Garmin Venu 2 - All the details of the new smartwatch from Garmin

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Today, the new Garmin Venu 2The Garmin is available in two sizes, imitating other models in the Garmin range adapted to different wrist sizes. They are therefore the Garmin Venu 2 and Garmin Venu 2S today's news.

The Venu has come of age and has gained a category of its own within the Garmin range, that of watches with an AMOLED display and, to some extent, smart. The truth is that it doesn't bring any specific smart feature that is different from the rest of the Garmin range, but we do have that fantastic AMOLED display that is what sets it apart from all the other products of the brand.

Garmin has put all its efforts in the watch's autonomy, probably the least pleasant aspect of the Garmin Original Venu and of the Garmin Venu Sq that came later. Now the autonomy can be more than doubled and also has fast charging, 10 minutes charging the watch allows us a day of additional use. It is clear that after the presentation of the Enduro is where Garmin is going to direct all its renewals.

The battery is just one of the new features, let's see what other interesting things the Venu 2 brings, because there are important details.

Garmin Venu 2, what's new and specs

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To talk about the new features, being the second version of a device the most correct thing is to compare it with the original model and to see what are its main features. It is true that after the Venu Garmin introduced the Venu Sq, but it is simply a lower-cost watch that did not introduce any new developments.

• Available in two sizes: Garmin Venu 2 in 45mm and Garmin Venu 2S in 40mm
• New optical heart rate sensor Garmin Elevate (v4), which now allows the estimation of heart rate variability (HRV)
• Extended battery life:
  • Garmin Venu 2: Up to 11 days in smartwatch mode, 22 hours with GPS use and 8 hours with GPS listening to music
  • Garmin Venu 2S: Up to 10 days in smartwatch mode, 19 hours with GPS use and 7 hours with GPS listening to music
• Fast charging. 10 minutes charging extends the battery life up to 1 day in watch mode and 1 hour of GPS with music
• Mode energy savings to choose which options we leave activated and what is the impact on the autonomy (released in the Fenix 6)
• Renewed user interface, best suited to a smart watch with AMOLED display
• Connect IQ 4.0 compatible (more powerful apps with associated widgets, better graphics more adapted to AMOLED displays)
• Smaller screen bezel with the AMOLED display being more predominant: 1.3” on Venu 2 and 1,1″ on Venu 2S
• Health Snapshot, a two-minute session to learn key metrics and provide them through a report
• Sleep tracking. straight on the watch, without having to sync with Garmin (released on the Fenix 6 and that slowly has to go to other models)
• Physiological age, which was already present in Garmin Connect within the maximum VO2 section but is now present in a widget
• Animated workouts, which now offers HIIT in addition to cardio, yoga, strength and pilates
• Specific profile for HIIT workouts with timers and number of repetitions
• Graph of muscle groups worked in strength training (similar to what was introduced by COROS)

Those are the new features, but there are another ones that were already present in the original model and that logically remain in the new Garmin Venu 2.

• PulseOx estimation
• Sony GNSS chipset (like all the rest of the Garmin and other manufacturers' range)
• Two buttons to control the watch, as well as touchscreen
• 18mm wide silicone strap with Quick Release system
• Music playback, Both synchronized from your computer and from streaming platforms, highlighting Spotify and Amazon Music.
• Wireless NFC payments with Garmin Pay
• WiFi connection for synchronization and download
• Function Body Battery showing the remaining energy and recharge with rest.
• Stress monitoring
• Menstrual Cycle Tracking on the watch.
• Hydration monitoring to keep track of the fluid you've been taking throughout the day
• Estimated sweat loss after training
• Breath tracking. In addition to being recorded in the Yoga profile workouts it is a function that will also be available 24 hours a day, helping to monitor the quality of sleep as well
• Incident detectionThe watch will send a message asking for help to the contacts you have programmed in advance. The watch does not have a LTE connection, so you need to carry the phone with you as it will be in charge of the communication. It can be activated automatically (if it detects a fall or similar), or manually if you find yourself in a difficult situation

So there are a few more or less important features that, as always, I prefer to expand in detail separately. That's what I'll explain to you next.

Main new features of Garmin Venu 2

Extended autonomy and fast charging

Probably the most remarkable thing about the new Garmin Venu 2 is its autonomy. It is much, much longer than that offered by the original Garmin Venu that combined the use with workouts I did not get more than 3 or 4 days in total.

To be clear, what has increased is the autonomy in its daily use and not in the use of GPS which remains more or less the same. As is the case with the Garmin Enduro the improvements are at the platform level, because the GNSS chipset remains the same.

And to see the differences between the different models, nothing like an Excel table where you can see all those details.

Garmin Elevate v4

After a few years on the market, the Garmin Elevate v3 optical sensor has received an upgrade. The new sensor still maintains two green LEDs for pulse estimation, and one red LED for pulse oximetry estimation. But now it changes the layout and appears to add two additional sensors.

You can see the comparison in the images below. The Garmin Elevate v3 is on the left (in a Garmin Venu) while the new sensor is on the right, in the Garmin Venu 2.

Benefits of the new sensor? Obviously it remains to be seen if it improves in performance to the Garmin Elevate v3 (you'll have to wait for the test before I can tell you), but for now it allows you to estimate heart rate variability, as part of the new Health Snapshot feature.

Health Snapshot

Within the range of health functions, Health Snapshot is the most prominent feature. At the moment I don't have all the details (the official presentation to the media takes place today at 13h... yes, it's a bit late), so I still need to know exactly what it proposes.

But basically it is about taking reference data from a series of health metrics for a period of 2 minutes to create a report. You can share this report with a medical professional or save it to compare it with successive reports that you make later, thus monitoring your physical and health status.

What are the metrics you record during that 2-minute period? The following:

• Pulse oximetry
• Stress
• Heart rate
• Heart rate variability
• Breathing rate

When I have more information I will include it.

Connect IQ 4.0

Garmin held its annual developer conference in October 2020, where it presented the platform's new features. Among the various things discussed at this conference (which was obviously virtual that year) was the official presentation of the Connect IQ 4.0 platform. And the Garmin Venu 2 is the first model to include this platform.

What are the new features of this platform and why is the Venu 2 the first to receive it? Some of the inclusions in the platform focus on taking better advantage of the graphics capabilities of AMOLED and LCD displays, with better developed transitions and more powerful graphics. This does nothing more than "announce" that the Venu is not going to be the only Garmin watches with LCD or AMOLED displays.

But beyond the graphical aspects is the announcement of "super apps" and the removal of widgets as such. This is worth detailing.

Until now in Connect IQ we had applications on one side and widgets on the other. The former were ordinary apps, which pod we could open and use, but once closed they remained "dozing". Meanwhile the widgets were the ones that we podíamos add in standby mode of the clock and offered us small pills of information, being able to access inside to expand that information.

Those widgets now disappear, because now they will be part of the applications themselves (super applications). The application will have the possibility of having an associated widget that, when opened, will allow us to access the application directly. They are no longer two different entities.

The Garmin Venu 2 is the first watch to include it as standard, but there are more models in the range that will be upgraded to Connect IQ 4, namely the following:

Sleep tracking.

Another of the new features we have seen in Garmin following the acquisition of Firstbeat is the inclusion of sleep metrics directly on the watch itself. All Garmin watches allow you to track sleep, but the amount of information they provide differs depending on the version you have implemented.

Until now the usual thing was that the watch recorded the sleep, but until we did the synchronization with the platform we did not have access to the sleep data, and only through the application.

The Garmin Fenix 6 introduced a new way to record sleep. It is something that had only come to that model (and the 945 in beta). It is promised for more models in the range, for example the 745, but for the moment it remains a promise.

How does this differ from the way it was done in other models? Now it is the watch itself that processes the data and displays the information through a widget, without the need for synchronization with the platform. It also gives us a score for the quality of rest.

Garmin Venu 2, availability and pricing

The Garmin Venu 2 will be with us all in a matter of days, so if you are interested you can sharpen your credit card. There is no price difference between their models as both Venu 2 and Venu 2S will be priced at €399.

As for colors, the Venu 2 is available in black or gray with stainless steel bezel. The Venu 2S, in addition to these two colors, is also available in gold and rose gold.

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Opinion Garmin Venu 2

Beyond the renewal of the Garmin Venu, it is interesting to see what are the movements of Garmin with respect to the entire range. It was obvious that the Venu would have a replacement, as it is a model that has sold extremely well. And another unknown remains to be resolved, whether the Venu range has cannibalized the Vivoactive and this is the end of that model series.

As for the platform and the autonomy of the watch, it is the confirmation that there are changes in Garmin. Not in terms of hours of GPS usage, which remains unchanged (that is the responsibility of the GNSS chipset), but in terms of autonomy in clock mode.

Garmin has made changes to the processor and its platform, as we have already seen with the Enduro, and this makes it possible to achieve much higher autonomies in clock mode. In the Venu 2 it is remarkable because in standby mode it allows doubling the total autonomy, which was the weak point of the original model.

That along with the Connect IQ 4 changes referencing AMOLED and LCD displays only hints at the path Garmin is going to take in the future. It's more than likely that a Garmin Fenix with AMOLED display is closer than we think, as autonomy is no longer an issue that Garmin has to fight with.

Important is also the modification of the optical pulse sensor, but until I do specific tests I can't tell you anything more about what it offers and if it improves (or not) to the sensor that Garmin used until now.

Soon podré will tell you more because I have been confirmed that it won't be too long before we see units going around, so until then... thanks for reading!