The Garmin Vivosmart 6 should arrive soon to shake up the fitness tracker market
What you need to know
- Representative information about the Garmin Vivosmart 6 appeared on two Garmin regional websites.
- An unidentified Garmin “Fitness Product” also appeared in a Korean regulatory filing.
- The Vivosmart 6 will have built-in GPS, while the 2022 Vivosmart 5 relies on your phone’s GPS.
- Garmin often introduces new devices at CES, making CES 2026 a possible launch window.
Garmin is suspected to be re-entering the budget fitness tracker market after waiting for almost four years, as the Garmin Vivosmart 6 seems to be unveiled in Las Vegas in less than a month.
Gadgets & Wearables put together a list of evidence, including a Google Search preview of Garmin Indonesia’s page, which claims the Vivosmart 6 will have “built-in GPS and more than 30 sports apps.”
That would be a step up from the Vivosmart 5, which used connected GPS and only had 13 sports modes. The 2022 tracker used a 0.41″ x 0.73″ OLED touchscreen and included HR, blood oxygen, and accelerometer data, with a seven-day battery life packed into a compact 24–26g design.
Garmin’s Korea regulatory listing for “model number A04986” is described as a “Fitness Product,” G&W notes is different from other Garmin products listed as “Smart Watch.” It also says they saw a “proxy web page” on Garmin Sweden for the Vivosmart 6.
Since Garmin announced the Lily 2 at CES 2024, then the Instinct 3 and the HRM 200 at CES 2025, it’s a good guess that the Vivosmart 6 will launch at CES 2026, which starts on January 6.
The fitness tracker market has shrunk in recent years, with consumers turning to cheaper, full-size smartwatches, while brands like Xiaomi sell cheap trackers that can make the Vivosmart 6 feel expensive to casual athletes.
Garmin’s main North American competitor is Fitbit, which is expected to release new hardware in 2026, likely the Inspire 4 or Charge 7. Garmin will have a head start with an early 2026 release and lack of mandatory subscriptions.
What we would expect (and want) from the Garmin Vivosmart 6
Right now, you can buy the Xiaomi Mi Band 10 and get a 1.7-inch, 1,500-nit AMOLED display, three weeks of battery life, a gyroscope, and 150 sports modes for $50 (though no GPS). With the Fitbit Charge 6, you have a 1-inch display, a long list of health sensors – skin temperature, ECG, and EDA – and a few Google apps, and it usually sells for $100.
Garmin has been raising the price of the watch for the past few years, so whether the Vivosmart 6 sticks to the old price of $149 or goes up to $199, Garmin will need to find ways to justify that high price for a product category that tends to be cheap.
Built-in GPS is a good start; giving the Vivosmart 6 a large full-color display, while keeping the device lightweight and compact at least week of battery life, next step. And if Garmin can pull some tools from the Vivoactive 6 like the Smart Wake alarm and daily walking suggestions, that could make the next Vivosmart feel more modern.
I would also expect some health features from the last few years to appear: Heart Rate Variability (HRV), sleep training, nap detection, breathing variability, and (most importantly) the new Health Status tool to detect outliers in people’s health.
i am not we expect more in-depth training information from Garmin in this small device, such as training load/result or built-in workouts. But post-workout recovery data would certainly be a welcome addition!
