I Avoided Using a Sports Watch Until I Tested This One by Garmin

1 week ago 13

Pros

Week-long battery life in smartwatch mode
Polished circular design
Advanced fitness and recovery metrics

Cons

$100 more than previous generation
Software can feel sluggish
UI is not as intuitive as other smart watches

I Avoided Using a Sports Watch Until I Tested This One by Garmin
Venu 4 fitness: Garmin's core strength
Venu 4 battery life: Amazing for a smartwatch, but meh for a Garmin
Venu 4 design: Not your average sports watch
Venu 4 watch basics: Functional, but not seamless
Venu 4 accessibility features
Venu 4: Final thoughts

Until the Garmin Venu 4 landed on my wrist, I mostly shied away from using dedicated sports watches from brands like Garmin or Polar as my daily driver. Part of that was imposter syndrome; I'm a fitness enthusiast, not a full-blown athlete (yet). But mostly, I wasn't willing to accept the trade-offs that came with them: clunky software, limited smart features and designs that felt more like gym gear than something I'd want to wear all day.

The Venu 4 isn't the only good-looking sports watch on the market, but it's the first one that's come close to convincing me to go all-in. It's well-rounded (literally and figuratively) and packed with fitness features that don't feel condescending to an athlete wannabe like me.

The line between sports watches and traditional smartwatches seems to get blurrier each year. Both Apple and Samsung now have rugged Ultra smartwatch lines, and sports watches are starting to look (and act) more like traditional smartwatches.

The Venu 4 feels like Garmin's strongest attempt yet to bridge these two worlds. It goes all out on fitness features with advanced insights like training readiness and suggested workouts typically reserved for the top-tier Fēnix models, but has a design and a price that are approachable for people who live somewhere between casual fitness enthusiast and aspiring athlete.

The $550 price (for both 41mm and 45mm models) is $100 more than its predecessor, and upgrading from the Venu 3 makes sense only if you plan to use the data it provides. If you're someone who mostly just wants the occasional workout tracking, then the Venu 4 will be overkill.

I may not be a full convert (yet), but after weeks of living with it day and night with the Venu 4, I get the Garmin obsession, and I can see how a sports watch could help me level up my fitness journey when I'm ready.

Venu 4 fitness: Garmin's core strength

The Venu 4 supports what feels like every workout imaginable, from running and cycling to rowing, HIIT, and even golf course mapping. It supports multi-band GPS, which I found provided more accurate location tracking, even on trail runs without my phone. Heart rate tracking stayed impressively close to my Polar chest strap after the initial jump from resting to higher-intensity sprint.

Garmin's strength isn't just the sheer volume of data it collects, but how it helps you understand how those metrics impact your training. On the Venu 4, you get heart rate, breathing rate, blood oxygen, stress, ECG, skin temperature changes, HRV, and advanced sleep and menstrual cycle tracking.

On their own, these metrics can feel overwhelming or even meaningless. What Garmin does especially well is connect the dots through features like Body Battery, Training Readiness, Load and other recovery insights that translate raw data into a clearer picture of how prepared your body is for activity. And because you're not constantly taking it off to charge, Garmin can build a more complete picture of your health and recovery that becomes more accurate over time.

I found waking up to a low Body Battery score when I felt off was both depressing and validating: no, I probably can't just "shake this one off," and yes, I should probably take a rest day (or two) before getting back to that New Year's resolution.

The watch also highlights when you're theoretically at your best to work out, even if real life doesn't always cooperate. There's no greater irony than seeing I'm in "peak" training readiness while rocking my toddler to sleep, or hustling to get a story in on time. That's ultimately my biggest barrier to fully crossing over into the Garmin ecosystem. I'm not always in a position to follow the advice that makes these metrics most valuable.

Garmin Connect Plus subscribers ($7 per month) get access to personalized coaching plans and daily suggested workouts that adapt based on their sleep, recovery and activity history. I tried a running plan to prep for a 10K, but by day three, I'd gone rogue and settled back into my tired, but realistic, workout routine. Learning new routines takes time, and at this stage of life, 20-minute workouts squeezed between everything else will have to suffice.

Venu 4 battery life: Amazing for a smartwatch, but meh for a Garmin

The Venu 4's shiny new upgrades (brighter display and improved GPS tracking over the Venu 3) come at a slight cost to battery life: You get 12 days on the Venu 4 versus 14 on the Venu 3. But I think it's well worth it when you factor in everything else it has.

I averaged about 10 days of battery life per charge for the smaller 41mm Venu 4 that I tested. But that's in smartwatch mode, which disables the always-on display. If, like me, you prefer the always-on display, battery life drops. I got roughly four days on a charge (slightly less on long hiking days when the GPS was running). It's not quite multiweek endurance like Garmin's Enduro or Instinct lines. But even at the lower end, the Venu 4 is still far better than most Apple and Samsung watches.

I've never worn a smartwatch this long without taking it off for a charge, which turns out can be both a good and a bad thing. On the plus side, it made sleep tracking more consistent, which is key to unlocking Garmin's best features like Body Battery, HRV (heart rate variability) and recovery insights. Wearing the watch for so long is also important for identifying long-term health trends and detecting early signs of illness.

The flip side of wearing it nonstop was skin irritation. After about five straight days, the skin directly under the watch became red and itchy. I tried to power through it, which only made things worse. A perfect storm of winter weather, a suppressed immune system, and the polymer backing on the underside of the watch likely didn't help matters. After taking a week off, cleaning it more regularly, and giving my skin the occasional break, the issue hasn't returned. And if you have sensitive skin like me, it's probably worth building in a little breathing room.

Venu 4 design: Not your average sports watch

The Venu 4 is hands down one of the best-looking watches I've tested (Note: I didn't say sports watches). It even earned its fair share of compliments from friends who didn't know it was a sports watch. The Venu 4 comes in two sizes, 41mm and 45mm, both with a 1.4-inch AMOLED screen and a stainless steel case in lunar gold, slate, or silver finishes. It's covered in Gorilla Glass 3 and has a fiber-reinforced polymer back.

The bezels are larger than those on an Apple Watch Series 11, and the usable screen area feels smaller than expected. The Venu 4's display is bright and legible even in direct sunlight. You might not find it as responsive to touch if you're coming from an LTPO OLED or Super AMOLED display with a higher refresh rate, like those on Apple or Samsung watches. Which is why the physical button navigation is so important.

Garmin slimmed the design down to two physical buttons (the Venu 3 had 3). One button brings up navigation, while the other handles quick settings. Long-pressing the bottom button activates other actions, like the flashlight, but until muscle memory kicks in, it's easy to forget which one does what.

The built-in LED flashlight is a standout feature. It's an actual light embedded in the side of the watch, not a screen-based workaround like found on other smartwatches. It's surprisingly powerful and incredibly useful, whether you're doing an ultramarathon or, in my case, checking on a sleeping kid without turning on any lights.

Venu 4 watch basics: Functional, but not seamless

On paper, the Venu 4 checks most of the smartwatch boxes. It has notifications, mobile payments via Garmin Pay, music storage, voice assistant access (via your phone) and supports calls from your wrist. Android phone owners get the added perk of responding to texts from the watch; iPhone owners are out of luck.

In my testing, this is where Garmin still lags behind true smartwatches. Everything works, but it's not seamless; simple actions often take more steps than they should, and Garmin's app ecosystem remains limited. Even changing your watch face requires an additional phone app (Garmin IQ). The upside is cross-platform compatibility, and aside from the ability to respond to texts, the experience is consistent across iOS and Android.

Venu 4 accessibility features

Garmin has also added more accessibility options in the Venu 4. There are spoken watch faces that read out time and health data, hourly audio alerts, and multiple color filters for people with color blindness.

Venu 4: Final thoughts

I'm still a practical generalist in the throes of working motherhood, but the Garmin Venu 4 is the closest I've been to going full sports watch. If I were ready to make fitness a true priority, the Venu 4 would be my gateway Garmin watch.

It's a solid pick for anyone looking to cross over into the sports watch world for the first time, and it's one of Garmin's most well-rounded options. The Venu 4 has enough battery to get you through the week, training insights that feel genuinely helpful rather than overwhelming, and a design that's polished enough to pass for date-night-ready.

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