Garmin 010-02427-00 Venu Sq, GPS Smartwatch with Bright Touchscreen Display, Up to 6 Days of Battery Life, Slate Aluminum Bezel with Shadow Gray Case and Slate Silicone Band

First off, I'm a personal trainer and triathlete, and I've been a Garmin fan for years - their devices last a long time, and are the best at fitness tracking. Have been using a 920XT for maybe 10 years(?) now and it's still working great. What I loved about it most was the triathlon mode, and loved least was the Dick Tracy watch size of the thing. I was hesistant to switch to wrist-based HRM at first, but I think the tech on these has improved dramatically, as shown by my new Garmin Venu. Here are my pro's & con's: Pro's: - Lightweight, extremely comfortable, no metal in the buckle (I'm allergic to nickel, used in most watch buckles) - Beautiful screen, easy to navigate and set up (like my 920XT was) - Battery life is as promised. I'm getting about 7 or 8 days before needing to recharge. - Accurate HR, sleep, and run tracking - again, a Garmin strength - The lavendar is an absolutely gorgeous color - Accompanying phone app is Garmin's standard app, with lots of good information and easy to build workouts (but I'd recommend doing this on the web app instead.) - Garmin syncs to Final Surge, the online training log app I use - Has all the exercise modalities I use, and lots more: swimming outdoors, swimming in pool, biking indoors, bike outside, run indoors, run track, run outside/road, yoga, strength training, hiking. - Allows me to see phone notifications (that I want to see, can shut off those I don't) and quickly dismiss incoming calls (like those annoying daily car warranty robocalls) Cons: - When running outdoors and doing intervals, it doesn't "beep" very loudly at all - it's mostly a vibration. Wish this were louder, as my 920XT was. - Step tracking isn't very accurate - but I have yet to find ANY device that does this well. It's all based on arm movements. I did 15 steps today before getting out of bed! But seriously, don't let this discourage you...it's as good a step tracker as anything else out there. - The strength training mode is a little wonky - haven't figured out how it supposedly counts reps. But I just tend to ignore that anyway, as my strength training for myself and my clients is very movement-oriented, not just stationary lifts. - This model doesn't download music (there's a more expensive version if you want that). But personally this was irrelevant to me as I play my music through a bluetooth speaker when I'm inside, and I don't listen to music at all when I'm training outside. - The price is a little high as this category of devices goes, but way cheaper than an Apple watch and without all the excess fluff those have. But much, much better than a $35-$45 cheap fitness watch. You get what you pay for. Overall I highly recommend this watch for any fitness enthusiast.

I like Garmin watches because I am more concerned with tracking exercise and health than I am smart watch functions. This is my 3rd Garmin, and the best so far. My previous watches had an LCD screen with backlight. This is OLED, which is much better. The negative is unlike my Vivoactive 3, the screen is not on all the time. But when I set the screen timeout to “long”, it is not too bad. Comes on with a wrist gesture pretty reliably (or a double tap.) As for text messages, I can actually read the entire message, not just the first sentence as with the Vivoactive. You can pick from a list of canned short replies, but I usually just go to my phone to respond. Notifies me of my sports teams via the CBS app on my phone. Battery is pretty decent. For normal use it will probably average five days for me, much better than the Vivoactive. I just could not stomach getting a Samsung watch and being lucky to go a full day of use. I’m a 24/7 watch wearer (I love the sleep tracking.) If I use the GPS, the battery will drain roughly 10% for a 35 minute walk or run. If you turn on the pulseOX overnight, it will drain about 25% of the battery overnight. No reason to keep pulseox turned on, so I recommend trying it every now and then to track your sleep. Good news is I don’t have sleep apnea. When I charged from about 25%, it took a little over an hour to get to 100%. GPS takes a second to come on, so I recommend having your finger on the start button as soon as it locks in. Seems to work like my other Garmin watches. Heart rate monitor is a little more reliable than the Vivoactive, but any wrist based monitor is not going to be incredibly reliable. I like the Garmin app, which is free to use. I can go back years and check past days, for instance when I rode the Seattle to Portland bike ride four years ago. Biggest negative for me is the notification vibration is barely there, even at the "high" setting. Maybe they can update the software.

Since I got into fitness, I was a Fitbit user. Unfortunately, I was allergic to my Fitbit tracker that I absolutely loved and wanted to try a different brand that offered something similar for me. There were many things that I liked about the Venu Sq, but there some key factors that I didn't. Pros: I liked the light-weight feel of it along with the color I got. The band and watch itself never felt sweaty, even after really intense workouts. I work at a summer camp in the summer where I was in the pool, outside in 90+ degree weather, and truly sweating up a storm. I never broke out from the watch, it never stopped working after I got it wet from the pool or rain, and was very reliable. It always stayed connected to my bluetooth. I never really had trouble pairing it or keeping it paired. Likewise, it connected to my phone's apps like Spotify and messages and worked brilliantly. The 6 days of battery life rang true. I really liked that it updated me when I had 20% and 10% left. This gave me a nice reminder to charge it! The GPS for running was really accurate! Cons: The biggest con for me is that it stopped working after a year. I did honestly really like it, but all of a sudden it stopped holding a charge, it wouldn't find my phone, and wasn't syncing. Like most watches, it syncs to your phone, the clock on your phone, and all the messages. I no longer had the correct time and I could not receive messages. I would fully charge it only to have it die the next day within a few hours. While in any workout mode, I was not able to see the time. Oftentimes, I would push my workouts up against a tight deadline and I had to pull out my phone to check what time it was to ensure I wasn't late. I had the automatic walk/activity setting on which would automatically start that activity if my watch sensed I was performing that activity (which I really liked), but then I could no longer see the time on my watch which was a big issue. As I said before, I was a Fitbit user. In my opinion, navigating the watch and the app was a bit confusing. After a year, I still wasn't using my watch to the best of its abilities because I didn't know where everything was located, how to get back to the main screen, or where everything was. Likewise, the app was not as streamlined as I would have liked it to be and not as easy to find items and check stats. I oftentimes used my timer/stopwatch feature when I had my Fitbit but I could not easily access this feature with this watch. Overall, I think this is a good watch. I feel like if I started with the Garmin brand, I would have really enjoyed using this watch a lot more. The biggest flaw for me was the fact that it stopped working after a year. When it was working, I did enjoy using it.

This watch is several years old, it is very durable and accurate. It alsobremains charged for approximately 2 weeks.

Had this thing for 5+ years one of the best investments made. Very simple and officiant for health and fitness tracking. Very durable and battery has not decreased in wear. Bought the Instinct 3 and I like this better returned that and kept this. Very low maintenance watch. I prefer it over apple watch (which I also have) due to how care free I can wear it and how it has less notifications. Default watch faces are junk, download one you like from the Garmin app store thing.

I really love this watch. I've previously had several Fitbits and a cheaper brand and this is definitely far superior. It took a little while to get used to, but once I figured out how to download new watch faces and customize them, and setup the watch to fit my personal activities, I really started to love it. I sadly lost my original watch but decided to buy it again because I liked it so much. The watch app gives so much useful information: sleep tracking, walking speed, body battery (energy gained and used), respiration, pulse ox, heart rate and more, and they're all far more accurate than previous watches I've used. The tracking also works well with other third party apps and I never have difficulty syncing it. It's also extremely durable, after a couple of years it still looked brand new. It can take some time to get used to. I'm tech savvy but still struggled with understanding it right away. Once I read the instructions and tried things out it eventually became second nature. It has tons of apps but some are easier to use than others. My only real criticisms is that the watch face is small and can be hard to see unless you pick a watch face or customize the text to be larger, but luckily this can be fixed. The band that comes with it also rubbed my skin in a weird way, but I found a great replacement for cheap.

I have literally one complaint about this product and that was fixed by adding an app to it. But first,the good. this is really a great fitness tracker. I had been a Fitbit user for several years and was always disappointed for one or many reasons. I had multiple versas that were replaced because they would simply stop working after a period of time and I don't know why it took me so long to just try a different brand. well here I am to say I'm thoroughly satisfied. the connectivity is great I have never had a problem with it connecting to my phone and it always quickly updates my activities to the app. An issue I consistently had with the versa. After a month or so they would just stop connecting to my phone and I would have to go through this whole process of turning on and off Bluetooth and restarting and sometimes it wouldn't connect for days. The venu provides a huge amount of information. I find the heart rate tracker to be super accurate. I don't know about the sleep because I'm not awake when I'm asleep to know exactly how well it tracks! Honestly I'm not 100% certain about the step tracker either during every day activities. My fitbits always told me I had A LOT of steps at the end of the day and this one definitely has less. Quite honestly I'm more apt to believe this one is the more accurate since it doesn't count me styling my hair or doing dishes as steps. GPS connects really quickly when I use it for walks or hiking and stays connected. My only gripe is that this didn't have a hiking option which seemed like it would be a no-brainer. I have just used the walking feature when on hikes and when you are climbing Hills it a lot of times thinks you are stopped because you're not moving forward if the hill is too steep. The walking feature also doesn't track elevation. However, I downloaded a hiking app (hike 2+) and although it is definitely no frills as far as the way it looks it has so much information and a ton of metrics. It even tells you what time the sun sets which to be honest is a great feature especially in the winter months when you need to know how much more daylight you have so you can get out of the woods. Overall I'm very pleased with the venu and the price point is on par with that! Definitely recommend!

Updated February 2022 - 3 stars: I purchased this watch in January 2021. As you can see from my original review, I only had good things to share. In fact, I gave it 5 stars. However, a year later I'm having several issues...the time randomly changes, it loses connection with the Garmin Connect app, my history of activities deletes unexpectedly, it takes an unusually long time to pickup the GPS signal, and my step count resets during the day (possibly because the time and day change randomly). I've tried to reset to the default settings but this hasn't helped. I stand by my original review--all those comments are true--BUT I am disappointed that the watch no longer functions properly after one year of use. Aaarrrgggh...I was not expecting these problems after one year of use. I was even planning to purchase a second watch, the Garmin Lily, to wear during the work day for a more professional look and then continue to use this watch for the availability of other functions during my workouts. Instead, I'm now faced with purchasing another watch for my workouts. This is the reason I changed my 5-star review to a 3-star review. Orginal Review - 5 stars: It was easy to setup and sync with my Android phone and healthcare platform. The face is large and easy to read. I use it primarily to track my steps and treadmill workouts. There is an option at the end of each workout to calibrate the distance on the treadmill and the watch. When the weather improves I plan to use the outdoor running features. These include monitoring your pace and lap times as well as a run/walk alert for interval training. The mobile app is great and helps to track my activity over time and other measures like my weight and menstrual cycles. I don't wear my watch at night, but there is an option for sleep activity. I charge my watch once a week and it is typically around 40-50% battery life so it could likely last almost another week without charging. There are alerts throughout the day to remind me to move. There are MANY, MANY options available that I haven't explored yet like an emergency alert through the mobile app, receiving text messages, and playing music from my phone. This watch offers A LOT and I have no regrets with my purchase.

Grande orologio. Mia moglie lo sta ancora usando e, normalmente rompe tutto in poco tempo.

Me gusta el GPS. Garmin es conocido por sus GPS y es lo que hace que este reloj sea muy preciso. Hace muy buen trabajo contando los pasos, muy acertado. No te da pasos tan fácilmente como otras marcas que cualquier movimiento lo detecta. Me gusta mucho. Lo tengo conectado con un sensor de velocidad y distancia, también de Garmin, a mi bicicleta. Muy contento con sus productos.

I had a generic smart watch and upgraded to this, mainly as it had an integrated GPS, and a far better app (that also syncs with an online account). It works really well; the sleep tracking, GPS, stress, body battery and of course the notifications on your wrist all work well. Battery life is fine - about 2 weeks ish until I need to recharge.

The fitness tracker that I was looking for. I don't need all the bells and whistles of an expensive tracker. This watch fits my needs perfectly. Consistently getting 7-8 days of battery life on a single charge and using it as a Smart watch. Battery life depletes quickly when I used the watch GPS function to track a run or walk.

Aside from the amazing service from Amazon once again. Due date was 20 Feb, it arrived 10 Feb. Thanks guys! :-) After doing much research for my first ever (Smart) Watch, I finally settled on this one thanks to some of the reviews here. As you can see from pic, I have extremely Thin wrists which is why I have put off buying one for so long. When I first opened it, I was concerned it was not going to be suitable, but have been very pleasantly surprised. Whilst it is quite obviously large on my skinny wrist, it is also so light I got use to it almost immediately. The ultimate test for me was wearing it at night as I am very keen to monitor my sleep patterns. No problems there. Yay! :-) It was also super easy to set up with the Gamin Connect App. As for the true accuracy of readings, I don't have other gismos to compare it with, but the Step Counter is pretty much spot on (when I actually counted out my steps). It had 63% battery life when I first switched it on 1 day ago and is now on 35% after much playing and experimenting with it. Clearly it's early days, but at this point in time, I am a happy camper! :-)