I have had 2 Garmins. Venu 2 & Vivoactive 5. Both say they are water resistant. They had the swimming meter on them. Both quit working after about a year & a half. I swam in 3 ft of water 3 or 4 times a month (Jun-Sept). It is a shame, I really liked both watches. The water is the only thing I can think of that made them stop working.

My 5th Vivioactive watch over the last 12 years. Used for cycling, swimming, SUP, hiking(walking) pickleball and lots of other workouts and activities. This watch has quickly become a disappointment due to how it’s sensing and recording my workouts. My 4 was very accurate compared to the 5. Not sure if it’s the sensor or the software.

This tracker does what I want to to do. One exception is the sleep tracker. It is too sensitive to movement! If I am not conscience of being awake...why does it say I am awake? I normally am sound asleep with in 10 minutes of lying down. I am asleep about 9:30 every night and wake up about 5 or 5:30. Once or twice a month (like last night) I was asleep about 9:35pm, woke up at 5:30am, my watch said I went to sleep at 12:31am, was awake for 1 hr 6 min. For a 3 hr 53 min of sleep. This is depressing! I am an active 78 year old and will not be tired today because I had a good nights sleep which the watch did not record properly.

I decided to reward my self at the end of this year by getting a Garmin Vivo 5 but I was disappointed because the battery life was one day. I recharged it and again it lasted for two days. I returned it back. But still I planning to have a new Garmin in the future with long battery life.

I bought this for my wife. She's a teacher. She doesn't allow phones in her classroom, so she doesn't look at hers. This watch keeps her in communication, even at work. It's been very convenient on multiple occasions. She has also used our a a game. She keeps trying to get the best sleep score she can. 87 is her best. What's yours? The watch looks good. It's stylish. It's sleek and doesn't snag on things like a bulky watch can.

I received this as a gift for Christmas. Pros- set up is easy, using the workout features is easy after the initial use. The red light at night is the best feature ever. It is easy to read, navigating takes a bit to figure out but the buttons are big enough and use friendly. Cons- not to many but one is huge- Hear Rate - it is clearly not accurate and this feature needs fixing. It shows my HR at a Hiit level -150+ during steady state zone 2 elliptical work. My other band shows my HR around 90 during these workouts as did my Lilly. I would give 5 stars but this is a big error - it impacts the accuracy of my workout data, intensity minutes, recovery, etc. Overall- I love it but lets fix this issue and it will be 5 stars!

# 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​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

The band that shipped with the fitness tracker caused my wrist to become raw. Currently trying to find a replacement band so that I can continue to use the device. The features are very nice to have when i could wear the device. Need to find a good replacement band that will not irritate my skin.

Recently purchased this Garmin Smart Watch and the Keeper stretched to the E point that the watch strap is not properly secured, and presents a serious safety issue. The purpose of a watch band keeper is to secure the excess length of the watch strap, preventing it from catching on objects, snagging, or wearing down quickly. The current Keeper is a Complete FAIL ...and I hope Garmin Support will respond properly with free replacement Keepers when I have time to call.

Switched from FitBit and could not be happier. Love the features, the battery life. Very pleased with the recommendation to switch off features to extend the battery life. The silicone band I have reactions to so had to switch out band. The one thing I would recommend that I cannot find is when charging and I have gotten my steps in I am not able to add them to the day like I was with the other, I would really like to be able to add the steps in when charging or the workout in when charging but it does not let you load it into the day. I am so hopeful for this model and wanted it for a long time. Early birthdday present and so far loving it going to go ahead and subscribe for 1 year and test this out. Really like it, still figuring it all out. But so far so good. 58 year old female user.