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

Benefits

• One week battery life in smartwatch mode

• Polished circular design

• Advanced fitness and recovery metrics

Disadvantages

• $100 more than the previous generation

• Software may seem slow

• The user interface is not as intuitive as other smartwatches

Until the Garmin Venu 4 landed on my wrist, I was mostly hesitant to use dedicated sports watches from brands like Garmin or Polar as my daily driver. This was partly due to imposter syndrome; I’m a fitness enthusiast, not (yet) a full-fledged athlete. But most of all, I wasn’t willing to accept the compromises that came with them: clunky software, limited smart features, and designs that looked more like gym equipment than something I’d want to wear all day.

The Venu 4 isn’t the only beautiful sports watch on the market, but it’s the first one that almost convinced me to go all-in. It’s comprehensive (literally and figuratively) and packed with fitness features that don’t seem condescending to a budding athlete like me.

The boundary between sports watches and traditional watches smart watches seems to get fuzzier every year. Apple and Samsung now have robust Ultra smart watch lines and sports watches are starting to look (and act) more like traditional smartwatches.

The Venu 4 appears to be Garmin’s strongest attempt yet to bridge these two worlds. It goes all out on fitness features with advanced information like workout preparation and suggested workouts usually reserved for high-end Fēnix models, but has an affordable design and price for people who live between a casual fitness enthusiast and a budding athlete.

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

I may not be a complete convert (yet), but after weeks of living with it day and night with the Venu 4, I’m obsessed with Garmin and can see how a sports watch could help me improve my fitness journey when I’m ready.

Venu 4 fitness: Garmin’s strong point

The Venu 4 supports what feels like every workout imaginable, from running and cycling to rowing, HIIT, and even mapping a golf course. It supports multi-band GPS, which I found provides more accurate location tracking, even when running errands without my phone. The heart rate tracker stayed incredibly close to my Polar chest strap after the initial jump from rest to higher-intensity sprinting.

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

On their own, these measures can seem overwhelming, even meaningless. What Garmin does particularly well is connect the dots with features like Body Battery, Training Readiness, Load, and other recovery information that translate raw data into a clearer picture of your body’s readiness for activity. And because you’re not constantly taking it off to recharge, Garmin can build a more complete picture of your health and recovery that becomes more accurate over time.

I found that waking up with a low Body Battery score while feeling terrible was both depressing and validating: no, I probably can’t just “get rid of this one,” and yes, I should probably take a day off (or two) before returning to that New Year’s resolution.

The watch also highlights times when you’re theoretically at your best for training, even if real life doesn’t always cooperate. There’s no greater irony than how I’m willing to work out to the max while rocking my toddler to sleep, or scrambling to get a story done on time. This ultimately is my biggest obstacle to fully integrating into the Garmin ecosystem. I’m not always able to follow the advice that makes these measurements more valuable.

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

Venu 4 battery life: amazing for a smartwatch, but good for a Garmin

The Venu 4’s shiny new improvements (brighter screen and improved GPS tracking over the Venu 3) come at a slight cost in battery life: you get 12 days on the Venu 4 compared to 14 on the Venu 3. But I think it’s worth it when you take everything else into account.

I averaged about 10 days of battery life per charge for the smallest 41mm Venu 4 I tested. But it’s in smartwatch mode, which disables the always-on display. If, like me, you prefer the always-on display, battery life decreases. I got about four days on a charge (a little less on long hiking days when the GPS worked). It’s not quite multi-week endurance like Garmin’s Enduro or Instinct lines. But even at the low end, the Venu 4 is still much better than most Apple and Samsung watches.

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

The downside of non-stop wearing was skin irritation. After about five consecutive days, the skin directly under the watch became red and irritated. I tried to get out of it, which only made things worse. A perfect winter storm, a weakened immune system, and the polymer backing underneath the watch probably didn’t help matters. After taking a week off, cleaning more regularly, and giving my skin an occasional break, the problem didn’t return. And if you have sensitive skin like me, it’s probably worth taking a break.

Venu 4 design: This is no ordinary sports watch

The Venu 4 is hands down one of the nicest watches I’ve tested (Note: I didn’t say sports watches). It even received 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 display and a stainless steel body in Lunar Gold, Slate, or Silver finishes. It is 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 seems smaller than expected. The Venu 4’s screen is bright and readable 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. This is why physical button navigation is so important.

Garmin reduced the design to two physical buttons (the Venu 3 had 3). One button displays navigation, while the other handles quick settings. A long press of 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 great feature. This is a real light built into the side of the watch, not a screen-based workaround like that found on other smartwatches. It’s surprisingly powerful and incredibly useful, whether you’re running an ultramarathon or, in my case, checking on a sleeping child without turning on any lights.

The basics of the Venu 4 watch: functional, but not transparent

On paper, the Venu 4 ticks most of the smartwatch boxes. It offers notifications, mobile payments via Garmin Pay, music storage, voice assistant access (via your phone), and supports calling from your wrist. Android phone owners get the added benefit of responding to text messages from the watch; iPhone owners are out of luck.

In my testing, this is where Garmin still lags behind real smartwatches. Everything works, but it’s not transparent; Simple actions often require 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 benefit is cross-platform compatibility, and aside from the ability to reply 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 time and health data, hourly audio alerts, and several color filters for people who are colorblind.

Come 4: Final Thoughts

I’m still a practical generalist in the throes of active motherhood, but the Garmin Venu 4 is the closest thing to a full-featured sports watch. If I was ready to make fitness a real priority, the Venu 4 would be my gateway Garmin watch.

It’s a solid choice for anyone looking to get into the world of sports watches 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, workout information that feels genuinely helpful rather than overwhelming, and a design polished enough to be date-ready.