I've used my fair share of smartwatches, and while I still prefer the Apple Watch, Garmin's Vivoactive 5 is making me reconsider things. And, while there are a lot of great Black Friday smartwatch deals, the Vivoactive 5 might just be the best one of them all, as you can save $50 over at Amazon.
After using the Vivoactive 5 off and on since it was released, there are a few reasons why I keep coming back. The first of which is rather simple, as the design is just about as basic as it gets. Garmin doesn't try and do anything over-the-top, offering a basic design with a couple of buttons.
The Vivoactive 5 isn't as feature-packed as something like the Garmin Venu 3, but it still does enough to give you all of the information you'd want. Whenever I use a Garmin, hands-down, my favorite feature is the Body Battery. This gives me a much better idea of how the day is going to go, as opposed to just looking at how long I was actually asleep.
My other favorite feature of the Vivoactive 5 is the fact that it's able to tell me when I'm stressed out, even if I don't realize it. In doing so, I'm able to force myself to reflect a bit, try to figure out what's stressing me out, and then take a few deep breaths. It might not really seem like that big of a deal, but the reality is that those are the things I wish Apple, Samsung, and/or Google would bring to its respective wearables.
