Garmin 010-02173-11 Venu, GPS Smartwatch with Bright Touchscreen Display, Features Music, Body Energy Monitoring, Animated Workouts, Pulse Ox Sensor and More, Black

UPDATED REVIEW (after 1 month of use): I received the watch on 12/16/19. As of today, 2/5/20, I still love this watch. It's exactly what I was hoping for; no disappointment or regrets. Great Battery Life: --- Depending on how you use the watch, you can get a week's worth of use out of it before charging. --- I used to wear the watch every night to capture sleep data, but I have a pretty consistent pattern of sleep. So after a couple weeks, I actually started turning the watch off at night while I'm sleeping to conserve battery life. --- I only use the heart rate monitor right before, during, and right after workouts. Otherwise, I keep it off. --- If you play music straight from your watch, it drains the battery fairly quickly. As an example, during a 45 min run outside, I had GPS on, heart rate on, and I was playing music straight from the watch. Within that 45 min span, my battery dropped by 12%. If I just use GPS and heart rate, the battery might only drop by about 3% during that same 45 min span. So, if I run inside on a treadmill, I'll just play music from my phone via bluetooth. If I run outside, I'll leave my phone at home and will use the music I downloaded to the watch. --- You can decide which notifications you want to appear. I only turned on the notifications that I deem important (i.e. Text Messages, phone calls) and kept the rest turned off. I'm using this watch to track my fitness, not to keep updated about Facebook or anything of that nature. --- Keep in mind that everyone's experience will be different. I can regulary get 5 - 7 days of battery life, but someone else may only get 1 or 2 days. It's all about how you use the watch. Fitness Tracking/Virtual Coach/Garmin Dashboard: --- The Garmin Dashboard (app) is pretty sleek and it's easy to see your workout data and steps. --- I don't know any other Garmin users, but the Garmin Dashboard has a weekly step challenge that puts you in a group with other Garmin users based on your level of activity. I started at the 30k steps per week challenge group and am now in the 70k steps per week challenge group. It's nice having a little friendly competition with people I don't know. --- I just got started back into running again. I'm using the virtual coach to get myself ready for a 5k in March. Out of all the other virtual coaches I've tried to use, this has been the best experience. After I entered some personal data, I got to pick between 3 different coaches. Each coach had a bio and explained their approach to the training plan. The coach I selected has me running 3 days per week. Each workout is different. I've done Run/Walk, Speed Repeats, Hill Repeats, the Magic Mile, Drill Workouts, etc. After 7 weeks of a 13 week training plan, my average pace has dropped dramatically and I am on pace to reach my goal of running a 5k in 28 mins or less. It's been so easy to follow and instructions are provided for each type of workout (job aids and/or videos). --- I like that you can only start and stop your activity by pushing the buttons on the side of the watch even though it has a touchscreen. This just means that if I accidentally bump the watch face while running, it won't stop my run. A previous watch I owned from a different company would only allow you to start/stop activities from the watch face. It was a horrible experience. I'm glad Garmin did not adopt that approach. --- The GPS is accurate from what I've seen. --- I'm sure the step count isn't perfect, but it gives you a good idea of how active you were for the day. --- You can sync your activity with Strava and Nike Plus. After my run is over, as long as I'm near my phone, the activity will sync automatically. Notifications: --- The notifications appear immediately as expected and they are easy to dismiss or remove. --- If I have my bluetooth turned on, I can answer the phone from my watch. Music: --- I have an Amazon Music account, and Amazon syncs up with the Gamin Venue. Any song that I download to my playlist on Amazon will sync over to the watch. It's a seamless process. --- You cannot stream music from apps like Pandora. But, if you have mp3 files of your music, you can download those to your watch. I have an iTunes account. I pulled the mp3 files from some of the songs I purchased and downloaded them to my watch. Easy process. CONS: --- The one piece of negative feedback that I have is that you CANNOT manually pause your workout. There is an AutoPause feature, but it doesn't work that great. I would rather be able to pause on my own, but there's no option for it. The top right button on the watch starts and stops your activity. The bottom right button is your Lap button. I'm hoping Garmin does a firmware update in the future that enables manual pausing during activities. --- This used to be a con, but was fixed by Garmin in January 2020. There was an issue with the heart rate monitor. If you turned it off, it wouldn't actually go off. It kept running. Instead, you had to restart the watch every time you wanted to turn off the heart rate monitor. But, as mentioned before, Garmin fixed this in January 2020. I can now turn off the heart rate monitor without restarting the watch. I am glad I decided to purchase the Garmin Venue. It looks good on my wrist, it has solid performance, and it doesn't lag like other watches I've seen. I'm very happy with the purchase. _____________________________________________________________________________________ INITIAL REVIEW: There's a lot to like about the Garmin Venue. I received the watch on a Monday. It had roughly 65% battery on it out of the box. I didn't have to charge it until that Friday. And it still had 20% battery when I decided to charge it. I ran 2 days on the treadmill (40 mins on each run) using the run tracker. I used the HR monitor every night while sleeping and sporadically during the day. Yet, the battery didn't lose much power. The only thing I found that really drains the battery is playing music from the watch. I'm really loving the battery life! The Venue resembles a normal watch for the most part. This is something I was looking for in a smartwatch. I didn't want something "boxy". It's lightweight and looks normal on my wrist. It's not bulky, nor is it tiny. The tracking info seems to work as intended. I don't need it to be exact; it just needs to give me a rough idea of how I'm doing each day. Plus, it syncs easily with Strava and/or Nike Plus. Bluetooth is easy to connect. Notifications from my phone pop up immediately. I have no complaints at all about this smartwatch. If I remember, I'll stop back after a month or two of use to give an updated review.

I'll come right out the gate and say that if you are looking for an excellent fitness tracker and will motivate you to actually exercise this is the ticket. I've owned products from Fitbit and an Apple Watch, but the Venu has by far been my favorite. Apple Watch certainly had the best smart features, but to be honest after having the thing for 3 years I didn't bother with like 95% of them. Only think I care about is notifications, and the Garmin does just fine with that. What I really cared about was the fitness tracking, and Garmin is on a whole different level. Sure Fitbit is probably more "consumer" friendly and Apple allows for everything to be in one ecosystem, but if you are more into seeing metric like sweat loss, bar charts that can track your heart rate for the entire exercise, and GPS built right into the watch you have to go with the Garmin. The ability to have workouts built in outside of just stuff like walking, running, biking, the basics really, is top notch. Will I ever use ones like the paddle boarding and the cross country skiing? Probably not, but it's there for people who will. The app is also really great, and motivating. Both my parents also use Garmin products, so it's really fun to compete with them on who can be the best. Being able to connect with social media and compete with all my friends is also really fun as well. The app is, for the most part, well laid out. Might take some time to find were some stuff is, but the internet is your best friend and Garmin's website has lots of info on it to answer your questions. Another plus is the battery life. My Fitbit products were decent with maybe 2-4 days depending on what I did. Apple Watch was terrible, usually a day at most and towards the end of its life I sometimes had to charge it twice in a day. The Venu? Well when Garmin says 5-7 days they mean it. That's dependent out course. Workouts that use GPS take more power, and using the built in music paying doubles that. Still I'd say I use it at an average level, and before the first charge I got 5 days, and probably could've got 6. That 's impressive on a device that has an AMOLED screen, and a very good one at that. Cons? Well the 3rd party watch face support is pretty abysmal. Most of them require a 3rd party payment outside of the app, which is a no-no in my book. I found that most of the free ones I downloaded, which nice, drained the battery a lot faster and some of them actually messed the with raise to wake feature. I'd recommend just making one using your own photos or use the stock ones from Garmin. The app store is also a completely separate app, also a bummer, and quite frankly I don't see myself ever adding any apps outside of Spotify anyway. I hope maybe Garmin eventually just adds into into the primary ConnectApp. Really, though, I think there are very few negatives about the device, actually most are just Garmin's software. The device itself is very good, worth the money, and I would recommend to anyone who wants a good competitive product to what Apple and Fitbit offer that wants superior fitness tracking abilities.

Garmin is definitely the brand to buy. I have had it for four years now, the battery went from lasting 5-7 days to 3-4 days now, several years later. I've never had a issue with it and it still works great. If you're considering this one, get it!

I researched a lot of fitness watches before I made a final decision. I knew I wanted a Garmin. They just had all the features and quality that I wanted. I am a runner. I run about 35-40 miles/per week. I wanted something that could accurately track my miles, calories burned, heart rate etc. I also wanted something that could track more than just running. There are so many Garmin models to choose from. I didn't want to spend a ton of money, but I didn't want to buy their cheapest model either. I was looking through the Garmin models, on Amazon, and the Venu popped up, on sale. It was a great price! It had everything I wanted. It has a color touch screen, all the features I needed and a lot of others that made it attractive, like smart watch features. It had taken a little while to learn how to use all the features. Its a great fitness watch! The watch looks stylish. The band that came with it is very comfortable and very soft. I enjoy being able to add different faces to the watch. You can download the different faces from Garmin's app. You have to pay for a majority of the faces, but there are some good ones that are free. The Venu tracks everything and it does it relatively accurately. I compared the distance of my runs with my Samsung note 10. The Venu mapped the precise route I run and the Note 10, I have no clue what it was tracking. There is almost a 2.5 mile difference between the two. I trust my Venu more. The only thing I am semi-dissapointed with is that the Venu doesn't detect when you are running. You have to enable the run feature and stop it when you are done. This can be problematic if you forget to start it, which I have. I didnt really care about the fact that it had smart watch features. I didn't think I needed to be able to see text messages, emails, or phone calls when they come in. I was wrong. It saves me from having to pull my phone out. I run with my Note 10 so I can listen to music and have a phone, in case of an emergency. I love being able to look at my watch and see who is calling when I run. It saves me from missing important phone calls. The Garmin app is great! It collects a lot of data that you can use to compare workouts, steps, heartbeat, water intake, sleep tracking etc. I like the challenges that are available. Joining a challenge pushes you to do more so that you can hopefully finish in the top 10. I highly recommend this watch! It looks great and has great features.

Upfront I've used Garmin GPS products but I've never used a smart watch from them until the Venu. It's a great tool and looks clean and sharp. It's comfortable, though I would recommend getting a couple different straps for different occasions. 3rd party options from Hemsut for example are very nice. The interface is straightforward and only leaves a little to be desired in that certain swipes can take a little bit of a learning period to know exactly how to touch the screen for best responsiveness. I found myself accidentally choosing the wrong options for the watch face layouts a couple times before I got used to the sensitivity. That's my problem though, probably. It has all the sensors you'd want for every day activities and some advanced functions too. Blood oxygen sensor is NICE. So is GPS for tracking rides, runs, etc. The software for the phone and PC are simple to use but powerful. About the battery life! GPS and oxygen sensors use a lot of battery. That's fine for when you're doing an activity or long distance work out, but when you have GPS active all the time for say, the sunrise/sunset info on the watch face, it eats it all day long. Same goes for the oxygen sensor. If you have these two things set to read you all day periodically, it'll reduce your battery life from 5-7 days to 2-3. One more thing, I love the ecosystem for Garmin so far. There are so many different watch faces to download, play with, customize. You can make your own. Different apps to download. You can control your music from it. So many cool things to do, I haven't even gotten to use all of them extensively yet. This is a keeper.

Still using this watch 3 1/2 years later. Holds a charge for almost a week (depends on how often you have it in a workout mode). My wristband just recently broke on it and I bought replacement stretchy ones. I will never go back to an Apple Watch

Its so BEAUTIFUL! I purchased the creme and rose gold watch and it's so pretty. My wrist are petite and this watch has adjustments even for my wrists. Often times I had to make an opening to fit my wrist. This is my very first smart watch but I am well pleased. Thanks to this watch I was immediately made aware of my elevated heart rate even when at rest as well as my irregular sleep patterns. Being in the medical field I did a manual check of my heart rate to ensure accuracy and sure enough it matched the reading of the watch. I was able to begin to make adjustments and changes and plan to schedule a medical appt if it doesn't improve. I also like the notice that comes up to let you know that you need to move or stretch. So I move and stretch way more than before. I was surprised at my sleep patterns but I found a huge difference when I turned off the television. I had more deep sleep than not. I like listening to rain sounds when sleeping but while it made me sleepy I wasn't truly sleeping well. It was also easy to set up with Garmin Connect. Its an app you must download on your phone to activate the watch. It was so easy. No fees or gimmicks. Once connected it picks up emails, phone calls, text messages and whatever else you set it up for. There are short tutorials for each feature to help you get familiar. I tried to add a bank card to it but my institution doesn't support this feature. Not surprised as my bank is SUPER tight on security of cards/account. The battery life is AMAZING. I do not have to charge this watch often. One full charge lasts about 5 days or more. There are so many features on this watch still to be discovered and I like you are not pressured to use it all. You can customize for you. The watch face I chose is the one with the black background and the gold sparkles that actively falls down the face of the watch by movement or when you turn your wrist to look at it. I LOVE LOVE LOVE this watch! Totally worth the price. Update: August 5th 20202-one other thing....this watch has a feature where if you cannot find your phone it sends an alert to the cell and your phone vibrates/rings and activates the lights on your phone so you can find it. I often leave my phone in different parts of the house and the search ensues...lol. This feature is a PLUS! YAAAAY!

Originally, I gave this one star because it stopped working 3 months after I got it. However, they replaced it for free with incredibly fast return shipping, and I can confidently say that bad unit was a fluke...it has now worked perfectly for a year despite being submerged in water, exposed to chemicals, and at one point getting ground against concrete after I took a spill off of an e-bike at about 15 miles an hour. It does a great job of tracking health metrics and has a robust set of features and apps...it's slightly less fully featured than an iWatch or Galaxy watch, but in a good way. Rather than feeling limited, it feels focused and spartan, delivering what you need from an extension of your smartphone without ever feeling gimmicky or excessive. If I had one complaint, it would be that battery life is just shy of long enough to only charge it once a week. I get about 5 days out of it, but the caveat to that is that it charges quickly enough that I can basically charge it while showering and getting dressed in the morning, and it's good to go for 5 days by the time I'm done. Also, I believe the new version has just slightly longer enough battery life to totally cancel this out, so just get that one if it would be a dealbreaker for you.