Garmin Smart Band – What is it?
As well as the very recent confirmation of the Fenix 7X, it looks like Garmin is also releasing a ‘smart band’.
‘Smart Band’ could be a specific name for a new product or a generic name that covers a new Garmin Vivosmart (Vivosmart 5), or similar. I’ve heard zero intel on this, so I’m purely speculating here – unlike the F7 which is as near to a fact as you’ll get!
If it’s a Vivosmart 5 then I have close to zero interest in that as a product. Whatever it is, it was planned for a Christmas 2021 launch, which would make sense for that kind of product but if announced at the same time as the top-end Fenix 7 then it might, just might, herald a Garmin move toward a product that’s similar to WHOOP 4. ie a standalone sleep and recovery band which would be GREAT for many people, even athletes who just don’t want to wear a watch in bed.
A GAROOP (hmmm) product would do well but as I tentatively predict in this article…it won’t happen. Although now I have to admit I’m significantly less certain 🙂
I’d probably go for something like this as the idea of wearing an X sized watch in bed is deeply unappealing to me. It’ll be interesting to see what happens…but if it appears, it’ll be a day one buy for me along with the 7X.
Couldn’t agree more. Garmin is losing a ton of sales heading to WHOOP and Ōura simply because those two offer a simple, discreet wearables that target sleep, recovery, and basic activity tracking.
Hopefully, if real, the arrival of Smart Band would also involve finally properly syncing daily stress and body battery between the devices, so they are truly interchangeable. I don’t want to sleep in 7X but neither do I want it for my track workout.
yep i really dont like wearing any tech to bed (but still do). I’m more inclined toward emfit-type tech or a ring but this blog ‘makes’ me wear watches/bands.
i can just about stomach wearing AW7 at night but even my regular-size f6 is too big and bulky for my liking. whoop is a nice compromise size/weight, a ring even better.
ooooh. stop press, just remembered. there’s a new smart tech recovery ring being launched soon. I’ll be onto that over Christmas hopefully.
Feels like there is goodly amounts of opportunity with the Vivo products covering. general health, wellness, and recovery. Perhaps I’m over estimating how many buyers are open to having multiple devices.
yep, i’m unsure there too.
i can see how quite a few people have a smart or analog watch PLUS a sport watch.
but how many would wear a sleep/recovery band, plus other tech, IDK. I definitely would (do!) but I suspect we are all rarities here in the grand scheme of sport tech usage.
i guess that’s part of the whoop proposition. its unobtrusive, the battery lasts long enough but it covers sport and sleep.
I like all the data my Garmin is giving me. But I also like nice watches. And wearing 2 watches looks stupid. So when a bracelet is coming to market. I’m the first to buy. Especially when it has fysio-true up.
For a time I allowed myself to be enthusiastic about the smart-back & particularly the smart-clasp concepts. Matching the other hardware well enough w/ a useful battery life is probably a non-starter.
hmm not sure there. whoop lasts a fair while and whoop4 is reduced in size.
without a screen, a multi-week life on one charge should be straightforward
Given the full name of both Vivofit and Vivosmart does include “smart band”, my money is on a new version of said device(s). Hopefully Garmin addresses body battery sync, changes sleep algorithm to use FB, and returns to a discreet, no frills look of Vivosmart 3. If they can pull and make their training load, sleep, and recovery more more centralized and integrated, similar to WHOOP, even better…
some of the (quality) F7 rumours are pointing out that there is new readiness stuff appearing. Now, I don’t know if the leaker just doesn’t know about where Garmin is at with those features other devices or if there really is something new coming. anyway, point being, there might be new readiness stuff on f7 AND this band.
however i would tend to err toward and share your guess that’s it’s a new vivosomething
It can be vivo band but with the new FB-provided readiness bits. Given Fitbit just rolled out theirs, and Polar, Ōura, and WHOOP already have it, Garmin increasingly looks like a sole holdout. And I’m sure whatever the new metric(s) is, all new devices will have it.
maybe
there are supposed to be these new readiness features added.
Body Battery could be seen by Garmin as their take on readiness (though AFAIK, it doens’t tally with 24×7 readiness science)
The entire “Vivo” family of Garmin branding seems to be aimed at “fitness, but not athlete”. But that segment is now Venu and I doubt that the field of casual fitness trackers (glorified step counters?) that was, in my perception, a bit of a hype with little substance back when Vivosmart and their competitors were flooding the market. If we see any updates in that field they won’t exciting.
What might be exciting: a Garmin device aimed squarely at athletes integrating with their dedicated workout tracker, as a dedicated “true up” tool for off hours, perhaps also doubling as the next generation of heart rate belt (for Edge, perhaps also for watches if it beats their accuracy).
Plenty of possibilities for unexpected awesome in that field (yes, unexpected, I certainly don’t expect anything of this to happen) :
* true permanent observation via power shuttle: similar to how the airpods are never attached to a mains adapter, but not with a “case battery” but with a “backpack battery” that you attach to the sensor, *while wearing* a few hours a week. Backpack battery wouldn’t be satisfactory for a watch (boxing either sensor or display) but could work quite well for a sensor only device
* sensor fusion: the archetypal “Garmin athlete” would likely have more than one heat rate sensor (e.g. this hypothetical “true up device” and every sensor has is weak moments. But those weak moments don’t necessarily overlap, it would be to take a “most plausible value wins” approach.
* implicit recording: structured archival of workout-like situations that have not been formally started/stopped. This already exists for watches, but Garmin has another precedent: the cycling speed sensor 2 that can do rudimentary recording even when never coupled to an Edge or similar.
nice.
i like the sensor fusion idea. at least you and me would buy it !
of course it might not be GAROOP or a VIVOsomething but rather a GARMOH2 band for the bicep (not whoop-like abilities in the app)