Garmin Venu 2 Plus, GPS Smartwatch with Call and Text, Advanced Health Monitoring and Fitness Features, Slate with Black Band

Before I settled on the Venu 2 Plus, I tried Fitbit Sense 2 and Venu Sq2. So I'll describe my experience with all here. All are great fitness and health tracking/monitoring watches, by the way. I was looking for a health tracking watch, as my days of endurance training is all but over, so my review will focus on the health tracking and smart watch features. Also, I was looking for a replacement for Apple Watch (for poor batter life and poor sensing accuracy) and previously owned Garmin Forerunner 220, Vivoactive HR, and Fenix 3 watches.Fitbit of course has the better designed phone app and generally easier to use interface. It's a nice watch with great looking hardware. It definitely looks more like a fitness tracker than a watch, but that's what some people might be looking for. If you are looking to do sleep tracking, it has smaller footprint and is more comfortable to sleep with. It did everything it promised to do quite well. I was particularly excited about the cEDA feature, but it was not as useful as I had expected (what is a "body response?") At the end, the dealbreaker for me was the battery life. I wanted it for all the sensing features, but when you use the watch with most of the features on, you get no more than 2 days of batter life (not the 6 days advertised). My goal was to abandon the Apple Watch that only gets 18 hours, and this is not a major improvement for me.The Garmin Venu Sq 2 is also a very nice watch and has great HR, sleep, stress tracking, etc., very accurate GPS, and good batter life (5-6 days) in a small package. The design of the Connect app is not as user-friendly as the Fitbit app, and generally navigating both the phone app and the watch is not as smooth as the Fitbit of the Apple Watch. For example, the "glances," controls menu, the watch face all look like they belong to different watches. Navigating across them isn't as smooth. There was also a bit of a delay in the watch face appearing when I raised my arm. Perhaps 500 ms too late for it to feel like there isn't a delay. Some of the forums said that it's because of the 3rd party faces, but I had this problem even with Garmin faces. Finally, it was not as comfortable to sleep with on your arm as the Fitbit was. I also couldn't find a watch face I liked from the Garmin designs. I then purchased the Totem Designs "Dash" watch face for $2.67, and I really loved it. Eventually, there were too many small things I didn't like about the Venu Sq 2: discomfort, delay, etc.I was not hopeful that Venu 2 Plus was going to be much better than Venu Sq2, but I was pleasantly surprised. Its battery lasts 9 days with all the bells and whistles on. I tested this and got 6 days before the battery went below 30%, which is excellent. Charging it once a week is really a new concept for me coming from the Apple Watch. This watch also connects to your phone's smart assistant. It's a bit buggy. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. However, overall it's a more comfortable, responsive, and all in all better watch. Although it's a bit bulkier than Venu Sq 2, it is not less comfortable on my arm throughout the day or during sleep. Its screen responds right away. It's a large, bright, crisp screen. The health metrics tracking is amazing, very accurate, very responsive. No more of Apple Watch's "your heart rate was XX 37 minutes ago." It measures it very accurately and very quickly. I didn't know how much I was going to like the circular AMOLED screen, but it is a great screen. Being able to answer and (mostly) decline calls is a huge plus. I used the ECG sensor once, and it works as well as the one on the Apple Watch. I wake up in the morning, look through my sleep, HR at night and monitor HR, body battery, stress, steps/calories through the day. I got the Titan (analog) and Tempo (digital) watch faces from Totem Designs ($2.67 each), and they both look gorgeous. (You lose the ability to go directly to an app from a hard press on the widget, but the better design is worth it.) All in all, I am very happy with this watch and plan to keep it as long as it lasts!In conclusion, I was pleasantly surprised by Venu 2 Plus as health tracking watch with good smart watch features and would recommend it for people who are looking for these features!

To really get a sense of the pros and cons of a product it’s best to have something to compare it to. Prior to picking up the Garmin Venu 2 Plus, my initial foray into either smart or fitness watches began with the Galaxy Watch 4 and then the original Garmin Venu.For me buying a smart watch is a dicey proposition from the jump. They have some gee-whiz appeal and they can be convenient. Much information is conveyed without me having to dig my phone out of my pocket. However, the problem with these watches is that technology moves so fast that they’re several generations old in just a year or two. The Galaxy Watch 6 goes for $300-$400. For that kind of money, I could get a quality “old school” watch. While the smartwatch will be old and approaching obsolescence in just a few years, the old-school watch will likely give service for many years to come. For someone who buys new smartwatches like phones (new models every few years), you’ll soon have spent enough to have purchased a very high-quality timepiece.Where I can make an exception to this general point of view is when it comes to a fitness watch. Let’s face it, it’s sometimes hard to get and stay motivated to exercise as much as we should. However, I’ve always found that when you make it interesting for yourself it’s easier to stay the course. The sorts of metrics I can get from a fitness watch help keep me interested. A fitness watch can also bring more of a social aspect to exercise. Workouts recorded on my Venu 2 are automatically updated to Strava (fitness-oriented social network) where my friends can see them. I can see their workouts as well. A coworker and I, who aren’t particularly close otherwise, often chat about our workouts…. primarily runs.Once again, it just keeps things interesting. I suppose it also gives me an extra bit of motivation because if I take too many days off, my colleague will almost certainly comment.Due to the sorts of metrics, you can get from these watches (e.g. body battery, sleep monitoring, etc) the tendency is to wear them all the time. It’s been easy for me to do this with the Venu 2. I find it quite comfortable. One of the surprising things about this watch is just how similar it is in functionality to a dedicated smartwatch. At least for my casual smartwatch uses, it pretty much checks those boxes as well.To me, one of the very best features of this watch is the battery life. I don’t use the always-on display, I allow the display to go off when I’m not actively using the watch. The watch does do a pretty good job of sensing the motion of me bringing my wrist up to check the time and automatically activates the display. If that ever fails, a quick tap of any of the buttons brings the display on. In this mode, battery last for days! I recently went on a week-long vacation and forgot my charging cable at home. By the time it was over I still had ~30% remaining. Just amazing. I’d be lucky to get much more than a day on my Galaxy watch.If I were to mention all the features of this bad boy, this review would be huge. However, I’ll hit a couple of highlights.- I find the 1.3-inch AMOLED display to be bright and easy to read even in bright sunlight.- I’m an introvert so I don’t often take calls using only the watch. However, it is occasionally handy in a pinch.- I’m one that prefers a huge mobile phone. That means it’s not at all convenient to take on a run. I love the fact that I can load my music directly on the Venu 2. I then pair with my earbuds and I’m off, no bulky phone needed.