Believe it or not, I went through a few Garmin watches before I felll in love with this one. Did not love the Forerunner series because I wanted a nice looking every day watch. Tried out the 43mm Fenix 8, too much watch for me, bulky and built like a tank. As a petite woman I felt it was to rugged looking. Settled on the Venu 4 silver body and couldn't be happier with both appearance and functionality.
Like the title says, the heart rate monitor is incredibly inaccurate. For example, my peak heart rate during a 45 minute HIIT class will generally show to be less than 110. This tracker also has so many features it's hard to get it set up the way you want. Been wearing it for about a month and have yet to figure it out. Also the intensity minutes tracker is totally pointless since my heart rate tracker is inaccurate. I miss my old fitness tracker. Wish I hadn't spent so much on this thing!
The Venu 4 does so many things but could use a few refinements. Full Maps at this price point would be nice and the ECG function is entertaining more than useful. Afib is the only thing it checks for, I have a Ventricular arrhythmia I was hoping I could monitor with this. It is visible on the ECG report but Garmin says it is a “normal sinus rhythm” when it clearly is not.
I got this as an upgrade to my fenix 6. The color on the screen is way better and the touchscreen and morning/evening reports are the features I didn't know I was missing before. The battery power is great. It probably will be less than my fenix for super long races but with a portable charger it would be fine. What would be perfect is if Garmin could change the charger to USB-C for better/easier charging on the go without the cable getting easily disconnected
A was gifted this watch for Christmas after dropping a few hints. My Venu 2 was beat up and needed replacing. The Venu 4 has more functionality. I measured cardio against a high end home rower and it was spot on. The stroke rate reading was very close. This watch has more features and is very customizable. Very happy with it!
The watch has a lot of great upgrades from the Venu 4. Rating it 4 stars because I lost the ability to reply back to text messages with simple premade text responses. I have an iPhone. The Bluetooth also disconnects from my phone when it’s in the other side of the house, I never had that issue with the Venu 1.
I shouldn’t have to miss out on a few features just because something is an upgrade.
I have been using my Garmin Venu 4 for the past 4 weeks. I love it. The battery life, the sharpe screen and the ease of use make this my best fitness tool ever.