Now there\u2019s a new model, the Vivoactive 6<\/a>, and I wore it for several weeks to put it through its paces. This watch, like the version before it, is a great watch for somebody who wants to track their steps and activity without getting too deep into the running-nerd territory of the Forerunner watches. (I say this as a diehard Forerunner fan<\/a>: Not everybody wants or needs all those features.)<\/p>\n As I tested the Vivoactive 6, I was looking for good heart rate and GPS accuracy, convenience of use, and handy features for fitness and life. I was also sure to check out two features that are new to the Vivoactive line and to Garmins in general: a smart alarm, and suggested walking workouts.<\/p>\n Changes from the Vivoactive 5<\/p>\n Credit: Beth Skwarecki\n <\/p>\n The internals and main features of the Vivoactive 6 are similar to the 5, so most of the things I\u2019ll be describing here are subtle differences. Honestly, if you want a great fitness watch on a budget, the Vivoactive 5 will still do most of what you want. But here are the main differences I noticed moving to the 6:<\/p>\n More coaching options<\/strong> for running and strength\u2014you can now get adaptive coaching instead of just the expert plans. (More about the difference here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Daily suggested workouts for walking<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/li>\n Smart wake alarm that says it can wake you up during light sleep (although I had trouble with that)<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/li>\n Improved navigation<\/strong> with QZSS and Beidou in addition to the usual GPS, GLONASS, and Galileo<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Different color options<\/strong>: Black and white are still available, but now the two other colors are green and pink.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/li>\n The start button<\/strong> is now round and has a little collar around it, making the button press feel softer and shallower. I hate this, but most people will probably not care at all.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Glances have a new appearance, appearing as rounded tabs rather than rectangles.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/li>\n Different watch faces. Most have a similar style but they aren\u2019t quite the same faces. (You can still install your favorite Connect IQ faces, of course.)\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/li>\n 8 GB of storage<\/strong> instead of 4 GB<\/p>\n<\/li>\n A gyroscope for more accurate movement detection<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n Comfort and appearance<\/p>\n Credit: Beth Skwarecki\n <\/p>\n The size, shape, and overall appearance are basically identical to the Vivoactive 5. This is a thin, lightweight watch, but the overall look and feel is a bit plasticky. (Depending on your point of view, that either makes it look cute and sleek, or a little too casual\u2014those looking for a more elegant watch may prefer the Venu 3 or 3S<\/a> with its metal bezel.) It takes standard 20 mm watch bands, if you\u2019d like to switch up the appearance.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Vivoactive 6 is a smallish watch, 42 millimeters wide, without a larger option. This makes it approximately the same size as the Forerunner 265S or the Venu 3S. This size looks and fits great for me, but it may not be for everyone. The included strap fits wrists sized 4.9 to 7.5 inches.<\/p>\n Part of how the Vivoactive 6 gets its sleek appearance is by only having two buttons, both on the right side. (Forerunners also have another three on the left.) This leaves the touchscreen responsible for many of the watch\u2019s functions, including saving a workout after you\u2019ve finished it. You do still use the physical buttons to stop and start workouts, and to mark laps, which is essential for getting accurate times.\u00a0<\/p>\n The digital displays on the watch are a bit nicer-looking than what\u2019s on a typical Forerunner, with elegant little rounded edges. There are also tons of new color options for the stock watch faces, to an almost dizzying degree. Pro tip for those who get the Jasper Green model like I did: the digital color \u201cSilver Sage\u201d is a perfect match to the watch\u2019s exterior. Somehow I didn\u2019t find it until my very last day of testing, as I was taking photos to go with this review. You\u2019re welcome.<\/p>\n Battery life and charging<\/p>\n Credit: Beth Skwarecki\n <\/p>\n Garmin\u2019s estimate for battery life for this watch is 11 days. That\u2019s in regular \u201csmartwatch mode,\u201d not counting any activity tracking, so in practice you should expect a bit less. (With always-on display, Garmin says to expect five days; in battery-saver mode, 21.)\u00a0<\/p>\n I had previously gotten a nine-day life when I tested the Vivoactive 5, so I expected something similar here\u2014but my testing seemed to show the battery coming up a bit short, trending toward around seven days with what I believe are similar settings. Power usage specs are identical between the two watches, according to Garmin, so it\u2019s possible I was doing something different that I haven\u2019t quite figured out.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Vivoactive 6 charges the same way as other Garmin watches, with the company\u2019s four-pin connector clicking into a slot on the back of the watch. The watch ships with a short cable (USB-C on the other end) but personally I prefer to use an adapter like this<\/a> on the end of a regular USB-C cable.<\/p>\n Heart rate and GPS accuracy<\/p>\n Accuracy on this watch is quite good, as I\u2019ve come to expect from Garmin. It doesn\u2019t have multi-band GPS like my favorite Forerunner, but its distance and pace readouts were always very close to the truth.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n Vivoactive 6 in green, chest strap for reference in black. Heart rate is also not perfect but definitely more than good enough. Here\u2019s a graph of wrist-based heart rate on the Vivoactive 6 versus a chest strap, my gold standard. You wouldn\u2019t go astray using it for heart-rate-based workouts. If you want even better accuracy, the Vivoactive 6 can connect to an external chest strap<\/a>\u2014which you should always do with any watch if heart rate accuracy is important to you.<\/p>\n Suggested workouts for walking<\/p>\n Credit: Beth Skwarecki\n <\/p>\n Garmin has long offered daily suggested workouts (DSW) for running and cycling. The Vivoactive 6 doesn\u2019t have those, but it does have DSW for walking. Huh? Yes, for walking.\u00a0<\/p>\n The suggested workouts don\u2019t show up in your Garmin Connect app, but you can view them from the watch itself. When you start a Walk activity, the suggested workout may pop up and ask you if you\u2019d like to start that workout. If you don\u2019t see it, scroll down to Workout Library and tap Daily Suggestions. You can see a week\u2019s worth of workouts, with the option to do today\u2019s or any of the future workouts.\u00a0<\/p>\n For example, if you\u2019re not in the mood for today\u2019s 45-minute Brisk Interval Walk, which asks you to walk five minutes at a \u201cbrisk\u201d pace, recover for one minute, and repeat that a total of six times in between a brief warmup and cooldown, you could instead tap on tomorrow\u2019s Steady Pace Walk.\u00a0<\/p>\n I\u2019ve heard other people say that they just got a lot of Steady Pace Walk suggestions, but I got plenty of variety. For context, I don\u2019t track many walks, but I do go for a lot of runs. Perhaps it thought I was ready for something spicier. Here\u2019s one week of training that it gave me:\u00a0<\/p>\n Brisk Interval Walk (45:00)<\/strong> – Warm up 5:00 easy; 6x [Go 5:00 brisk; recover 1:00 easy]; cool down 5:00 easy.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Steady Pace Walk (55:00)<\/strong> (brisk pace the whole time)<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Brisk Interval Walk<\/strong>, as above<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Steady Speed Walk (25:00)<\/strong> – Warm up 5:00 brisk; 15:00 speed; cool down 5:00 brisk<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Steady Pace Walk (30:00)<\/strong> (brisk pace the whole time)<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Speed Interval Walk (30:00)<\/strong> – Warm up 5:00 brisk, 3x [go 4:00 speed; recover 4:00 brisk]; cool down 5:00 brisk<\/p>\n<\/li>\n Brisk Interval Walk (45:00)<\/strong>, as above<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n Rather than giving you a specific pace or heart rate for each step of the workout, the walking workouts use a perceived effort system of \u201ceasy,\u201d \u201cbrisk,\u201d and \u201cspeed\u201d paces. These aren\u2019t described in the user manual, but I think of them as slow, medium, and fast.\u00a0<\/p>\n The smart wake alarm sounds promising, but I\u2019m not sure if it works<\/p>\n \n It’s 7:31 because, to take this picture, I had to fumble and grab my phone from the nightstand while the alarm was going off. The Vivoactive 6 is Garmin\u2019s first device with a smart wake alarm, which aims to wake you up with gentle vibration during a light sleep stage. I love the idea, but during the time I tested the watch I didn\u2019t get any alarms during my \u201csmart\u201d wake-up window. I\u2019m not sure if that\u2019s my fault or the watch\u2019s.<\/p>\n To use a smart alarm, you have to identify a 30-minute window within which the device can look for light sleep stages. Let\u2019s say you need to wake up no later than 7:30 a.m. You\u2019ll set a smart alarm where 7:30 is the last possible time it can decide to wake you up\u2014which means your wake-up window will start at 7:00 a.m. (This is perhaps why smart alarms aren\u2019t as popular as you\u2019d expect: Do you really want to wake up at 7:03, or 7:12, or whatever moment is judged to be the right one if you don\u2019t need to be up until 7:30?)\u00a0<\/p>\n What do you think so far?<\/p>\n I had a daily smart alarm set for nearly every night I tested the watch, which was a little over two weeks. I set it for 7:00 to 7:30, as in the example above, and every single time it went off, it didn\u2019t wake me up until 7:30 on the dot.\u00a0<\/p>\n I asked a Garmin rep about how the alarm works. I learned three things that may explain why I didn\u2019t get woken up:\u00a0<\/p>\n You need to have gotten a certain minimum amount of sleep, usually at least six hours.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/li>\n There needs to be a light sleep stage (not deep or REM) during your 30-minute wake-up window.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n The watch buzzes you gently, and if you don\u2019t wake up, it will try again later.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n So maybe I wasn\u2019t getting the alarm because I didn\u2019t get enough total sleep, because I didn\u2019t have a conveniently timed sleep cycle, or because I was just missing the watch\u2019s gentle nudges.\u00a0<\/p>\n I checked my sleep stages and total sleep length, as reported by the Vivoactive. Most mornings, I had gotten more than seven hours of sleep, and spent most or all of the time between 7 and 7:30 in a light-sleep stage. So the first two requirements were met.\u00a0<\/p>\n Maybe I\u2019m just so conditioned to wake up at 7:30 that I\u2019m not able to detect the Vivoactive\u2019s gentle buzzing? For comparison, I wore a Fitbit Charge 6<\/a> to bed for a few nights and also set it to a smart wake alarm in the 7:00 to 7:30 window. I got early alarms from the Fitbit each of those mornings, but not the Vivoactive. Either the Vivoactive was being so gentle I didn\u2019t notice it, or it didn\u2019t work. I truly cannot tell the difference.<\/p>\n Vivoactive or Forerunner?\u00a0<\/p>\n \n Left: Vivoactive 6. Right: Forerunner 165. There\u2019s a significant overlap between the features of the Vivoactive 6 and those of some of Garmin\u2019s Forerunner watches, especially the similarly priced Forerunner 165 Music<\/a>. Since people often wonder which watch is the better pick, I\u2019ll give a few distinctions here that should help you choose.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Vivoactive 6 and Forerunner 165 are both a similar size, price, and battery life, with the Vivoactive coming in a bit lighter in weight. Note that you have to choose the Music version of the 165 if you want to be able to play music without having your phone with you. (The Music version retails for $299 like the Vivoactive; the non-music is $249).\u00a0<\/p>\n The 165 has an altimeter, the better to track how many \u201cfloors\u201d you climb in a day, while the Vivoactive 6 has more location networks for potentially better GPS accuracy.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Vivoactive 6 has a wheelchair mode and workouts for wheelchair users; the 165 does not. The 165 has daily suggested workouts for running, even if you don\u2019t set up a training plan in the app; the Vivoactive 6 does not. The Vivoactive 6 has golfing features. The 165 has more navigation features (but neither has onboard maps).\u00a0<\/p>\n The 165 has five buttons and nothing relies solely on the touchscreen. That means you can set the touchscreen to lock during activities, and do everything you need with buttons (thus avoiding accidental button presses or missed presses due to rain or sweat). Both watches can use their physical buttons for starting and stopping activities and for marking laps.\u00a0<\/p>\n If you want a little more than what these two watches feature, your next step up would be the Forerunner 265<\/a>, which can pair with a power meter and do cycling workouts. It also has dual-band GPS and some other little touches that are more useful for runners, like training status and more data fields during your run. On the other hand, an upgrade on the lifestyle watch side would be the Venu 3<\/a>, which can do voice calls and texts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It looks cute and delivers tons of fitness features at a great price. We may earn a commission…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":87984,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3160],"tags":[1685,53,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-87983","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-gadgets","8":"tag-gadgets","9":"tag-technology","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114479196214715576","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87983"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87983\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Vivoactive](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/images-2.fill.size_2000x1125.v1746721508.jpg\")
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\n Credit: Beth Skwarecki\n <\/p>\n![\"Watch](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/images-5.fill.size_2000x1125.v1746721508.png\")
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\n Credit: Beth Skwarecki\n <\/p>\n\n
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\n Credit: Beth Skwarecki\n <\/p>\n