Garmin Venu Sq Music Edition GPS Smartwatch with All-day Health Monitoring and Fitness Features, Built-in Sports Apps and More, Light Sand with Rose Gold Bezel

Things that are good:1 battery life - after one week of a full charge there was still 35% left2 watch face - you can customise the watch face - I have 4 different readings on mine - see pic3 Easy to transfer from old Garmin watch to new one4 great health monitoring5 all my notifications are clearly displayedThings that could be better1 Watch strap - I have "man-sized" wrists. Its a snug rather than generous fit. Material is not a problem as some have reported2 You need to downlowd the manual to get the best out of the myriad of capabilities it has3 There are so many thinsg it can do, you spend quite along time to switch them off unless youa re a keen sportsman, eg i turned off golf, sking, etceteraSuggestion:1 My last Garmin stopped functioning properly as it ingested dust via the buttons. I bought a complete watch cover on Amazon [see pic]. A 3-pack is about £10 well worth it

I’ve had this just over a week now, long enough I think to form some worthwhile impressions.I’ve had a Fitbit One for around 10 years and found it valuable for what it does. What it does, that I liked, was sit in my pocket, count steps and count the equivalent of flights of stairs as well. It was also totally reliable until recently when the battery has started to fail. What I really wanted was a replacement that was just the same. I don’t like to have to wear a step counter on my wrist. It’s a nuisance and they all look cheap and tacky compared to a good quality watch.A bit of internet searching left me with the certainty that no one does a Fitbit One equivalent that’s worth buying. So I started looking at wearable fitness ‘watches’.Fitbit Charge 4 was my first choice but the reviews, not only of that item but of most other Fitbit stuff, suggested accuracy, long-term reliability, and poor customer service were repeating issues. So my search ended on this Garmin Venu Sq. Not at all what I wanted, but as close as I could get.It’s nicely packaged and arrived with a 50% battery charge so that was nice too. Nothing to assemble. Quick set up with the screens on the watch itself. I was wearing it, counting steps, and observing heart rate before I’d even looked at my phone. This itself was very pleasing. There is so much expensive stuff that arrives, you unpack it, all excited, and then have to faff around looking for a phone and downloading apps before anything will work.There is an app that goes with this so you can do the phone stuff if you want to, and you need the app if you want a watch face other than the default that comes with the watch. The app provides additional functionality as it should. But the watch works without it. The phone app keeps track of health stats and ‘challenges’ and watch your health progress. I love all that stuff, because I find it motivates me.The first thing that annoyed me about the Venu Sq (and several things annoy me about the Venu). Was the that the default watch face just tells the time. I have to scroll to see my step count - which is all I’m really interested in. I’ve had to download another watch face just to get the key information - heart rate and steps - on view as soon as I look at the watch.I don’t have especially thick wrists but there’s only a little bit of strap left after threading through the buckle. My wristwatch with a metal bracelet is comfy and I forget I’m wearing it. The strap on this Venu is plasticky and I’m aware of it clinging to my wrist all the time. It’s not heavy, just doesn’t have a good skin contact feel. I imagine that in the summer it’s going to get sticky underneath it. So why on earth it’s intended for wear 24 hours a day I’ve no idea. I’ve sacrificed sleep tracking for the pleasure of removing it when I go to bed.This watch has a touch sensitive screen you have no choice but to touch (even though the watch has buttons on the side) to scroll through options. The touch sensitive screen is not very touch sensitive. Sometimes it works quickly and efficiently, sometimes it seems that it is ignoring a touch, while in actuality it’s just thinking about it for a while. One screen with three ‘suns’ on keeps appearing, I swipe to get rid of it and all that happens is I change what’s highlighted and the screen stubbornly stays where it is. It is the single most frustrating thing I’ve found so far.You can tell the Venu Sq your favourite forms of exercise and get it to record those activities specifically. For me there’s only one, walking. To track a walk goes like this: press top button once, press top button again, wait for GPS to lock on, when it’s locked, and this can take a couple of hundred yards of walking before it starts tracking, you have to press the button yet again to get it to start recording. So I’ve got three button presses and an indeterminate wait to record a walk as a specific exercise period and if I miss on any one of these actions only the steps are counted because the watch does that anyway.Step accuracy while walking is excellent. It matches my mental count within one or two steps over 100 paces. But this watch does seem to record arm movements too (something that doesn’t happen with a Fitbit One in my pocket). I put the watch on this morning, didn’t move my feet, and by the time I’d finished brushing my hair I’d apparently done 32 steps. This throws the daily count accuracy into question and gives a reason why my daily step counts are a good bit higher than with my Fitbit.One thing I love is the map that shows me where I walked. You get a diddy one on the watch face, and a very detailed one on the app. The app version shows pace in different colours and shows elevation changes on a graph. There is also a graph of pulse changes too. Great fun to see where the going was a bit harder.Battery life seems ok, though I haven’t fully sussed that out yet. Using GPS for exercise logging takes a big chunk out of the battery life, using the Venu Sq purely as a step counter with occasional checks during the day, I’m only losing 2-3% of battery a day. I suspect that if you switched on GPS for a full day’s hiking then you might have battery problems. The charging cable is a bit on the short side.The watch itself detects wrist movement so it switches on the display when you lift your wrist to eye. This works most of the time, sometimes is a bit slow, and sometimes needs a tap to wake it up.What I like:Bright screen, accurate step count while walking, choice of watch faces, pulse rate monitor, the map of my walk.What I don’t like:Strap, counts some arm movements as steps, touch screen frequently fails to respond to first touch, too fiddly to start to record a walk.If you really need something to wear to help you with your fitness goals then this might not be the best, but it’s certainly acceptable and a lot more affordable than big name smartwatches. For me it has a lot of niggles, but nothing I can’t live with. For me it’s the best from a bunch where nothing does what I want or is as good as I want and on that basis I’m quite happy with my purchase.

I have had this watch for about 30 days now and this is my insight;Originally I wanted to get Fitbit but reading all the reviews about its problems with sync and strap quality I changed my mind. Didn't want to pay too much for the watch but get something accurate (I am not fussed about notifications or texting or calling through watch).Garmin has a good name and price didn't seem bad so here we are.When the watch came it looked bulkier then expected but it is surprisingly lightweight! Also the strap it comes with, well let's just say I can see why a proper replacement for it is around £35. It is so comfortable that you won't even know you are wearing it!There is a minus to this watch though.. I did nearly gave up on it the very first day as trying to update it, set it up and sync it with my phone (Samsung S21FE) was a nightmare.. something that should not have been this difficult. After multiple restarts of the watch and multiple installations of Connect and Connect IQ it finally decided to work (thank god for my boyfriend's patience as I would have struggled on my own).Now 2nd day of it working, pinging when I spent money, notifying me how far delivery is, telling me my set goal for steps is reached feels fun and it makes me smile but on more serious note it is amazing watch.Tracks heart rate well without the need of you wearing it real tight (heart monitor compared with my bf's Samsung watch4), it tracks sleep, body battery which to me is quiet interesting and when your stress is high the screen will vibrate allerting you and it asks you if you want to take a breathing exercise to lower it now. That is something I find quiet amazing and very useful as I am naturally anxious person and my heart rate is rather high probably due to lock down and post lock down lazyness more then anything else.The only other minus I would give it is the fact that the alarm is rather gentle vibration even when set on the highest level. I am not sure it will wake me up when I am really tired but will test that this week.Overall points;- Lengthy and stressful set up and sync- alarm vibration might be too gentle+Accurate tracking of health stats+Body battery+Stress level tracking with offer of breath exercises+Super lightweight+ Very comfortable+Notification options (can be switched of easily, also options of fluid intake reminders and 'take a break to move' for sedimentary jobs)+Built in music player+Find my phone button+Screen that is easily visible even when in bright sunAfter the rocky start I think this watch is well worth a try.Wrote initial review on 2nd June, added PS on 30th JunePS: Stress level count is way off (sipping cocktail by the pool in 27degrees heat on holiday when the watch said my stress level is unusually high..I don't think so..)On more serious note, Yes, well worth it! Glad I persevered through the set up! Also good for swimming (tested in swimming pool, just don't forget to wash it off in drinking water and regularly desinfect the watch as well as your skin under the strap to prevent any irritation)