Garmin Epix (Gen 2) vs Garmin Vivosmart 5
🗓️ Release Year
1️⃣ Garmin Epix (Gen 2): 2022
2️⃣ Garmin Vivosmart 5: 2022
🏃 Activity
1️⃣ Garmin Epix (Gen 2): The Garmin Epix (Gen 2) is a high-performance multisport GPS smartwatch designed for serious athletes and outdoor enthusiasts, featuring a stunning AMOLED display. It offers comprehensive activity tracking, including steps, distance, calories burned, and active minutes with personalized daily goals. Its extensive activity profiles and advanced performance metrics are tailored for a wide range of sports and adventures, providing detailed insights into every workout.
2️⃣ Garmin Vivosmart 5: The Garmin Vivosmart 5 offers foundational activity tracking, diligently recording steps, distance, calories burned, floors climbed, and intensity minutes. It provides inactivity alerts to encourage movement and incorporates Body Battery energy monitoring, a valuable feature for optimizing daily activity planning based on physiological readiness.
❤️ Health Monitoring
1️⃣ Garmin Epix (Gen 2): This device provides continuous heart rate monitoring, advanced physiological metrics including VO2 max estimation, performance condition, and training status. It also tracks respiration rate, Pulse Ox for blood oxygen saturation, and offers detailed sleep analysis, delivering critical health and recovery data essential for optimizing training and overall well-being.
2️⃣ Garmin Vivosmart 5: Continuous heart rate monitoring is provided by Garmin's Elevate wrist-based technology, offering insights into resting heart rate trends and real-time heart rate zones during activities for enhanced fitness analysis. The integrated Pulse Ox sensor enables blood oxygen saturation monitoring, particularly relevant for comprehensive sleep analysis.
🔋 Battery Life
1️⃣ Garmin Epix (Gen 2): The Epix (Gen 2) offers up to 16 days of battery life in smartwatch mode and up to 42 hours with continuous GPS tracking. While the vibrant AMOLED display impacts battery life compared to MIP displays, it still provides sufficient duration for multi-day activities and extensive training.
2️⃣ Garmin Vivosmart 5: The Vivosmart 5 boasts a robust battery life, lasting up to 7 days in smartwatch mode. This extended duration minimizes the need for frequent charging, ensuring consistent tracking of daily activity and sleep metrics.
😴 Sleep Tracking
1️⃣ Garmin Epix (Gen 2): Advanced sleep monitoring on the Epix (Gen 2) tracks detailed sleep stages and utilizes the Pulse Ox sensor to monitor blood oxygen levels during sleep. This provides valuable data for assessing recovery quality and informing training decisions, especially important for athletes managing demanding training loads.
2️⃣ Garmin Vivosmart 5: Advanced sleep tracking on the Vivosmart 5 analyzes sleep stages (light, deep, and REM) to provide a detailed understanding of sleep architecture. The inclusion of the Pulse Ox sensor allows for monitoring blood oxygen levels during sleep, adding another dimension to sleep quality assessment.
📍 GPS Tracking
1️⃣ Garmin Epix (Gen 2): Equipped with advanced built-in GPS capabilities, the Epix (Gen 2) provides highly accurate outdoor activity tracking and navigation without requiring a paired smartphone. It supports multiple satellite systems and offers detailed preloaded mapping features, essential for exploring remote areas and navigating complex routes.
2️⃣ Garmin Vivosmart 5: This device does not feature built-in GPS. However, it supports connected GPS, leveraging the GPS capabilities of a paired compatible smartphone to accurately track outdoor activities such as running and cycling, providing pace and distance data when your phone is with you.
🏋️ Workout Modes
1️⃣ Garmin Epix (Gen 2): The Epix (Gen 2) supports an extensive range of multisport and individual workout modes, including running, biking, swimming, hiking, trail running, skiing, strength training, and more. Its customizable profiles and extensive real-time data screens provide comprehensive metrics for performance analysis across diverse activities.
2️⃣ Garmin Vivosmart 5: The Vivosmart 5 supports a variety of activity profiles, including walking, running, cycling, yoga, strength training, and swimming. It displays real-time statistics such as heart rate and calorie burn during these workouts, enabling users to monitor their effort and progress.
💫 Exercise Recognition
1️⃣ Garmin Epix (Gen 2): The device includes automatic exercise detection for common activities like walking and running through its Move IQ feature, ensuring seamless recording of basic movements within the overall activity log, even during varied training days.
2️⃣ Garmin Vivosmart 5: Garmin's Move IQ technology is integrated to automatically detect and record common activities such as walking, running, and swimming. This feature streamlines activity logging, ensuring that these basic exercises are captured without requiring manual initiation.
🍎 Compatibility
1️⃣ Garmin Epix (Gen 2): The Epix (Gen 2) is compatible with both iOS and Android smartphones, connecting via Bluetooth and Wi-Fi for seamless data synchronization and smart notifications.
2️⃣ Garmin Vivosmart 5: The Vivosmart 5 is compatible with both Android and iOS devices, connecting via Bluetooth. Synchronization with the Garmin Connect app provides a platform for detailed data tracking, analysis, and progress monitoring.
📲 App Support
1️⃣ Garmin Epix (Gen 2): Synchronization with the comprehensive Garmin Connect app is central to the Epix (Gen 2) experience, providing in-depth analysis of all tracked data, performance metrics, training insights, and recovery recommendations. The app allows for creating and syncing detailed training plans, courses, and customizing device settings.
2️⃣ Garmin Vivosmart 5: The Garmin Connect app serves as the central interface for the Vivosmart 5, offering detailed health insights, workout summaries, and long-term progress monitoring. It also facilitates synchronization with popular third-party fitness platforms like Strava and MyFitnessPal, allowing for data integration into a broader fitness ecosystem.
💡 Smart Features
1️⃣ Garmin Epix (Gen 2): Beyond its primary focus on sports and outdoor performance, the Epix (Gen 2) includes practical smart functionalities such as on-wrist notifications, Garmin Pay for contactless payments, and on-device music storage with support for streaming services, offering convenience during training and daily use.
2️⃣ Garmin Vivosmart 5: Essential smart notifications for calls, texts, and app alerts are delivered with vibration, keeping users connected. Additional features include music control for a paired smartphone and a find-my-phone function for added convenience.
💦 Water Resistance
1️⃣ Garmin Epix (Gen 2): With a robust water resistance rating of 100 meters (10 ATM), the Epix (Gen 2) is engineered to withstand swimming, showering, and various water activities, making it suitable for serious water sports and providing durability in wet environments.
2️⃣ Garmin Vivosmart 5: With a water resistance rating of 5 ATM (up to 50 meters), the Vivosmart 5 is suitable for swimming and showering, making it a durable companion for everyday wear and aquatic activities.
⌚ Display Quality
1️⃣ Garmin Epix (Gen 2): The Epix (Gen 2) features a stunning AMOLED display with high resolution, offering vibrant colors, deep blacks, and exceptional brightness. This touchscreen display provides excellent readability in various lighting conditions, including direct sunlight, enhancing the visual experience for mapping and data review.
2️⃣ Garmin Vivosmart 5: Featuring a larger OLED touchscreen display compared to its predecessor, the Vivosmart 5 offers improved visibility and usability for reviewing stats and notifications directly on the wrist.
👌 Ease of Use
1️⃣ Garmin Epix (Gen 2): The device offers a dual interface with reliable buttons and a responsive touchscreen, providing flexible and easy navigation through menus, data screens, and mapping features during both activities and daily use. The user interface is designed for intuitive operation and quick access to critical information.
2️⃣ Garmin Vivosmart 5: The Vivosmart 5 utilizes a swipe-based touchscreen interface complemented by a physical button, providing a user-friendly navigation experience. Wireless syncing with the Garmin Connect app ensures effortless data transfer and tracking.
✨ Design and Comfort
1️⃣ Garmin Epix (Gen 2): The Epix (Gen 2) features a premium and durable design with a high-quality titanium bezel and stainless steel or DLC coating, built to withstand extreme conditions while maintaining a comfortable fit for all-day wear and extended outdoor use. The design balances robust construction with aesthetic appeal.
2️⃣ Garmin Vivosmart 5: The design of the Vivosmart 5 is slim and lightweight, featuring an interchangeable silicone band that contributes to comfortable all-day wear. The band can be easily swapped for personalization.
🩸 SpO2 Monitoring
1️⃣ Garmin Epix (Gen 2): An integrated Pulse Ox sensor allows for on-demand spot checks and continuous monitoring of blood oxygen saturation levels, particularly valuable for acclimatization at altitude, monitoring sleep quality, and assessing overall physiological status during demanding activities.
2️⃣ Garmin Vivosmart 5: The integrated Pulse Ox sensor allows for monitoring of SpO2 blood oxygen levels, particularly emphasized during sleep tracking, providing insights into respiratory well-being during rest.
💖 ECG Functionality
1️⃣ Garmin Epix (Gen 2): It is important to note that the Garmin Epix (Gen 2) does not support ECG (Electrocardiogram) functionality.
2️⃣ Garmin Vivosmart 5: It is important for potential users to note that the Garmin Vivosmart 5 does not support ECG (Electrocardiogram) monitoring.
🧘 Stress Tracking
1️⃣ Garmin Epix (Gen 2): The Epix (Gen 2) tracks stress levels throughout the day based on heart rate variability and offers guided breathing exercises to help users manage stress and promote mental well-being alongside physical training and recovery.
2️⃣ Garmin Vivosmart 5: Stress levels are tracked based on heart rate variability (HRV). The device includes guided breathing exercises, offering a practical tool to help users manage stress and promote relaxation throughout the day.
🩹 Recovery Tracking
1️⃣ Garmin Epix (Gen 2): The device provides advanced recovery insights, including a daily readiness score, recovery time advisor, training status, and training load focus, offering detailed guidance to help athletes understand their recovery needs and optimize their training schedule to prevent overtraining and improve performance.
2️⃣ Garmin Vivosmart 5: The Body Battery energy monitoring feature provides insights into the body's energy levels based on HRV, stress, and activity data. This assists users in optimizing their daily energy management and making informed decisions about when to prioritize rest and recovery.
💳 Subscription
1️⃣ Garmin Epix (Gen 2): A significant benefit of the Garmin platform is that all features and data tracked by the Epix (Gen 2) are accessible through the free Garmin Connect app, requiring no additional subscription fees for core functionality or advanced training analysis, providing comprehensive value for a premium device.
2️⃣ Garmin Vivosmart 5: A key advantage of the Garmin ecosystem is that no subscription is required to access the full feature set of the Vivosmart 5. All data and insights are available through the free Garmin Connect app.
🏷️️ Price
1️⃣ Garmin Epix (Gen 2): $999.99
Check Garmin Epix (Gen 2) Price *2️⃣ Garmin Vivosmart 5: $149.95
Check Garmin Vivosmart 5 Price ** If you buy through these links, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you