Battery Faulty

The design life of the device appears to be around 2 years (on my first model, the strap broke after about 2 years), and the construction of the tracker doesn't really allow aftermarket servicing (of anything, including replacing the strap, which is definitely a design flaw, because that and the battery have a limited lifespan by definition; technically some servicing is possible, but you have to melt/peel a lot of glue and then re-glue it once done). Their out-of-warranty replacement cost is really high relative to the price of a new unit, especially when all of the hardware is fine except the battery or strap, which actually could be swapped out pretty easily if Garmin allowed it. The combination of design choices and service costs for this particular model really aren't consumer-friendly.

On the plus side, they have continued to use replaceable straps on their newer smartwatches, so we can hope they learned their lesson. That doesn't help those of us who have bought a Vivosmart 4 already; when requesting out-of-warranty  service, I suggest threatening to drop Garmin and instead switch to a competitor if they want to charge a lot for a replacement when a known design issue is why the device has failed (dead battery, broken strap), and just the failed component can't be replaced. It won't necessarily work, but they may be willing to offer a discounted service fee. If you do wish to stick with Garmin and can't negotiate a better fee, the out-of-warranty replacement cost is still cheaper than a new unit, and the replacement they send is a new unit, so it's worth paying the cheaper price for a replacement instead of the full retail price; you're not getting anything better by buying a new retail unit, unless you want to switch to a different tracker model anyway.

4999138 said:

HI Mike here

my vivo smart 4 is about two years old it still works just the screen is a bit dull can my watch battery replaceable it has two screws at the back not four.

please let me know

best regards

Mike Dodds

Hello! The Vivosmart 4 does not have a replaceable battery. 

You might need to buy a new device if the battery in your Vivasmart 4 is defective, cannot be charged, and the service facility has advised you that the battery cannot be replaced. It might not be cost-effective to repair the old unit if the expense of doing so is more than the cost of buying a new one. fnf