Garmin Venu 2 GPS smartwatch with all-day health monitoring, Slate Bezel with Black Case and Silicone Band
Garmin Venu 2 & 2S
GPS smartwatch with advanced health monitoring and fitness features
1 GARMIN COACH 2 ACTIVE LIFE STYLE. 3 TRACK YOUR GOALS 4 GARMIN MUSIC
Compare the Garmin Smartwatch Range
 Venu 2/2S |  Venu |  Venu Sq Series |  vÃvoactive 4/4S | |
| Sleep Score | ✔ | ✘ | ✘ | ✘ |
| Health Snapshot | ✔ | ✘ | ✘ | ✘ |
| HIIT app & animated workout | ✔ | ✘ | ✘ | ✘ |
| On-screen Animated workout | ✔ | ✔ | ✘ | ✔ |
| Floors Climbed | ✔ | ✔ | ✘ | ✔ |
| Body Battery energy monitoring | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Smart notifications | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Music storage and playback | up to 760 songs | up to 600 songs | Music models: up to 600 songs | up to 600 songs |
| Garmin Pay | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Women Health Tracking | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Hydration Tracking | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| VO2 Max / Fitness age | Improved | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
More from Garmin
| Dimensions: | 4.54 x 4.54 x 1.22 cm; 49 Grams |
| Model: | 010-02430-11 |
| Batteries Included: | 1 Lithium Polymer batteries required. (included) |
| Manufacture: | Garmin |
| Department: | Unisex – Adult |
| Department: | Unisex – Adult |
Wanted to replace my old Apple Watch for something more reliable and really pleased I picked this watch. Much more accuracy recording workouts, walks and runs, as well as excellent battery life. I probs only charge once a week! I also like that watch can be worn all the time without looking too sporty at work. Very pleased with my purchase and an excellent price on Prime Day!
Fantastic watch. Looks smart for every day use, as well as being an amazing fitness tracker.
Benefits from the Garmin connect app, which is kind of essential to keep the watch working. Tracks everything, and has a range of workouts and activities.
Only possible gripe is some of the watch faces are a bit ugly (in my opinion), but loads are great and you can install more on the Garmin IQ app.
I love all the data included with the app, super interesting stuff. couldn’t believe how fast it charges so there’s no worries there, pretty much back to full during the time it takes to shower.
Only 2 things I have issues with,
Firstly the silicone strap, it’s made the skin on my wrist quite dry and red,(I’m not wearing it too tight). I did buy some 3rd party nylon straps as lots of people were also complaining about it but unfortunately the quick release pins are a non standard size (despite Garmin claiming they’re standard size) they are 0.5mm larger than standard, so though standard fits they slip out easily.
I’ll message Garmin about this and see if I can get a strap or bands from them.
The other issue I’ve had is connecting Spotify, for some reason it just doesn’t accept whatever WiFi connection I use (must of tried 10 different places) so I’ve no idea why that’s an issue, I’ll just keep trying.
Overall really happy with it and if I can sort out these 2 issues and I’m hopeful I can, then it becomes a 5 star purchase.
What a great watch, so clear and colourful screen, larger text,, easy to see in the dark. The only thing missing is you can’t load routes that other garmin do, so you have to load app dmap, it works but I find it a bit fiddly, but I truly love this watch.
Still learning but has lots of information that I can use on my fitness journey
Best watch ever had used mainly to map walks and bikes and challenges.
As smartwatch go this was one of my favourites. However, I could never get the spotify integration to work which was one of the main reasons I purchased it.
Initial like – combines the fitness tracking with a watch you can wear all the time. The screen display si really clear in any situation I’ve used it in (including swimming) – night running included.
Its connects to Garmin Connect no problem – and from there to Strava and Fitness Pal.
It has all the sports I use which is great and I use it three times a day for walks and running – with a battery life of 6 days
You can set the screen timeout to different lengths of time but just turning your wrist to look at it is enough to activate it
Its very light and comfortable – no skin reaction and the alarm function is flexible and you can have multiple alarms – that don;t wake up the rest of the house ..
GPS acquisition is usually very quick and the screen display makes it obvopius where to press Start and Stop , followed by Save
It has a number of different built in watch faces you can use but IQ gives you access to loads more.
I think it looks very sleek , combined with known Garmin skill with the sports tracking – so I like it a lot more than the original Garmin 235 (and others ) I’ve had
I bought this watch to replace my Apple Watch series 3 (screen cracked). I am usually very reluctant to stray from apple products but I was struggling to justify the cost of the newest apple watches. However this Garmin Venu 2 is easily the best smart device I own. Looks stylish and it is very comfortable to wear, especially to bed! I was worried it would be too big and uncomfortable to sleep with but it is surprisingly comfortable.
The Garmin connect app is so much better than the Apple Fitness app – more detailed info, easier to use and just looks better. Tracking gym workouts, runs and football trainings is a joy (although I did need to use a 3rd party app to track football training, something Garmin to need to sort out!). And then there is the Golf app.. unbelievable! Provides all the data you want from a top quality golf watch.
I would highly recommend this for someone looking to switch from Apple to Garmin. The only difference is that you can’t respond to texts or calls from the watch, but I never really used this function on the Apple Watch anyway. A very happy customer.
I’ve previously had the Garmin 225 and then 235, and this feels like a natural evolution and step up from those.
I toyed with getting the 245, but the Venu 2 won out for me with the slightly more refined design. It looks classy on the wrist and bridges the gap between smart-watch and activity tracker really well in my opinion.
Battery life on Garmins is always excellent, and this is no exception. Running or biking 3/4 times a week, I’m only ha ing to charge once a week, and feel like this could last forever.
Very good UI – the range of activities is impressive, and feel I could benefit even more from getting cadence sensors for my spin bike (the watch encourages you to do this which is a nice touch).
I’ve only used the on board music feature a couple of times, but think I’ll start to do this more so I can ditch the phone.
Only slight downside is a struggle getting Garmin pay working with my starling card – it’s not the end of the world and I’m unlikely to ever need it, but it is worth knowing that the software for that element is slightly glitchy.
Still, an excellent smart-watch/activity tracker hybrid, and fully deserving of its 5 stars here.
I charged it on arrival and 9 days later it still had over 10%. That’s with multiple rides on my bike using the GPS and with pulse ox turned on during sleep tracking.
I had the Vivo active 3 previously and it bugged me how I had to always lock the screen to prevent accidental menu changes, especially when in the shower. The Venu 2 is somehow immune to water and never requires the screen locking.
I personally prefer it over the fenix series
I am upgrading from a MiBand 5 to this. The built-in GPS is handy, downloading my Spotify to the watch itself is a great feature and activity tracking is awesome. The Garmin Connect App is also a well designed app.
Smart watch:
The watch looks attractive and doesn’t feel as heavy as I thought it would and provides easy to read notifications from apps, texts, emails and so on. I have found the watch easy to use and quickly got used to the menus. Not as perhaps discreet as the Fitbit charge 4 but looks more attractive and I even feel fits the part for any occasion that you would use it for.
Fitness tracker:
This is actually the main reason I brought it. So I do 5 days a week at the gym where I do 2 hours+ per day of exercising. The watch has been fantastic my fitness tracker with the sensors and it’s calorie tracking especially the HR sensors compares to the charge 4, so I found it notices when I’m weight lifting and the HR will pick up the heart spikes or increased effort compared to the charge 4 which would be delayed before it noticed increased heart rate.
I have used the workout program and created my own 5 day weight training routine which can easily be skipped or adjusted as you go along. I have found the tracking of my sets have been pretty accurate unless it’s ny leg weight training then it doesn’t detect any sets (since I keep it on my wrist only) but for the rest of the body it’s good, when you finish a set you hit the bottom button (back button) which for my transitions over to rest on my workout program and asks how many sets you did (it shows how many sets it thinks you did but you can easily change this number if it’s wrong) and you can adjust the weight of what you lifted such as if you decide to push higher or lower you can quickly adjust this information on the fly with the watch which has been fantastic go track my progress and improvements!
The information it shows on the Garmin app once you’ve completed your workout is interesting but what I’ve found really helpful is the estimated sweat loss from my workouts and it suggests how much sweat you’ve lost and to drink that back, for me it recommends by default roughly 2.2-2.3l per day then after my workouts are complete it will recommend 2.7-2.9l per day to replace my sweat loss which is a nice way to stay hydrated.
It’s highly recommend from the forums that you keep your weight up to date per week as it’s doing all it’s calculations based on age, height and weight.
I had to go and manually adjust my maximum heart rate on the watch as it was set to 220 so I did the standard 220 – my age and the watch recalculated all the different zones for heart rate. It also wants to know your resting heart rate and it can go based on your average but I waited to set that after 2+ weeks of use so it has a good amount of data to go off.. my resting heart rate is 61 BPM.
There is v02 max which I have barely used or gotten into. I do not run marathons, nor do I run or outdoor cycle, just walks if I go out so I sadly don’t have much knowledge of the v02 max.
It has other functions like body battery which is determined from different factors like sleep to tell you how much energy you’ll have for the day and your body age. The body age is to tell you what your physical age is with your fitness and the more you do the more your age lowers and becomes fitter. Since I’ve been working out over a month my body age has gone from 32 to 29 from all my exercising, my main thing slowing it down is my weight.
Overall the sensors are fantastic for fitness, I’m sure there are better watchs out there that do more but for the price point I feel it’s fantastic!
Battery:
The pulse ox which looks at your oxygen level (I use this at night only) uses around 6-7% per night and then exercising 5-10% each day due to my workout length. I get on average 7 days between charges which considering how much the watch is tracking of 10+ hours of workouts and 7 days of sleep and pulse ox I’m actually really impressed.
Charging it back up is also really fast, I’ve not even needed an hour and it was fully charged after 7 days of use. The battery actually lasts the same as my charge 4 and that wasn’t a smart watch with all the extra bells and whistles the Venu 2 has.
Important!:
If you get a third part strap it says 22mm will do however if you check forums people say a lot of the third party straps have problems staying connected to the watch, you need to buy 23mm quick release pins and use the 23mm pins on whatever third party strap you use so it fits firm and snug in the watch itself. Once I made that change my third party strap has never come off and remains completely secure.
Thanks for reading my review.
This smart watch looks and feels great.
High quality screen, sharp images and battery last more then a week.
I’ve had a couple of different smart watches and always got annoyed with battery life. Even after months the charge lasts for at least 5-6 days and it charges really quickly.
Tracking for sleep, heart rate steps, stress etc. is good and the app ties in with other apps such as calorie counters etc. Won’t be looking back now and recommend this one to everybody who dares to ask
Great watch, easy to set up, with so many different apps, I love the easy access on the watch to see sleep patterns, Cals, heart rate etc great to track exercise.
Needs charging every 4/5 days which is great.
I dithered for months before buying this watch. I’d been an Apple Watch user for the last 8/9 years. Starting running more seriously and preparing for a marathon the Apple Watch is close to useless. So I eventually got a Garmin and wish I had done so months ago. It’s an excellent watch not just for fitness. Slightly disappointed in the battery. After 7/8 hrs hiking it was down to about 40%. Hopefully the next model will be solar. If you are wanting a watch for running and afraid to make the break from Apple – stop dithering you won’t regret it!
Solid. Reliable. In the sea or swimming pool. Smart looking. Elegant. Practical. Glad I switched. Will be eyeing up my next Garmin. Hooked. Don’t hesitate. Buy.
Such a great fitness tracker. Not fully utilised yet but will be within a week of so. Love the fact I can music which is a big bonus when doing my walks. Seems very accurate and battery life is exceptional. Well worth the investme
Waking up the watch is a bit finicky, and the back controls could be implemented better. Am happy with what I got. The charge lasts long (at 67% after 3 days of use, switches it off at night, I don’t need it for anything then) activity tracking is good, easy pairing with phone and app.
I use this product to track my heart beats etc.. Also the battery stays for 10 days which is amazing.
I was looking for a well-kitted sports watch with day-to-day functions. After much deliberating this was the one for me.
A big step up from my previous Huawei GT watch without sacrificing so much on battery life.
Note that the companion app is great, but demoted because my watch – and MANY other users – are facing similar issues with Spotify connectivity. Still, all else works well.
Love gadgets, love tech, wanted a glitzy fenix 6, thought actually I’m old and unfit and you know what….love the venu2. Does everything I actually need.
My previous watch was a Vivoactive which had a continuous display. This is a lovely watch, but I am disappointed that the display isn’t always on. I do understand that being a smaller watch, it can only house a smaller battery, therefore a continuous display would drain the battery quicker. nevertheless, it is still a feature I would have preferred. even at the expense of charging the battery more often.
Perfectly accurate sleep tracking even if disrupted (doesn’t detect naps)
Oxygen measuring isn’t particularly of interest.
GPS is more accurate (pinpoint) than Strava on phone (margin of error).
Integrations are fantastic.
Interface is a bit odd, but fundamentally functional.
Extremely happy with it.
Really great care here for customers with an email before and great shopping. In fact it got here way before expected. 10/10 for a great experience
+ great battery life
+ good GPS signal
+ good metrics/trends straight on your wrist
+ love how good the body battery algorithm works to measure the energy drain/recovery
+ Sp02 (aka Pulse Ox) accurate, configurable and on-demand
+ sleep tracking okaish not yet at Fitbit insights level but decent and the prospect to improve through software updates since the sensors are the last generation and should be able to capture reliable metrics
Maybe the only cons so far is:
– the strap, is horrible, after just few days I’ve start getting serious rashes, switching from one hand to another to allow recovery and cleaning the band and hand daily is still a serious problem.
Maybe this is intentional since so many people are reporting similar issues for year apparently and they still didn’t improve the band that they ship the watch with…
Will update this along time if relevant info comes up while using it.
I arrived earlier than expected, and it works well. I use it for monitoring myself during exercise on some gym equipment, originally in conjunction with a chest strap monitor. I found that the Garmin Venue 2 watch appears to be as accurate. Very impressed with it.
I upgraded from a Vivoactive 3 to the Venu 2s & love it. The screens are crystal clear. Lots of added extras like pilates.
I use for counting steps and monitoring activity. Less user friendly than I expected. Fiddly to use. I had an allergic reaction to the strap which settled after a while. Confusing at times and not instinctive like apple products.
Great update from my old vivoactiv HR.
Excellent for recording any kind of outdoor activity, and the battery lasts for days.
Beautifully designed watch with amazing battery life (5-6 days ), great features, nice display. Everything is absolutely amazing but….. i still prefer fitbit
Garmin ( in my opinion) is more for professional people as its only pure data when fitbit has more explanation what that data mean for you and its more interactive.
Maybe its the early days and i will get use to it. Nevertheless watch looks amazing
Very accurate at tracking, and so easy to set up, wear it 24/7 as it’s so light but very durable
Managed to.breao my Garmin Forerunner 645. This was what I chose as a replacement. Zero regrets, it looks nicer, had a touch screen, the functions are a lot less fiddly to use. Screen is way easier to see in bright lights and darkness as it’s back lit. It has all the whistles and bells of other fitness devices but all the serious sports training functions too.
I bought this as a gift and it was an instant success.
Gave this to my Mrs for her birthday, now I want one. To be honest i much prefer it to the Fitbit I currently have, really good for hiking and such.
This is my third Garmin watch after starting with the Vivoactive HR, then the Vivoactive 3.
This is the best so far. It’s got a great sized screen, it’s responsive and it’s not heavy.
I managed to get 11 days of use out of it without any activities and with the blood oxygen monitor off, as my oxygen levels were constantly fine and I don’t think I need to monitor it on a daily basis or when I sleep. I will turn it back on if I wanna do an activity.
Overall, it’s a great watch and it’s made my fancy Swiss watches virtually redundant as I wear my Garmin 24/7
Having had a brief fling with an Apple watch and an Amazafit I have come back to Garmin.
The Venu 2 is comfortable to wear and just gets on with the job of tracking fitness and activities.
GPS is quick to acquire and tracks well.
Takes a bit of time to get to grips with all the options but that also shows how configurable it is.
Excellent quality great looking watch that gives plenty of health information to help with quality of life.
Great looking watch. It has loads of info with it, battery life is good to. The watch is great value for money.
Fantastic smart watch from Garmin. Sensible size with clear display even in bright sunlight. Large numbers/characters. Arrived quickly. Perfect.
Upgraded from the vivo active 3. Much better. Not as sensitive like the vivo was. Clear screen, accurate tracking. Easy upload to strava etc.
I wear it everyday and it lasts at least a week before needing to charge. That’s with activity use too.
Would highly recommend.
I love how Garmin gives the best quality of everything they offer. and Amazon is always the best retailer to deal with
Great blend of smart watch and activity tracker. Light, comfy and best features if vivoactive and basic forerunners. 1 star off for lack of the Pace Pro feature which seems a deliberate to force you towards higher priced options.
Starting with my use case: I want a good fitness tracker, good battery life, a nice screen and notifications on my wrist. I don’t care about apps on my watch as long as it vibrates when I get a message or call I’m happy.
The Garmin Venu 2 is perfect. I’ve owned it for over a week and I’ve only just had to charge it. Honestly I don’t know how it’s able to do everything it does and have that amount of battery life. 10 days with normal use is insane!!
It’s been great at counting steps and mapping my walks so far (need to increase the exercise routines). I love that I can save the animated workouts to my watch as well.
It’s comfortable, light weight and does everything I need it to do.
Biggest question: do I rate it higher than the Apple watch? Yes with a but. I don’t think I ever took full advantage of the Apple watch. It was great but I just don’t care about apps at all. The only thing the Apple watch had over this is a more distinct vibration on my wrist.
If this was to break I would buy another one because it’s so amazing. Garmin have really shocked me with this watch!!
Just buy one it’s brilliant.
Battery life is good but it’s so good because the screen only stays on for a really short time. This is my only gripe in a really good watch that looks great as well.
Sleep tracking rarely picks up me waking, battery life if a few days, original strap not flexible enough not got to grips with gym workout tracker yet.
. But would still recommend
Great smart watch with pretty much everything you will ever need to know and gives fantastic insights into sleep, health and fitness. The only annoying thing is the move alert, it doesn’t seem to very accurate and tells you to move even when you have just sat down after being active, but that’s the only downside which is pretty easy to ignore but just doesn’t make it effective at encouraging you to move.
Good heart rate tracking
More of a sports watch
Less of a smartwatch
If you are looking for a sports watch with a decent battery life, look elsewhere because this product is woeful from that perspective. Use it on the lowest settings possible and be lucky to get 2 full days. The battery drainage is also incredibly erratic.
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UPDATE.
I love this smartwatch. The battery drainage bug appears to have been fixed. You can go 10 days on moderate daily use before you now need to charge this bad boy. Highly recommended.
I returned a Huawei GT2 watch due to issues I had with it’s heart rate monitor and chose this as it’s replacement.
The Venu doesn’t have the quality look and feel of the Huawei, but it is acceptable to me.
It seems to either work as a metric or imperial measurement device which is inconvenient as I run and swim in metric and play golf in imperial. I haven’t yet found a way to set up as metric for run/swim and imperial for golf (that’s not to say it isn’t possible
The golf function works fine, but defaults to metric yardage. I am living with this, just add an extra 10% to the distance offered to get the yardage.
Running is fine and I feel it does get distance, time and heartrate correct and it does offer a connection to a chest heartrate monitor if required.(which is another reason I chose this watch as my Huawei didn’t offer this).
The only thing missing is the ability to set up some of the training plans which are available on other Garmin watches.. but for me, as a lite user, something I can live with
Swimming is OK, although often seems to have a length added or missing, but that could be down to the swimming that I do (I haven’t yet tried all crawl)
I don’t use the music function, but do find the notification function useful.
The screen is easy to read, even when out running, but I have had to increase the brightness to the middle setting.
Battery life is OK for me, I usually charge it twice a week and use the GPS 3 times (1x golf and 2xrun) and it charges in a couple of hours.
So I don’t think the Venu 2 is perfect, but is a decent compromise that gives me most things I want in a single watch.
Great watch, wear it all the time. Seems accurate to me…
Excellent tracker abd smart watch..had a few but this is the best.mainly used for open water swimming ..cycling..and walking
The battery life on this model is great, lasting well over a week with normal use. I was a little concerned about the size of the face but I shouldn’t have been as it’s no bigger than other watches. So far it’s seem accurate with the step count which is an improvement on previous fitbits I have owned.
I’ve had this watch a few months now and put it through the test. I usually get about 7-8 days battery out of it, which consists of daily walk tracking, also daily workouts and hiking/mountain biking on the weekends. It constantly tracks heart rate and gives steps done too plus a lot of other things. The metrics given from Garmin Connect help you see how you are doing / compare anything, this is a great fitness watch.
I would probably stick to the Garmin brand if I was to get a new watch, they definitely know what they are doing.
I’ve been a longstanding Garmin customer for a few years and have had fenix 6s as well as this watch so I think I’m in a position to make an honest from comparable comparison. I guess the pros to the venuel is the fact that it’s extremely light and you don’t even notice it on your wrist compared to the phoenix that was like a tank and weighed nearly 100 g and always felt very heavy. The venu has very good battery life typically from normal use as well as basic navigation back to a hotel so you typically get between 3 to 4 days unlike some whates such as the Samsung watch 4 for which I had literally would give me 48 hours at a very maximum so top marks the Garmin for the battery life. To watch itself is pretty good it’s not as probably as feature full as a Samsung watch but it does give you your health age as well as runs a bunch of diagnostics to test HRV blood pressure fitness levels etc etc and does a pretty good job of this. The Garmin connect app is excellent and works seamlessly with the watch and is not always requesting to pair with the watch and you can set it in such a way that you just open the app periodically to download the data which is far better for the watches battery life.
I use the watch for fishing quite a bit and it’s fully waterproof I’ve been out to Madeira fishing recently and it’s water to proof and salt proof and I’ve had no issues with that although I don’t use it for diving. I found it hard to get a screen protector to protect the watch as it has a slight curvature on the screen so you can only really use the plastic silicone covers which are not hard glass or in any way as effective as a proper screen protecter say for the fenix 6r.
I guess the cons to this watch the main reason is the fact that it does not have maps and does not have built in decent navigation where you can actually go for a hike and add a GPX route to the watch in order to get a basic trail. It does allow some form of navigation where you can store navigation point say your base or your home and it will give you an arrow pointer towards that set location but it will not allow you to import a trail that someone else’s walked and follow that trail but I guess that is why it costs significantly less than the fenix 6 and it is as I say a fitness watch and not really a navigation hiking watch.
Overall I’m pretty pleased to watch I’ve had a bunch of smart watches and I must say this is the best for the money and it feels really good on the wrist and not very heavy and has most of the features that I would like I think if I had to criticize it as I say it will be having navigation with maps would make it an awesome contender for best smartwatch
Thanks
Love it’s tracking abilities, as for sleep tracking who knew what awful nights sleep I have thought I was doing ok
Good watch does a fair bit. In reflection I wouldn’t have spent 300 on this but it looks good. Navigates well. Tracking works pretty spot on. Notifications all good.
After looking at Suunto, Polar and everything else I settled on the Venu 2 and I’m delighted!!
Screen is beautiful, fitness tracking is excellent and the app is awesome!!
Only annoyance was I paid349 and the next day it was 279!
I don’t think it was as small as I expected
I love that I can just head out with this beautiful watch and with a different strap, it looks less like a sports watch. Buying the 2S is definitely the right move for us ladies as you don’t want something super bulky on your wrist. Battery life is very good. A few days if not running and using GPS. Otherwise, 2-3 days is good for me. Syncs really well to the apps. Now, I need to see if I can up my recovery and training in the next 6 months SMARTLY. Highly recommend this watch!
This device is superb, I cannot fault it.
The options to track are vast, there is pulse oxygen, hydration, sleep, stress, intensity and more. It has the ability to track workouts I didn’t know existed and even provides some videos / animation on how to perform the activity correctly.
Of my main criteria I was looking at:
Monitor Notifications – Through the app you can select which apps from your phone send notifications through to the device which is good at limiting the notifications to what you need
Heart rate – Constantly tracked with improved accuracy against my previous Wear OS device
GPS tracking – this is extremely accurate however it doesn’t link directly to Viewranger which I was using previously, now needs to export the GPX file to have everything in Viewranger
Battery life – Running the device I appear to be getting a stable 7-8days with some GPS tracking within that. Once a week charge works fine and is a big improvement from almost daily on Wear OS.
Lastly, the Garmin Connect and Connect IQ apps are a must. They take some navigating and a while to understand purely due to so much being available. The graphically analysis of all the tracking is superb. The Connect IQ is more of an app store which allows you to find additional tracking options, music storage and watch faces. After several itterations of watch face I have found a minimal look which still provides plenty of top level details (Summit Watch Face V2).
If you’re looking for your next wearable and questioning whether to go with Garmin vs Other options I highly recommend you go with the Garmin!
2) This is the Best fitness watch I ever had. (Fitbit charge 4 hang your head in shame – in comparison you were useless!) It seems to track things more accurately, lovely clock face display and easy to view (good lighting) your stats. The app is great too.
3) As a keen swimmer I find it so useful to be able to see & chart my progress whilst you are swimming – and this watch delivers that and so much more. Easy to view the progress under water too.
I love it.
It’s actually good and it’s not fake garmin i was worried about that before i ordered . Battery life good and overall good item !!!
I purchased this to track my daily activities and cycling. Connects very easily with Garmin speed and cadence sensors andy Edge 130.
Heart rate is higher than my Wahoo Tckr, but then all wrist base HR is not as accurate as the chest strap.
Still very happy with my purchase.
I started with original Fitbit and my last was the Versa 2, I thought at the time it was great but truthfully it’s more dumbed down, limited and scaled down in terms of details, the community stuff and supporting apps mediocre at best. I got this and firstly looks wise it’s awesome I paid 3 for a watch face and I’m obsessed, the details, the accuracy similar to boditrax machine and it’s more motivation with just more stats, details and little extras, I’m unconvinced by the claims on battery life but charging is so quick I don’t really care, the music features work but aren’t that greatly laid out and the only other negative is the lack of screen protector options about to mix up the style, I can’t say enough good things about it, it’s a friendly kick up the bum.
I bought the Venu 2s as an upgrade from my vivoactive 3. I’ve had the watch about 6 weeks and am very happy with my purchase. The watch is smaller and more comfortable to wear and the interface with my phone is much improved. Battery lasts much longer and GPS and HR monitor seem accurate.
The Venu 2 is a great all-round fitness watch, offering those that want to access fitness stats and health tracking without going into crazy depths.
The watch software is responsive and intuitive, the screen clear and bright. Battery life is also good, I’ve my watch face set to always on, only turning off between 1am & 6am, and I get a solid 3 days of battery. The face I have is quite busy so doesn’t haver acres of unused space.
Accuracy is good too, again this is a general watch, but copes will tracking your location and activity.
Sleep, body battery, pulse ox tracking is also improved by the new sensor.
The watch is quite light, I was surprised by this – a nod to the non-metal casing. You get used to it too.
Only downside, the charging interface – I wish Garmin would develop a magnetic flat charging system. Of course, if you buy a Garmin compatible charging dock you can wave good by to the short cable and “on-the-side” charging position.
Absolutely love it! Decent battery, most of the Garmin features packed in, bright and responsive screen. Can programme your workouts in app or on computer and load them into the device.
Love this watch had lot of smart watch’s over the years first Garmin. Had Apple Watch for the last few 5 years but battery life driving me mad. Definitely recommend
This is the fourth Garmin watch I’ve owned in 15 years and it doesn’t disappoint. Ready to go straight out the box, really easy to use and tracks everything I need it to. Slight disappointment that you can’t use Garmin Pay with any UK credit or debit cards I own, but not a deal breaker.
This is an amazing smart watch that has all the features of the flagship models from other vendors. I especially love the sleep tracking, it’s very accurate.
But it beats all the other vendors in one area. Battery life.
I can get 10 days out of this thing between charges and judging from others when I start running / biking again the near future I should still get 5-6 days with GPS tracking enabled for those events.
I’m blown away and would recommend it to anyone.
There was one time I was doing a tough mudder and it sent it into a hissy fit twice wanting to make an emergency call for whatever reason but I’ve still not found out why.
Overall, it’s a great device and looks great. The accuracy is excellent, it’s easy to use, and I’m sure you would love it also
Really like this.
Easy to set up and use. Slightly obsessed with my sleep patterns now though!
Only niggle is the inability for send a route to it from Garmin Connect to follow (even without a map; arrows would do). Pretty basic so should be included
The battery lasts a really long time. Message notifications are not always displayed, or I do not receive them at all. The watch could also notify with a sound, not just vibrations. The heart rate monitor indications are quite accurate, as for the accuracy of the number of steps counted, I have no comparison.
After pricing a few higher end models, I decided to the give the Venu 2 a go, as it was new on the market and got very good reviews.
Absolutely excellent so far in all regards. Notifications are perfect, touch screen is flawless, love the vibrant colours of the screen. I love how customiz-able it is – i.e. your selected colours, features etc.
Accuracy on the GPS is excellent – I also have a Wahoo Elemnt Bolt for my bicycle, and they are virtually identical in their data analysis. Slight difference on the heart rate reading compared to my chest strap but not a major difference, still detects when I am increasing my effort.
Only problem, if you could even call it that, was failure to connect with Zwift (as I was looking to use it as a HR monitor) but I could equally blame Zwift as much here.
Worth every penny.
So far so good the watch does everything I expect of it and more that I don’t use. However Garmin as a company are nothing short of a JOKE. There customer service in terms of previous watch being faulty and replacing leaves a lot to be desired. I surprised myself why I even bothered with them again but I did now I have an old faulty watch that cant be replaced…
Its not as pretty as the Apple watch but it does what it’s supposed to di over a longer period of time. It’s bright and lasts over 5 days.
Nice watch: long lasting good battery, sharp screen etc. Replaced a heavily used vivoactive 3 that had to be charged during long walks etc – the battery just didn’t cut it. The screen and widget glances are much better too and altimeter/barometer more accurate eg climbing stairs.
This is my second Garmin watch. Very fast delivery too
This watch is incredible for the money. It does indeed track your health all day and reports reasonably accurately on things such as heart rate, steps and stair climbing. The pulse oximeter is also a very useful function, especially because Covid will reduce the dissolved oxygen as one if it’s symptoms. Add to that various notifications and dedicated activity functions it is a very capable device.
Battery life
I get 7 days from my watch between charges. This includes a couple of runs so the use of GPS on the watch. Charging is fast and goes from low % to 100% in less than an hour.
Activity tracking
Step tracking seems good and accurate and I’ve used the GPS on lots of runs now. So far very reliable and matches the GPS tracking on my phone so accurate too.
Data and Garmin connect app
Probably the best thing about this watch is the level of data and insight it gives in to your activity. It really is excellent and the level of info in the Garmin connect app is far superior even to activity tracking apps such as Strava.
Screen
Great quality and nice, clear, sharp display.
My only negatives, and they are only minor:
The app store feels a little clunky. You can’t filter on Garmin apps for example so have to trawl through all the 3rd party apps to find them. I also wish they’d provide a screen protector with the watch – for 300 I think this should be a minimum particularly given the screen is curved and will be quite easy to scratch if you are not careful.
Overall a great watch and definitely recommend.
After doing some research on other brands in case I wanted to switch (investigated Fitbit, Amazfit and others), I decided to stick with Garmin for the better battery life, GPS accuracy, body battery feature, and the fact that you can put your own music on the Venu 2/2s whereas Fitbit has removed that feature in favour of streaming only. I use YouTube music, so only supporting Spotify/Deezer on the Fitbits was no deal for me. Amazfit’s heart tracking is around as accurate as my Vivoactive 3 if not worse from the reviews I watched analyzing it, so that was also a no-go.
In short, the display is lovely, the built-in watch face in the photo fits my preferences perfectly so going to the Connect store for one was not necessary, and the heart rate tracking keeps up with my lifts. Instead of the watch thinking I haven’t hit my intensity minutes goals, it realises I do 200-300 per week with my training.
The negative reviews here are mostly strikes against the cost of this device for the tracking and accuracy of the metrics vs other cheaper Garmin devices. Remember here that you are paying premium for a nice-looking AMOLED display. If the display type doesn’t bother you much, then I would recommend waiting on the Vivoactive 5. If your main activity type is running, then a Forerunner is likely a better option. However, if you’re like myself and your main sport is powerlifting or another, and/or you want a beautiful, sharp display on your watch coupled with great battery life, then this is for you.
That’s the downside, the upside is the device itself, its superb. Does everything my Apple Watch does without the pretentiousness of it, and unlike apple, Garmin seem to know how to make batteries too!
Well recommended