The Garmin Venu 2 and Garmin Venu 2S are a pair of smartwatches that cost $399.99 and succeed the first-generation Garmin Venu.
Unlike many of the best Garmin watches, which cater to specific sport styles, the Venu series embraces lifestyle elements that make similarly-priced competitors like the Apple Watch Series 7 and Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 so popular.
In an effort to up its appeal and take on the best smartwatches and best fitness trackers, the Venu 2 lineup improves on the original with advanced fitness metrics, greater music storage and double the battery life. Those upgrades add $50 to the cost, though — the first Venu started at $349. For an additional $50, you can also get the Garmin Venu 2 Plus, which comes with voice assistants and support for on-wrist phone calls.
Will the premium be worth it? We'll need to test the Venu 2 out to find out. Until then, here's everything you'll want to know about Garmin's latest GPS smartwatch.
Garmin Venu 2/2S release date
The Garmin Venu 2/2S release date was April 22, 2021. It's available now to order from Garmin.com.
Garmin Venu 2/2S price
Both the Garmin Venu 2 and Garmin Venu 2S cost $399.99. Size is the key difference between the two models, with the Venu 2 coming in a 45mm watch case with a 22mm band. The Venu 2S offers a smaller fit, coming in a 40mm watch case and a 18mm band. Both versions offer an array of colors, too.
Garmin Venu 2/2S features
The Garmin Venu 2 series comes packed with Garmin's health stats. This includes Body Battery Energy Monitoring, which analyzes your body’s energy levels throughout the day. Now, users will also be able to see their fitness age, which uses different body indicators to quantify your health.
The watch also supports activity tracking for several workout types, enhanced by on-board GPS. In our experience, the GPS in Garmin's watches are highly accurate, so we'd expect the same for the Venu 2. We're more excited to check out the new HIIT workout animations, which provide different kinds of timers for Tabata, AMRAP and more.
We also have liked Garmin's sleep tracking on recent releases, but for the Venu 2 the company added a sleep score metric. Users scores are based on sleep quality, heart rate, stress, SpO2 levels and more. Garmin even says it'll provide actionable insights so users can improve their score.
As for more traditional smartwatch features, the Garmin Venu 2 and 2S are compatible with the Garmin Connect IQ Store, which lets users download watch faces, apps and widgets. These watches also support NFC payments, mirror notifications and hold up to 650 songs so you can listen without streaming through your smartphone. The original Venu only supported 500 songs, by comparison.
Garmin Venu 2/2S battery life
According to Garmin, users should experience a battery life of up to 11 days on the larger Venu 2 and a battery life of up to 10 days on Venu 2S. GPS mode will cut that estimate to 8 hours for Venu 2 and 7 hours for Venu 2S, which is expected. The original Garmin Venu only had 5 days of battery life, so this is a significant improvement.
The Garmin Venu 2/2S offers rapid recharging. Garmin says 10 minutes of charging adds up to 1 day of standard battery life, or 1 hour of battery life in GPS mode.
Garmin Venu 2/2S outlook
The first Garmin Venu is a well-designed smartwatch for people who are obsessive about their health, but have more versatile needs. It's a lifestyle smartwatch that looks to cut into Apple's, Samsung's and even Fitbit's share of the greater wearable market — not just golfers, runners or outdoor sport enthusiasts.
If the battery life meets expectations and the added metrics seem accurate, Garmin's sequel could be a winner. The smartwatch business is incredibly saturated right now, so we'll need to test out the Garmin Venu 2/2S to see how it stacks up.
