Garmin Venu review

Our Verdict

With GPS, cool health features—and an awesome brandish—the Garmin Venu is a skillful fitness-focused smartwatch for virtually people.

For

Accurate GPS
Onboard music storage
Practiced bombardment life
Sleep monitoring

Confronting

Manual water tracking
Non as many smartwatch features as Apple Watch

Tom'south Guide Verdict

With GPS, cool health features—and an awesome display—the Garmin Venu is a good fitness-focused smartwatch for nearly people.

Pros

+
Accurate GPS
+
Onboard music storage
+
Good battery life
+
Sleep monitoring

Cons

-
Manual water tracking
-
Not every bit many smartwatch features as Apple tree Lookout

Garmin Venu: Specs

Water resistance: fifty meters
GPS: Yes
Heart charge per unit sensor: Aye
Brandish: one.two-inch, 390 ten 390-pixel AMOLED touchscreen
Contactless payment: Garmin Pay
Bombardment life: 5 days/half dozen hours GPS mode with music

The Garmin Venu bucks the tendency in which smartwatches in full general, tend to go for style points, while fitness trackers and sports watches aim for utility. In fact, the Venu straddles both successfully; this $349 watch has a beautiful AMOLED brandish, only also packs a ton of fitness features like any best Garmin watch.

During my fourth dimension testing the Garmin Venu, I was fortunate plenty to be able to have morning walks with my family unit in our neighborhood, keeping a good distance from everyone else. But, the fact that I didn't have to get out home to experience many of the all-time features of the Venu — such as animated workouts, sleep tracking and onboard music storage — was a win-win.

While it's expensive, my Garmin Venu review will explain why it'south ane of the best smartwatches, besides every bit i of the best fitness trackers.

Garmin Venu review: Cost and release engagement

The Garmin Venu is available on Garmin.com, besides as at online retailers including Amazon, Best Buy and Target. Information technology'south bachelor for $349.99 and comes in the following colors and finishes:

Rose Gold Stainless Steel Bezel with Light Sand Case and Silicone Ring
Slate Stainless Steel Bezel with Black Case and Silicone Ring
Silver Stainless Steel Bezel with Granite Blue Instance and Silicone Band
Gold Stainless Steel Bezel with Black Example and Silicone Band

The Garmin Venu is substantially the Garmin Vivoactive 4, but with a much improve display. Size-wise, the Venu (43mm case) sits between the Vivoactive 4S (40mm case) and the Vivoactive iv (45mm case).

Garmin Venu review: Design

The start matter I noticed was the display. If I'm being completely honest, I similar the square displays of the Fitbit Versa 2 and Apple tree Watch. However, the Venu's circular display was stunning. Indoors and out, the cute AMOLED display brought the sentry to life, even under bright sunlight.

I'yard on the debate virtually the serrated stainless steel bezel. It never defenseless any clothing but I noticed it more when I touched the scout. My daughter on the other hand idea it was absurd considering she would rub it with her fingernails all the time.

I was besides pleasantly surprised at how low-cal the Garmin Venu was. However, at 46.3 grams, it outweighs the Apple Watch 5 (36.5 grams for the 44mm) and the Versa 2 (39.97 grams). To preserve its good looks, the Venu'due south display is protected by Corning Gorilla Drinking glass 3 and a stainless steel bezel.

There are 2 buttons on the right side: the elevation is the action push and the lesser is the back button. Different many of Garmin'south other sports watches, the Venu has a touchscreen, which was extremely easy to navigate, but in that location was sometimes a delay in its responding to my touch.

Garmin Venu review: Health features

The Venu is admittedly packed with health stats. Body Bombardment Energy Monitoring takes a look at your torso's energy levels throughout the day, and helps you notice the best times for residuum and activity. It was pretty accurate. Any time I would feel sleepy, I would await and see what the number was, and it was low. Afterward a nap or taking a few minutes to just relax, I saw the free energy level go up.

I never thought I would demand a Pulse Oxygen sensor, but it turned out to exist extremely helpful, peculiarly when I had online appointments with my doctor. The Garmin Venu Pulse Ox sensor gauges your claret oxygen saturation during the solar day and as you sleep. While the Venu is not an FDA-approved device, annihilation lower than 95 percent indicates that yous may have a medical condition, and should see a dr..

The respiration tracking goes hand in paw with the Pulse Ox meter. The Garmin Venu tells you how you lot're breathing throughout the entire twenty-four hours and while y'all sleep.

I had a honey/hate human relationship with the stress tracking characteristic. The Garmin Venu constantly samples your heart rate and volition alert you lot if it is too loftier or too low. Not but has my life been turned upside-down by the pandemic, but I'm a single parent to a special needs toddler. Not surprisingly, I got reminders all the fourth dimension that prompted me to relax and practise a short animate activity.

Menstrual cycle tracking is more a function of the Garmin Connect app, rather than the Venu, but it's yet useful for women who desire to track their wheel, log physical and emotional symptoms and learn about training and nutrition during each phase. I plugged in my numbers and it was correct on when my "friend" came back in town.

You can log your daily fluid intake with hydration tracking, and apply that section as a reminder to stay hydrated and goal that changes based on how much y'all sweat.

Garmin Venu review: Workouts

The Garmin Venu can guide y'all through multiple-footstep workouts that include goals for each workout step, such as altitude, fourth dimension, reps, or other metrics. It includes several preloaded workouts for multiple activities, including strength, cardio, running, biking, and golf. You tin can create and find more workouts and training plans using Garmin Connect and transfer them to your device.

Being stuck at home, I establish the Venu's indoor workouts peachy. Its animations were extremely helpful when I was unfamiliar with how to perform certain exercises. When I did go for a jog outside, the GPS signal picked up seamlessly and was accurate too. The first time I used the scout, it took the GPS x minutes to connect, just after that it connected in less than a minute.

If I miss a morning walk/jog, I will hop on my Peloton to stay active and work out some stress. While I used the Garmin Venu for tracking my Peloton workouts, information technology didn't evidence the distance or recognize that I was pedaling. It still calculated my heart charge per unit but information technology was weird riding for 45 minutes and seeing 0.00 for the distance. If you lot're an gorging Peloton rider like myself, the bikes practise not transmit a indicate that can be received by any Garmin watches. Additionally, files generated by Peloton cannot be uploaded to Garmin Connect.

When you're out and about, the Garmin Venu tracks steps, floors climbed, intensity minutes, calories burned and more. Yous tin can even sync this data across multiple Garmin smartwatches. Another absurd characteristic is that when your watch and phone are paired, your live location can be sent to your contacts manually or — during outdoor activities — automatically with born incident detection.

Garmin Venu review: Slumber tracking

I knew my sleep was trash, just the Garmin Venu's Advanced Sleep Monitoring really showed me how bad it was. The Venu uses your movements, likewise equally Pulse Ox, respiration and your heart rate to sense when you're in light, deep, and REM slumber.

My full picture didn't include more than an hour in REM. I don't know if I should blame pandemic-related stress, my toddler or puppy for the constant interruptions.

All jokes aside, the Venu helped me better understand my sleeping patterns: I would go to bed around Midnight and get restless between 2 to3am, also as five to 6am. It would have been helpful if it offered guidance on what yous can do to sleep improve.

Y'all can see your estimated oxygen variation, pulse ox and respiration rate too; if there's a lot of variance, it could be linked to animate bug such every bit sleep apnea.

Garmin Venu review: Smartwatch features

Like all smartwatches, you can receive emails, texts and alerts right on your watch when paired with a compatible smartphone. As an iPhone user, I wasn't able to respond to texts or run into them with the Garmin Venu, but you lot're in luck if yous have an Android phone.

Nothing speaks more to your mode than the watch face. With the Garmin Venu, you can download custom lookout faces, add together data fields, and become apps and widgets from the Connect IQ Store. The number of options is limitless to customize the face and brand this watch fit you and your style.

Garmin Venu review: Music

Relatively few smartwatches and fitness trackers let y'all load music on to the device itself. Information technology'southward a peachy feature for those who want to get out their phones behind when they workout.

Music content can be loaded to your Garmin Venu by installing an available Connect IQ Music app from the Connect IQ app store to the spotter. Y'all can download songs plus playlists from Spotify, Deezer or Amazon Music accounts (subscription may be required). I have the Spotify Premium account, so I signed in and downloaded playlists with ease.

Currently, those are the just Garmin approved apps bachelor. Keep a ton of music on your computer? Not a problem. Garmin Express can exist used to transfer music, playlists, audiobooks, and podcasts. The Garmin Venu likewise comes with storage onboard that volition allow yous to upload effectually 500 songs to listen to over Bluetooth headphones.

Garmin Venu review: Garmin Pay

The Garmin Pay feature allows yous to utilise your watch to pay for purchases in participating stores using credit or debit cards from a participating financial institution. And don't worry almost compatibility, Garmin Pay works about anywhere you tin can make contactless payments.

I've e'er been a fan of contactless payment (at present more than ever, though I will gladly admit I'g a depression-key germaphobe). It's nice to know I could utilize the Garmin Venu to pay for stuff without touching a thing.

Garmin Venu review: Battery life

Garmin says the Venu will exist able to concluding for five days in its normal mode. That's knocked down to six hours on GPS mode with music and up to twenty hours on GPS way without music. From a full accuse, the bombardment dropped to 93 percent subsequently an hour with GPS active. With GPS and music streaming, it dropped to 81 percentage afterwards one hour.

For me, I found a nice balance between normal mode and the GPS and music style. I kept the watch in normal manner most of the time and switched for my workouts. That balance allowed me to get well-nigh iii days before I had to charge the spotter, which is a lot meliorate than the bombardment life on the Apple Watch - I constitute myself charging it almost every day.

Garmin Venu review: Verdict

This Garmin Venu has shown that it'due south the best-looking smartwatch for people who are obsessive virtually their wellness. It's got a gorgeous brandish, and is packed with features for monitoring your slumber, stress, blood oxygen and respiration. Plus, the Garmin Venu has onboard music storage, wireless payment support and animated workouts.

The wellness stats came in handy at my virtual medico's appointments, and it was durable enough to survive playtime with my daughter without a single scratch.

As an iPhone user, it wasn't as seamless as the Apple Watch only besides provided a lot more health metrics. That said, there'due south no denying that if y'all want a smartwatch to precisely measure your slumber, stress, exercise, body energy and other health metrics, you can't do better than the Garmin Venu.