GARMIN VENU 2 & 2S Full Review | Garmin watch bands

GARMIN VENU 2 & 2S Full Review | Garmin watch bands. Venu is a GPS Smartwatch built for the active lifestyle with features that include an AMOLED display, Pulse Ox, Body Battery energy monitoring, and easy music to listen.

GARMIN VENU 2 & 2S Full Review

So what we have right here are the brand
new Garmin venue 2
and 2s and just to make things clear right upfront
after testing this watch for a couple
weeks this definitely could be my
new everyday watch

Garmin watch bands

I really like the Garmin venue 2
and in this article, we have a lot to talk
about from accuracy testing to an
interface tour
and of course, talking about the
internals and the physical design
of this device but before I get into why I really like it

I want to start off as I said with
some of the basics let’s take a look at
the physical design of the Garmin venue
2s so the 2 and the 2s
the first confusion point right there
the 2 is just
the regular larger version the 45
millimeter and then the 2s

I assume s stands for small because it’s
just slightly smaller
there are really no differences in
features or really anything about it
other than a subtle difference in the
aesthetic of it and of course
the difference in size now the different size

means you have a slightly smaller screen
a slightly lighter device
and a slightly smaller battery but
really that’s the extent of that
so right here we have the Garmin venue 2s and

watch bands for Garmin

we’re just going to look at this one for
now and for the most part assume that
the venue 2 is essentially an identical device
looking at the front you’ll see that we
have kind of a gold color stainless
steel bezel around the display
the display is 1.1 inches and it is a

really nice bright AMOLED display
as far as the screen to body ratio goes
i think Garmin did a really nice job of
of making this look as aesthetically
pleasing as possible from the chamfered
bezel and the stainless steel
to the little hour markings on the black
bezel there

I think they did a good job and I know
at this point, it’s 2021
people might be wondering why we can’t
close that gap I believe
the main reason that we’re having that
black bezel around the screen
is for contactless NFC payments which
obviously, this device does have
more on that later in the article but
The display overall is really bright very vibrant

Garmin watch band

very responsive and of course, it is a
touch screen as well
so I really like the display I’ve had no
problem seeing this in the brightest daylight
or in the dimmest situations looking
On the right side, you’ll see that we have
two buttons they don’t rotate they don’t
do anything crazy, not an EKG just

just two buttons we don’t have
a microphone on here we don’t have a
speaker on here
but overall a really nice simple
lightweight design
on the back, you can see that the
silicone straps are really easy to take
off and it’s a really nice soft touch
the rubber on the inside

but more of a hard textured rubber on
the outside so nice aesthetic on the outside
nice comfort on the inside I really like
how these straps are designed
of course on the back, you can see we
have our charging nodes right there so
the wire just kind of snaps into place
and you can hang this from the wire it’s a nice powerful clip

Garmin venu review

not too strong easy to pull off of
course but if you have an outlet that’s
higher up you could just hang this there
and you don’t have to worry about
setting your watch or balancing it on
anything in the middle you can see our
an array of heart rate sensors and all
kinds of different stuff

we’ll talk about the sensors in a second
but you can see a big cluster of a lot
of very impressive sensors there
otherwise, this is five atmospheres of water
resistant which means you can go
swimming with this maybe a little bit of snorkeling

I wouldn’t go diving with it of course
but water resistance I’ve had
no problem with this from my testing so
far now as far as colors go
you got some options you have four
options for the venue 2s and only two
options for the venue too
the venue 2 options both look really
similar the 2s

Garmin venu vs vivo active 4

has some really nice looking options
a little bit more on the feminine side
probably
but still really really nice looking
devices and of course, I’ll leave a link
At the top of the description if you guys want to go
and see what’s actually in stock
the reason that we have this one right here
the venue 2s

is because it’s so hard right now to
actually, get the venue 2. these are just
flying off the shelves
and they’re out of stock in pretty much
every store I’ve checked
so that’s pretty much it for
the physical design of this device overall
very very comfortable watch
and aesthetically I think they did a
fantastic job here but let’s talk
a little bit more about what’s under the hood

the internals of this watch are
obviously very important and the first
the thing you want to know about
is the battery life now they claimed
you’re going to get 10 days of battery
life in smartwatch mode
which is basically what you’re going to
be doing with this and if you have the
venue 2 you get an extra day so 11 days
because again it has a larger battery

Garmin venu watch

but that wasn’t quite what I was getting
now of course that’s the claim if you’re
just doing smartwatch mode
I was running this pretty heavy I was
really putting a lot of demand on this
using it for at least 30 minutes a day
for GPS on exercises

I also had 24-hour pulse ox monitoring
on sleep monitoring heart rate
monitoring
like I had everything pretty much maxed
out including the brightness as well
they’re now still very comfortably
getting five to six days of battery life

so as far as battery life goes I know it
didn’t quite meet the full 10 days with my
strenuous use on here but still I was
really impressed with that
and it’s already more than triple the
best apple watch you can buy
and honestly, if you still struggle with
battery life this watch has quick
charging which is something I wish more

Garmin venu sq

watches would adopt and in just 10 minutes you can get
an entire day of battery
with this device so that means if you
just hop in the shower in the morning get out
dry off and then unplug your watch
you’re ready to go
for at least an entire day as i
mentioned before this also has
contactless payment so NFC on here is really nice to have

Garmin pay doesn’t really integrate with
every card out there I found is a little
bit more limited
but all things considered, once you find
a card that works with it it is very easy to use
we also have Bluetooth on here of course
to connect to your phone and we have
wi-fi as well

but Bluetooth also connects to different
earbuds so if you want to go for a run
without your phone which is what i
really like to do you can have offline
music on here go for a run have earbuds
connected to your watch
and listen to Spotify offline as long as
you have premium
and it’s a feature that a lot of watches
don’t have it’s really a great feature

Garmin vivo active 3 band

I love to see it on Garmin watches and
speaking of running when it comes to
tracking with this watch we have
a plethora of sensors onboard
including GPS GLONASS and galileo so
those are the three
kind of positioning systems you’re going
to be using there we also have the
Garmin elevate wrist heart rate monitor on the back

definitely more advanced than most other
on the market of course I’ll get into a
full test in a second
we have a barometric altimeter a compass
a gyroscope accelerometer
thermometer ambient light sensor and of
course the pulse ox sensor
for blood oxygen saturation so a lot of
sensors on this watch

definitely geared more towards the
athlete anybody looking to be
more involved in their fitness or just
getting healthier in general
and when we get into the actual testing
as you guys can see right here
we’ll start off with the GPS honestly
this is the easiest one
I’ve probably ever done it’s just it’s
really accurate
every run I’ve done with this is like
right on the money getting exactly the
right distance

Garmin vivo active 3 bands

I will say that when you’re running the
instantaneous speed
is usually complete garbage I would not rely on that
but in the end, looking at the final
the length you went the average pace for each
for each mile it’s just a great it
really does a great job we have almost
no drunk wandering on this map and i was
impressed with that now when it comes to
heart rate monitoring
this is probably as good as you’re going
to get right now with a wrist
optical heart rate sensor obviously if

you want the most accurate you’re going
to get like a heart rate band like the
polar h10 for example
and when I compared them side to side
you’ll see that for the most part the
Garmin did a pretty good job it was
definitely really close but
keep in mind if you have there’s a lot
of variables that could mess up an
optical heart rate sensor

if you have too much hair on your wrist
if you’re wearing it a little
a bit too close to your wrist joint
if you’re wearing long sleeves there’s
a couple of things that could mess that up
but all things considered
when you have this fitting correctly and
you go for a run or any workout
it tracks really really accurately so as
far as sensors go

Best online Garmin watch band

I was more than impressed with the
accuracy of the Garmin venue 2s
and it kind of sets it apart from a lot
of other fitness-based
smartwatches now as far as software
goes there’s a ton of features on here
I’m going to get into it in a second
but it syncs up really well with the
Garmin Connect app on your phone
with a ton of in-depth analytics on all
of your different workouts and just your

health in general and that syncs up really well with
online you can go to Garmin connect on
your browser on your desktop or your laptop
and again there you can see really
really nice in-depth analytics of all of
your different workouts
to export that or do whatever you really

want all right now taking a look at the
interface the button on the top will
bring you into a workout
if you tap on the four squares you can
choose between a ton of different workouts
as you can see a very smooth seamless
the screen here and if we go into
say like yoga for example you can
actually swipe up and see a lot of
different workouts

Smartwatch review

so if we choose like yoga for runners
it’ll give us an entire yoga workout and
when we start that
we’ll press on the top right button and
it does have that haptic motor on there
no speaker but it does vibrate
and as if we swipe up from the top from
the bottom you can go down and see
a whole bunch of things including what
the position is actually supposed to

look like and as you can see here it gives you
nice little animations throughout the
entire workout
if we press the bottom right button that
is our home button and our back button
and from the home screen if we swipe
from the right, you’ll see that we
actually have nothing there
not a great use of that but if we swipe
from the left, you’ll get a shortcut i
didn’t set this up yet because I wanted
to show you guys
that’s where that would be and if

we swipe up or down it goes through a
loop of all your little widgets you can set these in
the app on your phone but I really like
how these are more compact a little bit smaller
and you can go into any one of these or
see multiple at the same time so it shows you
like the music you’re playing how many
notifications you have all kinds of
things and if I want to go and check out like
for example my body battery or my heart
rate I could tap on that

Garmin instinct review

it shows me a graph of my heart rate i
could swipe up and see the average heart rate by
day and there’s just a lot of analytics
for each individual widget
pressing the bottom button brings you
back and you can again dig into any one of these
your sleep for example it’ll show you
the sleep from last night gives you a
sleep score
and it gives you some reasoning as to

why your sleep might not be good so this
was good sleep right here but if it
wasn’t it would give me a little notification
and tell me that maybe I rolled around
too much and so that’s pretty much it
for the interface, it’s really really simple

if we press and hold the bottom button
we can go into some settings here so we
can change the watch face
we can set like an alarm or a stopwatch or a timer
or we can go into our history that’s the
settings right there

Garmin pay Spotify

if we tap and hold the top button it’s
actually going to bring us into this little cool
shortcut interface where we can go to
Garmin pay Spotify
the location we can go and just set a timer
and you can preset whatever you want on the outside
and of course, these are all going to be

the quick settings you also get
notifications on this watch and if you
have an android you actually have quick
replies as well
and of course, you can answer or reject
phone calls but without a speaker or a
microphone
it’s not going to be actually answering
it on your watch now with that being said guys

the watch’s overall pros and cons the pros
obviously the accuracy the comfort and
the aesthetics are the big three
of why you would want this watch you’re
getting a great battery life as well
and I found that a lot of things work
well like lift to wake works really well
I found that the touchscreen is
definitely responsive it’s very bright

AMOLED

it’s not the best out there but it’s
definitely a major step up from
something like the Garmin
venue sq from last year with the LCD display
the AMOLED really does a great job but
of course not everything
is good about this there were some
drawbacks I found some of them included
the GPS definitely takes a beat until
you’re able to start running it’ll say
wait for GPS

sometimes for 30 seconds to a minute
depending on where you are
but that’s kind of the cost of accuracy
other devices that just say start running
won’t be as accurate so I don’t really
mind that but I found that the
instantaneous speed
is kind of trash it really doesn’t do a
great job and so

I would pretty much just disregard the price
is a huge huge drawback this is costing about (?)
there might be sales it’s very likely
there will be sales but at that price
you’re talking about

Mid-Range Watch

I mean a mid-range phone an apple watch
like a lot of other devices can be bought
for (?) bucks this of course is arguing
that it is different because it’s so
much more accurate
much more fitness-oriented it gives you better analytics

but all things considered (?) bucks
is (?) bucks that’s a drawback for this device
we also have limited third-party apps we
don’t have any kind of type of
rotating bezel rotating crown I really
wish we had that
and of course, we don’t have a microphone or speaker so

it’s not going to compete head-to-head
with the galaxy watch or the apple watch
but of course, it kind of has a different
approach and that brings me to the
conclusion on this one
smartwatches in general are still kind
of trying to find their place in
the world they’re trying to find their purpose

sports watches

but one purpose that is definitely a
real one is
for fitness, there’s an entire category
of sports watches
but a lot of people don’t necessarily
want big clunky sports to watch with
a weird interface a lot of people want a
good smartwatch
that is also a master of sports watch so
when you find that hybrid right in the middle

you end up with things like the Fitbit
sense the Fitbit
versa 2 versus a 3 and of course the
Garmin venue and in the entire realm.
I think it’s very easy to say that this
one is hands down my favorite
it is the most accurate the easiest to use and
overall just definitely my favorite
device that kind of mashes up
the best of the smartwatch world the

fundamentals that I need
and the best of the fitness tracking so
whether that’s offline Spotify connected
to your earbuds
or contactless payment to buy a
Gatorade after a run
this device honestly might be my daily
watch what I’m wearing every single day
just because I really like tracking my
health and tracking it very accurately

Garmin venu review

so it is gonna be my main watch for
the entire year I’m not sure but I can say
that for now
I’m gonna be wearing this watch every
the day you guys can leave a comment below
and let me know what you think of the
Garmin venue 2 and venue 2s
obviously a really really high price but
do the features on here justify that price point
and is this something you’d be

considering buying guys I want to hear
from you, in the comments below if you
enjoyed this article consider
liking and share.

GARMIN WATCH ADDITIONAL REVIEW NOTES:

PHYSICAL:

2 vs 2S = 45mm vs 40mm
Six different colors
Super bright AMOLED display
1.1” display on the smaller watch (thin bezel!)
Stainless steel bezel
5ATM water resistance
Easily swap out bands
No mic or speaker, but it does have a haptic motor

INTERNALS:

Claimed 10-day battery (11 for Venu 2)
I am getting 5 days of battery with about 30 min of GPS use per day
Rapid recharge = 1 day of battery from 10 minutes of charging
Bluetooth for earbuds
Contactless payment

SENSORS:

GPS
GLONASS
GALILEO
GARMIN ELEVATE™ WRIST HEART RATE MONITOR
BAROMETRIC ALTIMETER
COMPASS
GYROSCOPE
ACCELEROMETER
THERMOMETER
AMBIENT LIGHT SENSOR
PULSE OX BLOOD OXYGEN SATURATION MONITOR

ACCURACY TESTING

SOFTWARE
Coaching
25 workouts (some with built-in training coaches/workouts & animated exercises)
Onboard music storage from local files, Deezer, Spotify
Health snapshot
Fitness age
Body battery (more advanced now)
Pulse OX and Pulse Ox sleep tracking
Advanced sleep tracking
Respiration tracking
HR tracking
Stress, female cycle, intensity minutes, breathing exercises, etc.
Quick replies for Android, only notifications for Apple
SOS
ConnectIQ apps

INTERFACE TOUR:

PROS:
Lift to wake works exceptionally well
The touch screen is responsive but not the best out there
The cable supports fast charging as well as data transfer. Very easy to add music, podcasts, or audiobooks! – Even on a Mac (with Android File Transfer)
Offline Spotify!! – easy to use and a rare find in smartwatches!
Super accurate
Super in-depth analytics

CONS:
GPS takes a beat to start when you want to work out
Instantaneous speed is trash
Price
Limited third-party apps
No rotating bezel or crown
Garmin Pay does not work that that many cards

CONCLUSION:

Smartwatches are still finding their purpose in the world, but one definite purpose is for fitness. Counting steps, tracking heart rate, GPS, music for runs without a phone, and contactless payment for that Gatorade at the end of your run. And for many people, this is the most important purpose for a smartwatch. When it comes to fitness-oriented smartwatches, this should attract the same crowd as the Fitbit Sense and Versa, but the Garmin Venu 2 and 2S are far more accurate, more in-depth, and more serious when it comes to fitness tracking.

This is not a smartphone replacement like the Apple and Galaxy watches try to be. This cannot field phone calls and has no voice assistant, but if what you want is an everyday smartwatch that absolutely crushes it in the realm of fitness, this is it. Much more user-friendly and practical than the pro athlete Fenix watches, and much more accurate than just about any other smartwatch. This is the perfect hybrid between a smartwatch and a sports watch.