc. But I’m also a little bit careful.

Don’t buy any expensive watch if mainly you walk for fitness and mainly care about steps. If you were unhappy with the Apple Watch, I really don’t think you will be happy with a Garmin like the Vivioactive etc. I’m a runner and bought a Vivioactive 5 to track heart rate, pace, etc when training and actually running intervals etc. It’s not very accurate while you are doing the activity. Later you sync it with Garmin Connect and get a better picture of what you did during that activity. BUT, I still always carry my iPhone with the free Nike Run Club app and I have a cheap arm HR band, so actually my Garmin is only providing sleep metrics, which may or may not be very accurate. Evidently the very high-end Garmin watches are much better at real-time metrics, so if that is important to you, that’s what I’d go with.

I use my Vivoactive 5 for fitness tracking and love it. The GPS is excellent (I do a lot of hiking) and you gets loads of data on your workouts. It was $200 on ebay last fall.