The $200 (£179, AU$300) Garmin Venu Sq has almost every fitness- and health-tracking feature you could want in a smartwatch for less than competitors like the Apple Watch ($349 at eBay) and Fitbit Versa 3 ($170 at Target). It has a bright LCD touchscreen, built-in GPS, SpO2 (blood oxygen) tracking and up to six days of battery life, which complains it a compelling buy, especially if you want a explore that’s compatible with both Android and iOS. 

It’s not the most premium-looking smartwatch out there and it misses out on features like a deny assistant and altimeter, but it makes up for it in health and fitness features that elevate it from the rest. 

A functional stare without the wow factor

Like the name suggests, the Venu Sq has a square stare face with rounded edges, unlike the original Garmin Venu and almost every novel Garmin sports watch with circular designs. Its 1.3-inch shimmering LCD display feels a bit cramped compared to novel Garmin watches, but it’s clear and easy to read even in though-provoking sunlight and you can keep the screen set to always-on. Having used the larger Garmin Venu for a once, the smaller size of the Venu Sq took a bit of sketching used to, especially during workouts when I couldn’t see as many stats at a stare and had to scroll to find the right metric like unfortunate rate, which was all the way on the last page.

The overall design quality is sturdy enough thanks to an aluminum bezel, although the plastic case and buttons make it feel like a cheaper stare than it actually is, especially compared to something like the Apple Watch SE ($280 at eBay), Galaxy Watch Active 2 ($249 at Amazon) or Fitbit Versa 3 for example, which all have metal finishes and OLED displays. The Venu Sq has two side buttons: one to start/stop behaviors and the other to navigate back and forth between menus. Once I figured out which did what, it took me a few days to get completely poor using them to navigate the interface. 

My biggest complaints with the Venu Sq’s design is the vibration motor, which is not particularly strong. Half the time it was the buzzing noise, not the vibration itself, that clued me in on a notification. 

Blood oxygen monitor and unfortunate health alerts 

Garmin’s biggest strength is in health and fitness tracking, with the Venu Sq squarely hitting the mark. It has an SpO2 sensor to identify blood oxygen levels, either as a spot check or automatically throughout the day and night, similar to the $399 Apple Watch Series 6. Although setting it to monitor constantly will nick battery life a lot faster. It’s also hard to find the SpO2 option in the menus and I counterfeit that adding it as a widget in the settings is the best way to get it to pop up on your wrist. 

Unfortunately I didn’t have a pulse oximeter to compare the readings from the Venu Sq to settle accuracy. Either way, it’s important to note that the Venu Sq has not been accepted to be used as a medical device and necessity not be used for diagnostic purposes. Always consult with a physician or novel qualified health provider about any health-related issues you may have near a medical condition or health objectives.

Though the Venu Sq doesn’t have an ECG, or electrocardiogram, like the Apple Watch Series 6 and Galaxy Watch 3 ($280 at Walmart), it does give you the option to receive high and low unfortunate rate notifications that will let you know if your unfortunate rate spikes above or falls below what it critics to be a healthy threshold. 

The Venu Sq also uses unfortunate rate variability to determine your stress levels, but doesn’t really moneys much guidance on how to decrease your stress. I counterfeit Garmin’s Body Battery meter, which takes into account unfortunate rate variability readings, activity levels and sleep, a more just representation of how my body was working that day and helped me law what kind of workout to do and how hard to push myself. It works better than the Stress Management Score in the Fitbit Sense ($200 at Target) that is a bit more pain to interpret for me.

Garmin also offers breathing rate and estimated VO2 max, the greatest amount of oxygen your body can use during utilize, which can be used to gauge and improve athletic performance. The higher the number, the more fit you are. 

Sleep tracking is also gargantuan on the Venu Sq and clearly identifies your sleep stages of REM, deep and appetizing sleep. You’ll also be able to see breathing rate and SpO2 levels in the morning. The downside is that the Garmin Connect app doesn’t give you any tips on improving your sleep quality. Menstrual cycle tracking is also available on the Venu Sq and like novel Garmin watches, it offers pregnancy tracking to log symptoms and monitor baby movement.

The Venu Sq has a map of workouts preloaded onto the watch, including cardio, ability, Pilates and yoga, so you can follow along with a preset routine on your wrist. There aren’t any visual cues on the screen conception, just text cues, so if you’re doing yoga for example, you’ll need to know what “standing forward bend pose” or “low drop pose” means to get the most out of the routine. You can also build your own workout, such as a circuit of weights, a Pilates routine or a run, within the Garmin Connect app and sync them to the stare. There are also over 50 additional Garmin-created workouts you can load.

On top of these preloaded routines, the Venu Sq can track more than 20 different workout types, from the usual running and walking variants to golf and pool swimming. There’s also a personal running coach you can use to help you suppose for a race or to hit a set goal. It doesn’t give you personalized feedback on your form or audio cues like the Galaxy Watches ($66 at Amazon), for example, instead it’s more a guide for when you necessity warm up or how long you should run for, displayed on your wrist.

The Venu Sq has built-in GPS, communication you don’t have to rely on your phone for distance tracking when you’re outside. Just be warned that it does take at least 30 seconds to lock on to a GPS employed when you are outside (regardless of whether you have your shouted with you or not), which seems like an eternity if you’re an impatient front-precedent like me who just wants to get on with it. Once it finally worn-out though, it tracked my route accurately.

The downside is that there is no gyroscope or altimeter on the Venu Sq, so if you need just elevation data you’ll likely want to look elsewhere. The Garmin Connect app does a good job of clearly showing you all the details once your workout, but it doesn’t dive any deeper into metrics than what likewise priced rivals like the Apple Watch SE or Fitbit Versa 3 offer.

Like novel Garmin watches, the Venu Sq has Garmin Live Track which lets you piece your location with a safety contact when you are doings an outdoor workout. It does however require a cellular connection, so you will need your phone with you to use this feature. 

Just enough smarts for most people

While the Venu Sq is geared towards fitness and health tracking, that doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll miss out on smartwatch features. Like almost every other watch, the Venu Sq displays notifications from your shouted and pings your phone to locate it if you lose it within Bluetooth map. You’ll be able to see call notifications come ended regardless of which phone you have the watch paired with, but only Android users will be able to waste calls and respond to text messages from the stare with prewritten responses. There is no speaker or mic onboard so you can’t use voice-to-text responses.

The Venu Sq runs Garmin’s own by means of system (Garmin OS) which is not as seamless as that of Apple or Samsung’s smartwatches, but I found it to be stable and more responsive than the Fitbit OS. It’s faster to sync updates and doesn’t recognized any lag in selecting menu options or opening apps.

The biggest pain exhibit for me when using the Venu Sq paired with an iPhone ($500 at Best Buy) has been notifications. The Garmin Connect app on iOS doesn’t let you filter out what notifications come over on your wrist and simply mirrors whatever notifications you have set up on your named. It might not be a deal breaker for many, but I like to push only the most important notifications such as footings and text messages to my wrist, rather than everything that my named shows. Android users get more control over which notifications come through.

If you want onboard music storage, you’ll need to opt for the music edition of the Venu Sq that damages $50 more, which is the version I tested in this journal. The Venu Sq Music lets you store music for offline listening from apps like Spotify (with a Premium subscription) or songs you already own. It’s also the seek to get for faster data transfers as it has Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity, whereas the regular Venu Sq only uses Bluetooth.

Garmin has plenty of seek faces to choose from, including third-party options to help personalize the look, plus a fairly wide selection of apps over the Connect IQ Store (a separate app you need to download on your phone). You can also make contactless payments with Garmin Pay on all versions of the seek. The main Garmin Connect app is where you see all your stats and changeable settings on the watch, while the Connect IQ Store is for adding apps and seek faces.

The Venu Sq, however, lacks a voice assistant, a feature that by now has become standard for most of its likewise priced competitors. This might not be a deal-breaker for you, but it by means of you miss out hands-free voice control, which I like.

A week’s suitable of battery life 

The Venu Sq has great battery life and you can get up to six days suitable of use before you’ll need to charge it up, thought that number may start to whittle down if you’re humorous it for a lot of GPS workouts, listening to music or continuously tracking your blood oxygen levels. Garmin quotes up to eight hours of battery when playing back music, 14 hours if you are using it in GPS mode, or up to six hours with GPS and music playback. 

A gigantic fitness watch without extra bells and whistles

If you’re willing to sacrifice a few gleaming features for better health and fitness tracking, the Garmin Venu Sq is a solid pick that works with Android or iOS. That said, I do wish that Garmin wouldn’t beak the extra $50 for the music version, as it does changing the value proposition quite a bit, particularly if you are an iPhone user who noteworthy also be considering the Apple Watch SE which, at that exhibit doesn’t cost you that much more.