Garmin Vivoactive 6 gets long overdue smart sleep alarm
Garmin’s Vivoactive 6 just broke cover today. While it packs a small redesign and bump in storage, the standout detail is the long-awaited smart sleep alarm.
A familiar face with small tweaks
At first glance, the Vivoactive 6 doesn’t look like a huge departure from its predecessor. The biggest visual change is a redesign of one of the physical buttons. Otherwise, it holds onto the round face and minimal design language that’s defined the line for years.
The website Fitness-tracker-test.info spotted a few retail listings a few days ago which were quickly removed. But today Garmin made the device official.
What really stands out here is the smart alarm.
This is an alarm that wakes you up at the optimal time during your sleep cycle. That means if you set an alarm for 7 AM, the Vivoactive 6 might buzz you awake at 6:45 if you’re in light sleep. The idea is to avoid dragging yourself out of deep sleep and feeling groggy all morning.
Garmin already collects a fair amount of sleep data. They offer reasonably detailed sleep stages, sleep scores, and even recommend how much you should be sleeping based on your activity and recovery. So it’s always been strange that they haven’t done more with it.
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Other brands have been ahead of the curve here. Whoop has built their entire brand around recovery and sleep, and their smart alarm is excellent. Even a few budget wearables have dabbled with this. The closest you could previously get on Garmin right until now is through ConnectIQ apps — but those are clunky and not particularly power-efficient.
Now that the feature has made it to Vivoactive 6, it fills a gap Garmin users have been asking about for years. The data was already there — this is just be a smarter way of using it. Fingers crossed Garmin brings it to other models too — and doesn’t tuck it behind a subscription!
Other changes
The internal upgrades show the company is still invested in keeping the Vivoactive relevant. The device packs animated workouts and a fresh set of running metrics. It’s not quite Forerunner-level, but definitely a step up from the current Vivoactive 5.
One of the more technical changes is an increase in internal storage. The Vivoactive 6 offers 8GB, double what came before. Unfortunately, this isn’t being used to support offline maps. It’s strictly for music storage.
Another improvement is to do with satellite support. The device adds BeiDou and QZSS to its list, rounding out its global positioning capabilities. However, it doesn’t offer dual-band GNSS, so users in dense urban areas might still struggle with accuracy under tall buildings or heavy foliage.
The sensor hardware is holding steady. The device uses the Elevate 4 heart rate sensor, once again, which has been around for a while. That might disappoint some that were hoping for the latest Elevate 5.
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