Garmin Venu 3 & 3S: Specs
Worth: $449
Measurement: 45mm, 41mm
Show: Touchscreen AMOLED
Battery life: 15 days (26 hours GPS)
Sturdiness: 5 ATM
GPS: Sure
NFC: Sure
Compatibility: iOS, Android
There are glorious smartwatches and glorious health trackers, however there are only a few units which can be equally glorious as each. When it comes to fitness-tracking smartwatches, the $449 Garmin Venu 3 strikes a stable steadiness of comfort, instinct and accuracy.
Constructing on the Garmin Venu 2 Plus, Garmin’s newest way of life flagship introduces fairly quite a few upgrades throughout all areas of wellness. Nap-tracking and a brand new sleep coach work on monitoring your relaxation whereas every day summaries provide behavioral insights. An abundance of sport profiles, added Restoration Time options, and on-watch interval creation preserve you tuned into your exercise, whereas a Guided Meditation function leverages the Venu 3’s built-in mic for doses of mindfulness.
Whereas it’s supplying you with real-time steering on easy methods to most effectively sleep and train, the Garmin Venu 3 stays powered for as much as two weeks. That’s a troublesome estimate for even the finest smartwatches from the massive names to match, however after all, there’s extra to gauging the wearable expertise. This Garmin Venu 3 evaluation has every thing it’s essential learn about whether or not it’s the best smartwatch for you.
Garmin Venu 3 evaluation: Worth and availability
The Garmin Venu 3 is accessible now for $449. That’s the identical value because the Garmin Venu 2 Plus, however up $50 from the usual Venu 2 that launched in April 2021. It seems you’ll be able to nonetheless buy each the Garmin Venu 2 and Venu 2 Plus, although I’d solely suggest doing so if you’ll find them at steep reductions.
I examined the Garmin Venu 3, which measures 45mm. Garmin additionally affords a Venu 3S mannequin, with the ‘S’ indicating a smaller 41mm watch face. Each fashions value the identical and provide virtually an identical specs (minus battery life, particulars beneath) so it merely relies on your sizing desire.
Garmin Venu 3 evaluation: Design
The Garmin Venu 3 is fairly indistinguishable from the Garmin Venu 2, in addition to the unique Garmin Venu earlier than that. The Venu household is Garmin’s flagship for the life-style class of units — a.ok.a. not niche-specific units just like the Forerunner, Strategy, Intuition watches. With its spherical face, trio of aspect buttons and glossy {hardware} particulars, it appears most corresponding to the Samsung Galaxy Watch 6.
All three buttons set off totally different controls, with the highest opening a fast menu of exercise selections and apps, the center exhibiting just lately used apps, and the underside appearing as a again button. An extended press of every button launches extra options, such because the voice assistant and setting menus. This smartwatch additionally operates by way of touchscreen, however the buttons are nonetheless obligatory for navigation.
As for the show, the Garmin Venu 3’s shade AMOLED display screen has a number of brightness ranges and an ambient gentle sensor that may modify the brightness primarily based in your setting. It additionally has an always-on show possibility, although it’ll reduce into battery life. And even then, the show isn’t as brilliant because the MIP show on the Garmin Fenix 7 Professional. However having examined the watch in quite a lot of “regular” lighting circumstances, the Venu 3 fared simply tremendous.
Garmin Venu 3 evaluation: Health and well being monitoring options
The Garmin Venu 3 has all of the fitness-tracking fundamentals. Step counts, transfer targets and stairs climbed tracked my regular exercise, whereas extra superior exercise options promoted efficient train. With dozens of built-in exercise varieties (together with some that present kind animations), I had no battle discovering the presets I wanted for quite a lot of actions together with strolling, swimming, biking, power, and tennis. There’s even a pickleball possibility, for many who have taken up the stylish sport.
After all, you may as well run with the Garmin Venu 3 and discover ways to run a 5K or easy methods to practice for a marathon utilizing the Garmin Coach’s free adaptive coaching plans. That mentioned, the Garmin Forerunner 265 is one of the best operating watch for a similar value, with added management buttons and the fan-favorite Coaching Readiness function. If operating is solely a slice of your exercise conduct, although, the Venu 3 might need extra of the flexibility you’re in search of whereas nonetheless supporting VO2 and on-watch interval exercise creation. In my expertise, the GPS loaded up in seconds and precisely tracked all my out of doors train, in order that’s not a priority in case you’re deciding between the 2 watches.
Restoration is a a lot larger precedence on the Garmin Venu 3 than it was on the Garmin Venu 2 Plus. Now, my Physique Battery studying affords deeper perception into the components that influence my rating. The ELEVATE V5 optical coronary heart price sensor displays your coronary heart price and HRV across the clock to offer steering on conduct. For instance, on a busy work day that I didn’t stand up from my desk a lot, the watch alerted me that I ought to attempt to transfer a bit earlier than going to sleep. In any other case, the useful Well being Snapshot function may give you a full overview of what’s happening along with your physique in simply two minutes. (Facet word: it baffles me that the Apple Watch hasn’t copied this function but.)
As a part of restoration, the brand new sleep coach on the Garmin Venu 3 gives a Each day Abstract with suggestions primarily based in your sleep tendencies and up to date exercise. On my regular routine, my sleep coach informed me my “wants” align with my regular baseline of eight hours per evening. However the concept is that if I exercised or strained myself excessively on a given day, the coach would possibly counsel extra relaxation. Alternatively, if the brand new nap-tracking function detects I obtained significant zzz’s in the course of the afternoon, the coach might say I’ll get by with much less shuteye in a single day.
In comparison with sleep monitoring from different smartwatches I’ve examined, the Garmin Venu 3 is likely one of the solely ones that detects when hours of sleep doesn’t essentially imply I had restorative sleep. In truth, after a very irritating day, my Venu 3 mentioned in my Morning Report that my eight hours of sleep was non-restorative, incomes a dismal 50 sleep rating and 30 Physique Battery studying. In my expertise, solely the Oura Ring Gen 3 equally knew once I had an off day and wanted to prioritize restoration.
Another health-tracking instruments out there with the Garmin Venu 3 are menstrual monitoring, being pregnant monitoring, hydration monitoring and even a jet lag administration function. I didn’t essentially want these to be a part of my every day routines, however they’re there in the event that they matter to you.
Garmin Venu 3 evaluation: Smartwatch and connectivity options
The Garmin Venu 3 appears to maintain you extra related than a few of the model’s sportier watches due to a built-in microphone and speaker. With Android and iOS telephone name assist, making and answering calls from my wrist was a breeze. The voice assistant, which I arrange with Siri by way of my iPhone, let me perform some easy instructions, too. New for the Venu 3 is the audible Meditation Exercise, which guides you with cues to comply with, as a substitute of needing to control your wrist when you’re making an attempt to calm your thoughts.
I like how the speaker can play music out loud, too. The watch can retailer playlists from Spotify, Amazon Music and extra. Garmin Pay, mirrored notifications, calendar alerts and instruments like timers are additionally built-in into the person expertise. Extra applications could be put in with the Garmin Join IQ retailer, although the third-party app choice is extraordinarily restricted in comparison with the watchOS and Put on OS wearable app shops. I discover Garmin Join IQ is primarily helpful for exploring 100s of watch faces, if the dozen or so built-in choices aren’t to your liking.
One other approach the Garmin Venu 3 would possibly lack attraction in comparison with the Galaxy Watch and Google Pixel Watch, and Apple Watch is the continued lack of LTE assist. Garmin doesn’t make related smartphones like many different prime smartwatch producers, however it nonetheless looks like one thing Garmin ought to work in the direction of introducing if it desires the Venu 3 to steal some Apple, Samsung and Google clients.
Garmin Venu 3 evaluation: Battery life
Battery life is a giant motive I loved my Garmin Venu 3 testing expertise. The Venu 3 has as much as 14 days of battery life, whereas the smaller Venu 3S will get as much as 12 days. All through testing, I haven’t wanted to recharge it as soon as. That mentioned, I opted out of utilizing the at all times on show mode, which cuts the battery life again to five days. Both approach, I appreciated not needing to deliver the charger with me once I went out of city for a weekend.
In comparison with my different favourite long-lasting smartwatches, the Venu 2 Plus falls between the Fitbit Sense 2 (6 days) and the Garmin Forerunner 265 (15 days). Steady GPS use will reduce down in your battery life estimate, with the Venu 3 lasting as much as 26 hours with GPS-Solely GNSS or 20 hours with All-Programs GNSS.
Garmin Venu 3 evaluation: Verdict
The Garmin Venu 3 is the Garmin watch that finest rivals the likes of the “sensible” smartwatches corresponding to Apple Watch, Galaxy Watch and Pixel Watch. Although it lacks sufficient third-party apps and LTE, the built-in mic/speaker makes the watch as handy as any. Pair that with thorough health monitoring and restoration options, and the Venu 3 is a simple smartwatch to suggest.
I’ll say the worth similarity between the Garmin Venu 3 and Garmin Forerunner 265 might complicate the selection for these runners available in the market for a smartwatch. I’d say that for coaching or goal-oriented wants, the Forerunner is the most suitable choice. However for a extra versatile expertise, the Venu 3 is difficult to beat.