The Garmin Venu 2 Plus is a perfect fitness watch, and is more comfortable to wear for long periods than Garmin’s heavier enthusiast running watches. New additions for this series, like digital assistant support, make the Venu 2 Plus feel more like a smartwatch than the Venu 2. But it’s wise not to expect too much from these extras as they are not as slick as the rest of the watch – in part due to technical challenges. The Garmin Venu 2 Plus is the best smartwatch you can buy if you need a watch with easy music downloading features. It can hold a lot of music and motivate you to work out. Just make sure you have a large enough budget for this expensive smartwatch. As you’d expect from a Garmin watch, the Venu 2 Plus is a superb sports watch! One of the Venu 2’s best new features was the addition of on-screen muscle maps, which show which body parts you’ve been working recently, plus animated Pilates and yoga workouts that you can follow in real time. It really makes the most of the watch’s big AMOLED screen, and although there are only three Pilates and three yoga sessions to follow at the moment, we’re hopeful that more will arrive with a future firmware update. One of really best smartwatches, the Garmin Venu 2, has received a big update with the addition of a microphone that allows you to make and receive calls from your wrist, and access your phone’s voice assistant. It’s a smart addition that really adds a lot to this all-purpose smartwatch’s functionality, whether you’re working out or not. In all other respects, this is the same excellent sports-focused watch as before, though this time there’s only a single case size. That and the lack of wireless charging are minor quibbles though, and if it’s within your budget then we highly recommend adding the Venu 2 Plus to your shortlist when you’re shopping for a smartwatch that you can wear all day. From durable Corning Gorilla Glass 3 to the sleek stainless steel bezel and comfortable silicone band, this Garmin Venu 2 Plus smartwatch is very strong and powerful.
BATTERY LIFE WITH RAPID RECHARGING
Get an uninterrupted picture of your health with up to 9 days in smartwatch mode, up to 24 hours in GPS mode and up to 8 hours in GPS mode with music. Ten minutes of charging adds up to 1 day of smartwatch mode battery life or 1 hour of GPS with music battery life. Photo: Garmin
Venu 2 Plus – Maximizing Battery Life
You can do several things to extend the life of the battery.
Turn on Battery Saver (Battery Manager).
Stop using the Always On display timeout option, and select a shorter display timeout (Customizing the Display Settings).
Reduce the display brightness (Customizing the Display Settings).
Switch from a live watch face to a watch face with a static background (Changing the Watch Face).
Turn off Bluetooth® technology when you are not using connected features (Turning Off the Bluetooth Phone Connection).
Turn off activity tracking (Activity Tracking Settings).
Limit the type of phone notifications (Managing Notifications).
Stop broadcasting heart rate data to paired Garmin® devices (Broadcasting Heart Rate).
Turn off wrist-based heart rate monitoring (Turning Off the Wrist-based Heart Rate Monitor).
Turn off automatic pulse oximeter readings (Changing the Pulse Oximeter Tracking Mode).
Garmin Venu 2 Plus specs:
General
LENS MATERIAL
Corning® Gorilla® Glass 3
BEZEL MATERIAL
stainless steel
CASE MATERIAL
fiber-reinforced polymer with stainless-steel rear cover
QUICK RELEASE BANDS
yes (20 mm, Industry standard)
STRAP MATERIAL
silicone
PHYSICAL SIZE
43.6 x 43.6 x 12.6 mm
Fits wrists with a circumference of 125-190 mm
TOUCHSCREEN
COLOR DISPLAY
DISPLAY SIZE
1.3″ (33.0 mm) diameter
DISPLAY RESOLUTION
416 x 416 pixels
DISPLAY TYPE
AMOLED optional always-on mode
WEIGHT
51.0 g
BATTERY LIFE
Smartwatch mode: Up to 9 days
Battery saver smartwatch mode: Up to 10 days
GPS mode with music: Up to 8 hours
GPS mode without music: Up to 24 hours
WATER RATING
5 ATM
MEMORY/HISTORY
200 hours of activity data
Clock Features
TIME/DATE yes
GPS TIME SYNC yes
AUTOMATIC DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME yes
ALARM CLOCK yes
TIMER yes
STOPWATCH yes
SUNRISE/SUNSET TIMES yes
Health Monitoring
WRIST-BASED HEART RATE (CONSTANT, EVERY SECOND)
yes
DAILY RESTING HEART RATE
yes
ABNORMAL HEART RATE ALERTS
yes (high and low)
RESPIRATION RATE (24X7)
yes
PULSE OX BLOOD OXYGEN SATURATION
yes (spot-check, and optionally all-day and in sleep)
FITNESS AGE
yes
BODY BATTERY™ ENERGY MONITOR
yes
ALL-DAY STRESS
yes
RELAXATION REMINDERS
yes
RELAXATION BREATHING TIMER
yes
SLEEP
yes (advanced)
SLEEP SCORE AND INSIGHTS
yes
HYDRATION
yes
WOMEN’S HEALTH
yes
HEALTH SNAPSHOT
yes
Sensors
GPS
GLONASS
GALILEO
GARMIN ELEVATE™ WRIST HEART RATE MONITOR
BAROMETRIC ALTIMETER
COMPASS
GYROSCOPE
ACCELEROMETER
THERMOMETER
yes (tempe™ sensor required)
AMBIENT LIGHT SENSOR
PULSE OX BLOOD OXYGEN SATURATION MONITOR
Daily Smart Features
CONNECTIVITY
Bluetooth®, ANT+®, Wi-Fi®
CONNECT IQ™ (DOWNLOADABLE WATCH FACES, DATA FIELDS, WIDGETS AND APPS)
SMART NOTIFICATIONS
TEXT RESPONSE/REJECT PHONE CALL WITH TEXT (ANDROID™ ONLY)
CALENDAR
WEATHER
BATTERY SAVER (CUSTOMIZABLE LOW POWER WATCH)
CONTROLS SMARTPHONE MUSIC
PLAYS AND CONTROLS WATCH MUSIC
MUSIC STORAGE
up to 650 songs
FIND MY PHONE
FIND MY WATCH
SMARTPHONE COMPATIBILITY
iPhone®, Android™
PAIRS WITH GARMIN GOLF APP
PAIRS WITH GARMIN CONNECT™ MOBILE
GARMIN PAY™
BLUETOOTH PHONE CALLING AND VOICE ASSISTANT SUPPORT
Safety and Tracking Features
LIVETRACK
INCIDENT DETECTION DURING SELECT ACTIVITIES
ASSISTANCE
Activity Tracking Features
STEP COUNTER
MOVE BAR (DISPLAYS ON DEVICE AFTER A PERIOD OF INACTIVITY; WALK FOR A COUPLE OF MINUTES TO RESET IT)
AUTO GOAL (LEARNS YOUR ACTIVITY LEVEL AND ASSIGNS A DAILY STEP GOAL)
As you’d expect from a Garmin watch, the Venu 2 Plus is a superb sports watch! One of the Venu 2’s best new features was the addition of on-screen muscle maps, which show which body parts you’ve been working recently, plus animated Pilates and yoga workouts that you can follow in real time. It really makes the most of the watch’s big AMOLED screen, and although there are only three Pilates and three yoga sessions to follow at the moment, we’re hopeful that more will arrive with a future firmware update. One of really best smartwatches, the Garmin Venu 2, has received a big update with the addition of a microphone that allows you to make and receive calls from your wrist, and access your phone’s voice assistant. It’s a smart addition that really adds a lot to this all-purpose smartwatch’s functionality, whether you’re working out or not. In all other respects, this is the same excellent sports-focused watch as before, though this time there’s only a single case size. That and the lack of wireless charging are minor quibbles though, and if it’s within your budget then we highly recommend adding the Venu 2 Plus to your shortlist when you’re shopping for a smartwatch that you can wear all day. From durable Corning Gorilla Glass 3 to the sleek stainless steel bezel and comfortable silicone band, this Garmin Venu 2 Plus smartwatch is very strong and powerful.
