Garmin Venu 3 Smartwatch - Black/Slate

I’ve been using a smart watch more or less daily for several years now and have tried several different brands over that time. This was my first experience with Garmin’s take on the concept, and I have to say it surprised me in several ways. Rather than leaning into the more traditional smart features, Garmin instead chose to put the health and fitness features at the forefront. And while it is a little weird to get used to coming from a more traditional smart watch, I think there’s a lot that someone looking for a step up from more basic fitness trackers might find to love.The first thing that drew my attention upon taking it out of the box was the screen – which is just as big across as the largest of the current generation of flagship watches. However ... MoreI’ve been using a smart watch more or less daily for several years now and have tried several different brands over that time. This was my first experience with Garmin’s take on the concept, and I have to say it surprised me in several ways. Rather than leaning into the more traditional smart features, Garmin instead chose to put the health and fitness features at the forefront. And while it is a little weird to get used to coming from a more traditional smart watch, I think there’s a lot that someone looking for a step up from more basic fitness trackers might find to love.The first thing that drew my attention upon taking it out of the box was the screen – which is just as big across as the largest of the current generation of flagship watches. However interestingly enough it’s paired with a somewhat slimmer body, making it look significantly smaller on the wrist. The band is made of high quality silicone and is extremely adjustable, though not exceptionally breathable. But since it uses standard quick-release lugs to attach it to the body it would be fairly easy to replace if the amount of sweat that builds up underneath it becomes a problem. Controls are all handled via the touch screen (which is vibrant, colorful, and very responsive) and three buttons along one side. There’s also a surprisingly good sounding speaker and mic combo to take calls, use a virtual assistant, or even listen to music if you find yourself lacking a pair of earbuds to pair with it.As far as usability goes, it’s a big departure from what I’m used to with WearOS devices. To start with, almost all the commands are mapped to a variety of button combos that I found a bit hard to memorize and the watch doesn’t do much to teach you about them when starting up. The user experience is also very focused on the fitness tracking features. Notifications are present but not immediately available without going through two menus, customization and settings adjustments more or less have to be taken care of on the app in the paired phone, and the integration with Android at least is a bit less seamless than I was used to. I discovered early on that certain apps which provide real time updates to their notifications end up spamming the watch, requiring you to block them to keep the thing from becoming unbearable. And watch face selection is certainly much more limited – though to be fair still quite acceptable in my opinion. I wouldn’t call any of it a deal breaker by any means, but it’s definitely a device with a learning curve.Moving onto what the device does best, however, there’s a lot of good things to highlight. The fitness tracking features are top notch, with sensors like a barometer to help alert you to sudden shifts in the weather while you’re out on a hike. The fitness apps I tried generally make very good use of them too – and the GPS performance is exemplary (as one might expect, given Garmin’s history as a company.) I am somewhat concerned that there doesn’t seem to be an official rating for waterproofing, but according to the company it should be able to stand up to most things you might encounter on trails and I can confirm that getting splashed or partly submerged for brief periods doesn’t seem to be a problem. One particularly interesting feature I experimented with is the “body battery” meter, which takes into account activity levels and sleep quality to give you a heads up as to how much energy you might be able to expend before becoming fatigued. While I can’t say it’s perfect it did at least roughly line up with when I found myself needing to stop for a break – and again seems like a great thing to have when you’re out hiking and may be trying to decide when to turn back or stop for the night to make camp. It also gets high marks for battery life – which can easily last several days with a bit of power management.In conclusion, the Venu 3 is probably not a watch for everyone. But for a very particular type of user – someone who is very active, enjoys the outdoors, and isn’t necessarily looking for an extension of their phone – it’s probably going to be sitting at the top of a very short list of smart watch options.

Context: I'm a long-time Garmin user & a more recent Apple Watch user. As of now, my Apple watch is in a confused purgatory wondering about its future.After my initial Garmin 305 (big, chunky, laptop-looking watch only good for tracking runs), when I decided to enter the smartwatch world, I went with the Garmin 230 & eventually a 235 when the 230 was tragically lost. I ran & rode my bike for thousands of miles, using those watches to both track all that activity without issue as well as just telling time & getting notification from my phone, etc.. I was pretty darn happy!Eventually, I got an Apple watch- less because I wanted to replace my Garmin & more because I wanted an iPod shuffle... which they don't make any more! After a couple failed shuffle-like ... MoreContext: I'm a long-time Garmin user & a more recent Apple Watch user. As of now, my Apple watch is in a confused purgatory wondering about its future.After my initial Garmin 305 (big, chunky, laptop-looking watch only good for tracking runs), when I decided to enter the smartwatch world, I went with the Garmin 230 & eventually a 235 when the 230 was tragically lost. I ran & rode my bike for thousands of miles, using those watches to both track all that activity without issue as well as just telling time & getting notification from my phone, etc.. I was pretty darn happy!Eventually, I got an Apple watch- less because I wanted to replace my Garmin & more because I wanted an iPod shuffle... which they don't make any more! After a couple failed shuffle-like products, I relented and just got a refurbed Apple watch so I could load music on it. After wearing it for a while, though, I actually liked the non-activity-tracking aspects of the watch- e.g. sleep tracking, better/kinder motion tracking, etc.. What sucked about it, though- BATTERY LIFE! Has to be charged at least once a day & I NEVER relied upon it for anything more than a 1-2 hour activity.Now, the Venu3... it's got the same Garmin battery life for days at a time that I was used to (even with daily 1-2 hour GPS tracking. AND it has all the "lifestyle" apps & features that I liked about the Apple watch. It's about the same size as my older 235, but the screen is using much more of the surface and is crazy brighter (see pic), the interface is still really nice with enhancements in the ability to customize via the app & the Garmin ConnectIQ store. Honestly, the only 2 things I'd say I'm not 100% pleased with- there's no Apple Music app in the ConnectIQ store (suppose that's not a surprise) and I'd rather it have an always-on display, but I was already used to that from my Apple Watch, so I can overlook that.If you're looking a fitness & lifestyle all-around smartwatch, it would be hard to go wrong with a Venu3!!

My first Garmin was the clunky Forerunner 305, which I still have and it still works! Since then, I’ve had other brands of GPS sports watches, as well as the Apple Watch. The new Garmin Venu 3 caught my eye, so I decided to upgrade my sports/smart watch. As a runner, I appreciate having physical buttons because they work better when wet, and the Venu offers the best of both worlds with physical buttons as well as a vibrant touch screen.Inside the box, you get the watch, a proprietary charging cable, and some instructions. The watch is very lightweight, and the soft rubber band is comfortable and secure. Setup is pretty easy, and the accompanying Garmin Connect app guides you through the setup process. If you want to add additional apps to the watch, you must also ... MoreMy first Garmin was the clunky Forerunner 305, which I still have and it still works! Since then, I’ve had other brands of GPS sports watches, as well as the Apple Watch. The new Garmin Venu 3 caught my eye, so I decided to upgrade my sports/smart watch. As a runner, I appreciate having physical buttons because they work better when wet, and the Venu offers the best of both worlds with physical buttons as well as a vibrant touch screen.Inside the box, you get the watch, a proprietary charging cable, and some instructions. The watch is very lightweight, and the soft rubber band is comfortable and secure. Setup is pretty easy, and the accompanying Garmin Connect app guides you through the setup process. If you want to add additional apps to the watch, you must also get the Garmin Connect IQ app, which Garmin’s app store for their watches. Downloading apps (such as additional watch faces) is very easy, but that’s where the setup process seemed to grind to a halt. After trying to figure out why the apps were not installing to the watch, I figured out that I had joined the Venu to my guest wifi network, but my phone was on the main network. Setup didn’t warn me about this, and while I should’ve noticed this, it would have been nice if the setup process could have at least shown a message to remind me. Once I noticed that, it went a lot more smoothly, and I was able to finish the process.The Venu 3 has a beautiful AMOLED touchscreen and 3 physical buttons. I have the 45mm size, and I love the big screen which is very easy to see. The buttons are sufficient for tracking activities, but for non-sports activities, you’ll use the touch screen. The button functions are well laid-out, but it does take some exploration to figure out how everything works. Even though I’ve had the watch for a week and have been using it every day, I still haven’t discovered where everything is located within the menu structure. I do wish the buttons provided a little more tactile feedback than they do. Of the 3 buttons, the top and bottom buttons are pretty good, but the middle button has a smaller profile than the other two, and as a result it seems a little harder to reliably press it. Perhaps this is by design, but I’m not sure. Holding that button down invokes the voice assistant, so maybe this behavior is designed to prevent accidental presses. Hopefully this isn’t a harbinger of the future reliability of the buttons.Using the watch for sports activities really couldn’t be easier. A press of the top button brings up the activity menu. Select your chosen sport, press the button again, then one more time to start tracking. GPS activation on this watch is quicker than on any other watch I’ve owned, which is fantastic. I’m able to pick up a signal in about 5 seconds, which means my running group no longer has to wait for me to get a signal before we can start the run. Choosing which stats to show on the face is easy, and I love that I’m able to do that from the watch itself, instead of having to go to the app for things like that. By default, the Venu 3 announces your lap time after each mile, but this is adjustable. I mostly only use the watch for running, walking, biking and indoor biking, but I’m glad to know it can handle other activities as well.The Venu does a great job of making information easily available. Swiping up from the bottom brings up the “glances” screen, with a big list of things like steps, heart rate, intensity minutes, sleep coaching, etc. Pressing on any of these brings up a full screen with more details, or you can go to the app on the phone for even more. This is a great feature and makes it easy to find what you want. Garmin offers a lot of widgets that you can download, so that’s an area for me to explore later.Garmin advertises battery life of 14 days when the screen is only on when you raise your wrist, or 5 days if you put it into “always on” mode. I’m not sure if that’s accurate, since I didn’t experience this myself, but I wonder if I used up more battery because of initial setup and downloading of music (more on that later). After getting everything set up and using the watch every day for a 40-minute run, I got about 6-7 days of battery life. Even that is better than anything I’ve used before, and allows me, for the first time, to be able to wear the watch at night for sleep tracking. Garmin includes a morning report to get your stats from the night before, and a sleep coach tracks your sleep, including naps. This is a pretty nice feature, and provides insight into your overall sleep patterns and their impact on your health. It’ll also suggest how much sleep you need, adding more after an especially strenuous day or reducing it after a restful day. Garmin also has something it calls a “body battery”, where it calculates an overall rating that is the net of things that recharge your body (like sleep) and those that deplete your body (like vigorous exercise). You can find out each data point that went into this calculation to get an idea of your overall energy status.Garmin watches always excel at sports tracking, and the Venu 3 is no exception. But, can it take the place of your smart watch? The Venu has a legit speaker and microphone, allowing to place and receive calls using just your watch (assuming your phone is nearby). While you won’t want to take a long call this way, it’s just fine for a quick call when your phone is too far away to reach it, and callers said I sounded just fine.The Venu also supports onboard music, meaning you can leave your phone behind and still have some tunes with you. Old school MP3s may be loaded, or you can use a supported music service such as Amazon Prime Music or Spotify. For Spotify, a subscription is required before you can load music, so I didn’t try that one. Instead, I tried out Prime Music. As a Basic subscriber, I was only offered a preselected set of all-access playlists, which is very easy, but what if I’m not in the mood for their options? Downloading the music was easy enough, but does take some time. Also, I could see the battery strength declining as the songs were copied over, so I guess that’s a power-hungry operation. It’s a really nice option to have, but it’s probably easier just to take your phone with you. You can also control playback of the music on your phone, but you have to bring up the playback interface manually after the music starts playing on the phone.The Venu 3 supports the ability to read text messages as they come in, but there’s no way to reply to them in iOS, due to some Apple restriction. I was used to doing that on my Apple Watch, so it’s a bummer to not be able to do that. The Venu also supports the ability to get notifications from all the apps, and you can select which ones to turn off. One of my most-used features on previous watches is the ability to instantly check the temperature outside, and I can do that on the Venu as well, and also get a full-blown forecast for the week ahead.I think I’m going to be learning things about this watch for some time to come, but I really like it, and it’s a very capable watch, whether you’re exercising or not. The only thing I miss from my Apple Watch is the ability respond to text messages on the watch, but it’s offset by the great battery life and physical buttons for use during sports. The overall health reporting is top notch, with plenty of details for the statistics lovers. I’ve been using it as my main watch since I got it, and I really don’t miss my regular smart watch—I don’t think you will either.