Moving further into the Garmin ecosystem

For years now I've kept myself from being too aligned in one tech ecosystem. For example, my main computer is a MacBook but my phone is an Android device. I've used Garmin bike computers for years now (since the Edge 500), but have always used Polar wristwatches. I measure weight on a digital (but not network aware) scale and blood pressure on a Withings unit.

My time trial bikes have Shimano cassettes matched with Campagnolo chainsets, SRAM chains and 11-speed SRAM Red eTap gearing. Oh, and for good measure they have Magura hydraulic rim brakes!

As I've moved more and more into logging physiological parameters using web apps, I've found this divergence of devices to be rather awkward to work around. In particular extracting data from Polar's Flow platform seems difficult. With my move to trying out Athletica it was clear that I'd need to move further into Garmin's ecosystem, as Athletica draws data from Garmin Connect. One of the features I am keen on is the integration of sleep data and resting HR into Athletica to make assessments of recovery status. This includes sleeping HRV, sleep time, sleep quality and so forth. I wasn't able to import my regular morning HRV measures conducted using HRV4Training, nor were up to date resting HR values going through. 

Choosing the Garmin Vivoactive 5

After a bit of pondering, I decided to pick up a Garmin Vivoactive 5 health/fitness watch. Making the model choice needed a little thought - but only a little, because I don't really need to use the watch for recording workouts. On the bike I currently use a Garmin Edge 840, while on the indoor trainer, the data are saved via TrainerRoad or Zwift. I don't run, and I don't swim. I do walk and I use the watch to track those activities as well as the occasional workout with dumbells. So my use case is mostly tracking activity, sleep, HR through the day, night time HRV and so forth. On those grounds the Vivoactive 5 seemed the model best suited.

General comments

The display is excellent with vivid colours. The touch screen works well (I've had no issues with clothing triggering it) and in combination with the two buttons makes for a great interface. I can't really do better than DC Rainmaker in a detailed review, so I'm just going to relate a few of my experiences with the device.

Managing the watch's various settings and options is pretty easy with a combination of the Garmin Connect phone app and the watch itself.

Accuracy

First - the GPS seems to work very well. It seems better than the Polar Ignite 3, with fewer little wobbles when I'm static for a few minutes. But then I'm not really requiring a great deal of GPS accuracy in my usage which is basically recording my walks. And these aren't exactly hikes! Any significant workout is on the bike and therefore recorded either on the Edge 840, or via indoor cycling software.

Second - the HR numbers seem to be comparable with those I see when using the chest strap. The exception has been when riding on the indoor trainer when usuallly the watch's optical HR data are radically lower than the 'real numbers'. This seems to be to do with my thin and bony wrists. I occcasionally see numbers that are consistently within a beat or so of the data from the chest strap, but that's not common. I haven't figured out quite why that is, other than I think it's to do with blood flow as perceived by the sensor. But it's no big deal, since the critical data when cycling come via other routes.

Sleep tracking

The Vivoactive 5 seems to make a pretty good estimate of my sleep duration and quality. It delivers a morning resting heart rate and HRV data to Garmin Connect. The sleep data forward automatically to Athletica and to intervals.icu. There seems to be some disagreement about whether night-time HRV values are better or worse than a post-waking morning measurement. For what it's worth I continue to use the morning measurements taken with HRV4Training to asses my recovery and point me to what training intensity I should look to be undertaking that day.

Various features

Notifications - there are a variety of notifications that the watch provides. Many of these I find to be unimportant and I've gradually turned may of them off. Notification of calls and texts from my phone is pretty useful, though the standard responses I can make from the phone are (not surprisingly) rather limited.

Music - I haven't explored this. Usually I'd be playing music from my phone anyway as I'd be on the indoor bike trainer.

Weather - It's kind of useful, but I've usually checked the likely forecast for the day via xcweather on my laptop. 

Watch faces - I thought the pre-installed watch faces a bit unhelpful, and I installed one from ConnectIQ. As this shows live data I suspect it dents mattery life a bit.As it shows me the information I want - Time, Date,  Battery %, Steps, Current HR - I'm OK with that.

Garmin Pay - I looked into this, but found that UK banks aren't really involved in this. I could get an intermediary card to handle payments, but really it's not worth the hassle.

Battery Life - I reckon I'm getting about 5d battery life from the watch. This is with the brightness set quite high, the complex watch face, tracking HR 24/7 and about an hour of GPS tracking daily. I think this is more than acceptable.

Manual - The full list of features can be found in the online manual.

Overall conclusions

I'm pleased with this watch. The function set is quite limited by comparison with the all the bells and whistles of the Fenix 8 watch, but actually they fit very neatly into my fitness regime in which I don't usually run, occasionally do a strength workout but most frequently train on a bike either indoors or outdoors. One feature that is omitted, and it seems is one which is quite badly missed by many users, is barometric altimeter. In my use-case this is unimportant. The watch unit itself is pretty small and quite unobtrusive. The display is big enough for the data I display.

At £215, I think this watch represented great value for money.