Garmin Venu 3 Review: Battery Life for Days
The Garmin Venu 3's stellar battery life and a wide variety of health tracking features make it stand out.
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I have a gripe about the Garmin Venu 3: I never know when to take it off. OK, that's not actually a complaint; it's a pleasant problem to have, but you get the point. The $450 (£450, AU$749) Venu 3 may have the longest battery life of any smartwatch I've tested, lasting for about a week on a single charge.
That alone is enough to leave a strong impression. Battery life aside, Garmin's latest Venu watch checks a lot of the boxes I'd want from a smartwatch at this price, and then some. With a wide selection of health metrics and workout types combined with useful recovery advice and in-depth sleep data, the Venu 3 is clearly made for those who prioritize fitness, wellness (and battery life) most in a smartwatch.
Pros
- Long battery life
- Comprehensive health and sleep metrics
- Helpful reports and insights like Body Battery and Morning Report
- Large screen
- No subscription required to access health metrics and reports
Cons
- Design doesn't feel as premium as other similarly priced watches
- Small app ecosystem
- Slow app downloads
- Separate apps for managing health insights and watch faces
- No home button
When it comes to the "smart" side of smartwatches, Garmin still has catching up to do. All the basics are there, such as the ability to browse notifications and access voice assistants, but Garmin's app ecosystem is still lacking compared to the cheaper $399 Apple Watch Series 9. The operating system also isn't as intuitive as the software on the Apple Watch, Google Pixel Watch and Samsung Galaxy Watch, which is probably fine for longtime Garmin fans but may result in a learning curve for first-time users.
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With so many watches to choose from, it can be difficult to know exactly how the Venu 3 fits into Garmin's lineup. Given its price and selection of features, it feels like Garmin's answer to the Apple Watch. The Venu 3 both succeeds and falls short in the ways that you might expect compared to watches from Apple and Samsung. Those companies know a thing or two about designing slick software but haven't been making wearables for athletes for nearly as long as Garmin.
Garmin Venu 3 interface and design
The Garmin Venu 3 comes in two sizes, the 45-millimeter regular Venu 3 and the 41-millimeter Venu 3S. I've been wearing the standard Venu 3, which is slightly large for my taste but also doesn't look unnatural on my wrist. The Venu 3 has a stainless steel bezel but the case is made from fiber-reinforced polymer, which doesn't feel quite as premium as the aluminum finishes on the Apple Watch Series 9 or Pixel Watch 2.
The round AMOLED screen is colorful and easy to see, and I appreciate that Garmin utilizes most of the watch face for showing statistics and other bits of data, unlike the Pixel Watch 2 which has noticeably chunky borders. That said, Garmin's watch faces are a bit busy for my liking, although I enjoy being able to see so many stats and miniature graphs at a glance.
Garmin's operating system can take a little getting used to, especially if you're an Apple Watch convert like me. Swiping up or down from the clock face will show your glances, which are little bits of data that you can tap into to get more details, such as steps, sleep coach and notifications among others. You can also edit your glances to swap out the types of data you want to see at a glance (no pun intended).
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Three buttons are situated along the outward-facing side of the watch. Pressing the top one pulls up your activities and apps, the second one shows your recently viewed apps and glances, and the third one serves as a back navigation button.
These buttons also have secondary actions that you can trigger by long-pressing each one. The top button pulls up various shortcuts to controls like do not disturb, volume, brightness and the ability to ping your phone if it's nearby. The middle button launches your phone's voice assistant with a long press, and the third provides access to settings.
That's a lot to remember, and I found myself occasionally tapping and holding the wrong buttons. The Garmin Venu 3 also lacks a dedicated home key, meaning there's no simple way to get back to the main clock face with just a tap or swipe.
One of my favorite aspects of the user interface is the customizable shortcut, which you can access by swiping from left to right on the clock face. I set mine as a 30-second timer, which I use frequently when stretching before a workout.
The Garmin Venu 3 has all the fitness and wellness features you'd expect in a smartwatch.
Garmin Venu 3 health and activity tracking
Unsurprisingly, health and activity tracking is where the Venu 3 shines. You'll find the standard array of health and wellness metrics, like the ability to take an ECG, heart rate, heart rate variability, blood oxygen monitoring, stress tracking, the ability to send high and low heart rate alerts and temperature tracking, which can be used to monitor changes in skin temperature overnight.
What really stood out to me is how Garmin ties these findings together through its Body Battery feature, which isn't exclusive to the Venu 3 but does set Garmin apart from its competitors. Body Battery shows how rested or recharged you are on a given day based on your workouts, activity and sleep.
Similar to Oura's Readiness Score, Garmin's Body Battery connects the dots between these factors to provide advice about whether today should be a workout day or a rest day. You can also view a graph showing how your Body Battery level changed throughout the day based on periods of rest and stress, and the Garmin Connect app allows you to view Body Battery stats from the past four weeks.
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The Venu 3 will also occasionally serve up notifications showing how your periods of rest or activity are contributing to your Body Battery. For example, after sitting on the couch for a while after work, I received a notification saying that "long, restful moments" like these can help improve my Body Battery and "balance periods of stress."
It's these tidbits that tie together stress, activity and rest that made me appreciate using the Venu 3 over the Apple Watch Series 9. While Apple gets a lot of things right, it lags behind Garmin and others when it comes to providing workout recovery and sleep insights.
There is a wide variety of workout types to choose from, including basics like running and biking to badminton, baseball, mixed martial arts and ice hockey. You can also edit which types of metrics are displayed on the watch during a workout, which lets you personalize the experience. I swapped out one metric on the indoor cycling screen to show calories, for example.
It sometimes felt like the Venu 3 was slow to connect to GPS during outdoor walks. In a couple of instances, I had to exit the Walk activity and open it again to establish a connection. The Venu 3 generally matched readings from my chest strap heart rate monitor during a cycling workout, although there were times when it lagged behind the chest strap while switching between heart rate zones. Both the Venu 3 and my chest strap delivered similar readings when determining my average heart rate throughout the workout.
The Garmin Venu 3 lasted for about a week on a single charge.
Garmin Venu 3 battery life and sleep tracking
The Venu 3's long battery life is its best attribute. Garmin's watch lasted for about a full week during my time using it, which is impressive for a smartwatch. By comparison, I only get one to two days out of the Apple Watch Series 9 and Google Pixel Watch 2. The battery lasted so long that I had a hard time figuring out when I should actually take off the watch and let my wrist breathe.
Garmin claims 14 days of battery life, but that applies when using it in smartwatch mode. I often used the watch to track workouts (like outdoor walks, indoor cycling, etc.) and to monitor my sleep. I also turned on the always-on display and automatic workout detecting after a few days of use, both of which can shorten battery life. Unfortunately, automatic activity detection wasn't activated by default on my Venu 3, but I was easily able to turn it on in the watch's settings menu.
Overall, the Venu 3's long battery life makes it ideal for sleep tracking. In addition to measuring sleep stages, you can see your overnight heart rate variability, how many restless moments you had, how your sleep contributed to your Body Battery and more.
The Garmin Venu 3's sleep coaching is very useful.
Garmin also issues a sleep score that assesses the quality of your sleep along with a description to help you break down that score. For example, after recently receiving a sleep score of 71, the app noted that my sleep was shorter than ideal but applauded that it was a continuous rest. It also added that my activity from the day helped my sleep quality. Oura and Fitbit provide similar readings, but such insights require a paid subscription. Apple's sleep tracking, meanwhile, isn't nearly as comprehensive.
Garmin also has a sleep coach who advises you on changes that should be made to your sleep schedule, which can be helpful for knowing when it's time to hit the sack.
I also found Garmin's Morning Report to be convenient and useful. As the name implies, Garmin provides a wrist-sized snapshot summarizing what you need to know to start your day, such as the weather, your sleep score and your Body Battery level.
It's not just about how you're sleeping overnight; the Venu 3 can also detect naps and factor them into your overall Body Battery level. While the watch accurately detected and logged a 30-minute nap, some of my naps didn't register. You can also set the watch to log a nap manually before you start snoozing.
Overall, I'm really pleased with how comprehensive Garmin's sleep tracking is, and the way it ties these details into broader insights.
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The Garmin Venu 3 has many "smart" features, but the experience isn't as polished as what you'd get on the Apple Watch.
Garmin Venu 3 smart features
The Garmin Venu 3 is certainly a smartwatch, but that feels like a secondary function. It has all of the basics, such as call, voice assistant functionality, the ability to ping your misplaced phone if it's nearby and text and app notifications from your phone. If you have an Android phone, you can also respond to text messages on the watch.
There aren't as many apps for the Garmin Venu 3 as there are for the Apple Watch Series 9 or Pixel Watch, which may be a sticking point for those who appreciate the option to use apps for their favorite airline or coffee shop from the wrist. You can load music onto the watch through services like Spotify, Deezer and Amazon Music, but it took a long time for apps to download. Spotify got stuck in a download queue before working with my watch, and the same thing happened when I tried installing the navigation app Maps4Garmin.
It's also worth mentioning that you have to use two separate apps to manage Venu 3: Garmin Connect, which serves as the home for your health stats, and Garmin IQ, which is essentially Garmin's store for apps and watch faces. Being able to view my health stats and download new watch faces from the same app would be a more seamless experience.
Garmin isn't alone on this front. There are three separate apps associated with the Apple Watch: Apple Health (the hub for all sorts of health data), Fitness (the app for logging workouts and accessing Apple Fitness Plus) and Watch (for managing settings, watch faces and software updates).
The voice assistant functionality on the Venu 3 is sufficient but not as refined as what you'd get on a device like the Apple Watch or Pixel Watch. Garmin's smartwatch essentially serves as a remote control for the voice assistant on your phone. This became evident when I set an alarm using Venu 3's voice assistant only to have it set my phone's alarm rather than buzzing my wrist.
The Garmin Venu 3 impresses overall with its long battery life and wide selection of health features.
Garmin Venu 3 overall thoughts
The Garmin Venu 3 shines for its long battery life and comprehensive health and sleep tracking. If you primarily want a smartwatch for building better sleep habits and tracking workouts and care less about having apps on your wrist, the Venu 3 shouldn't disappoint. The Venu 3's battery life is long enough to easily monitor sleep for multiple days without having to sacrifice daytime activity tracking to charge your watch.
Apple, Google and Samsung have built more polished user interfaces that might make their watches more manageable for those who are new to the smartwatch world, especially Garmin watches. If the idea of cleaner watch faces, more premium designs, sophisticated smartphone companion features (like deeper integration with voice assistants) and bigger app stores sounds more appealing to you, then you're better off with an Apple Watch, Pixel Watch or Samsung Galaxy Watch.
The Venu 3's battery life is hard to beat, and that alone makes it stand out from the pack.