Garmin 010-02427-00 Venu Sq, GPS Smartwatch with Bright Touchscreen Display, Up to 6 Days of Battery Life, Slate Aluminum Bezel with Shadow Gray Case and Slate Silicone Band

I like Garmin watches because I am more concerned with tracking exercise and health than I am smart watch functions. This is my 3rd Garmin, and the best so far. My previous watches had an LCD screen with backlight. This is OLED, which is much better. The negative is unlike my Vivoactive 3, the screen is not on all the time. But when I set the screen timeout to “long”, it is not too bad. Comes on with a wrist gesture pretty reliably (or a double tap.)As for text messages, I can actually read the entire message, not just the first sentence as with the Vivoactive. You can pick from a list of canned short replies, but I usually just go to my phone to respond. Notifies me of my sports teams via the CBS app on my phone.Battery is pretty decent. For normal use it will probably average five days for me, much better than the Vivoactive. I just could not stomach getting a Samsung watch and being lucky to go a full day of use. I’m a 24/7 watch wearer (I love the sleep tracking.)If I use the GPS, the battery will drain roughly 10% for a 35 minute walk or run. If you turn on the pulseOX overnight, it will drain about 25% of the battery overnight. No reason to keep pulseox turned on, so I recommend trying it every now and then to track your sleep. Good news is I don’t have sleep apnea.When I charged from about 25%, it took a little over an hour to get to 100%.GPS takes a second to come on, so I recommend having your finger on the start button as soon as it locks in. Seems to work like my other Garmin watches.Heart rate monitor is a little more reliable than the Vivoactive, but any wrist based monitor is not going to be incredibly reliable.I like the Garmin app, which is free to use. I can go back years and check past days, for instance when I rode the Seattle to Portland bike ride four years ago.Biggest negative for me is the notification vibration is barely there, even at the "high" setting. Maybe they can update the software.

I have literally one complaint about this product and that was fixed by adding an app to it. But first,the good. this is really a great fitness tracker. I had been a Fitbit user for several years and was always disappointed for one or many reasons. I had multiple versas that were replaced because they would simply stop working after a period of time and I don't know why it took me so long to just try a different brand. well here I am to say I'm thoroughly satisfied. the connectivity is great I have never had a problem with it connecting to my phone and it always quickly updates my activities to the app. An issue I consistently had with the versa. After a month or so they would just stop connecting to my phone and I would have to go through this whole process of turning on and off Bluetooth and restarting and sometimes it wouldn't connect for days. The venu provides a huge amount of information. I find the heart rate tracker to be super accurate. I don't know about the sleep because I'm not awake when I'm asleep to know exactly how well it tracks! Honestly I'm not 100% certain about the step tracker either during every day activities. My fitbits always told me I had A LOT of steps at the end of the day and this one definitely has less. Quite honestly I'm more apt to believe this one is the more accurate since it doesn't count me styling my hair or doing dishes as steps. GPS connects really quickly when I use it for walks or hiking and stays connected. My only gripe is that this didn't have a hiking option which seemed like it would be a no-brainer. I have just used the walking feature when on hikes and when you are climbing Hills it a lot of times thinks you are stopped because you're not moving forward if the hill is too steep. The walking feature also doesn't track elevation. However, I downloaded a hiking app (hike 2+) and although it is definitely no frills as far as the way it looks it has so much information and a ton of metrics. It even tells you what time the sun sets which to be honest is a great feature especially in the winter months when you need to know how much more daylight you have so you can get out of the woods. Overall I'm very pleased with the venu and the price point is on par with that! Definitely recommend!

I've had this watch for 3 years now. The pros and cons have stayed the same since the day I got it.Pros:-The most rugged sturdy watch I've ever seen. I'm a fly fisherman and avid hiker. This watch has been submerged in fresh and salt water an innumerable amount of times. Smashed against boulders, door frames, and chewed on by a 6mo old. Been in 120+ to -10 degrees F weather. It still runs the way it did when I got it. Couldn't ask for more from a fitness watch.- customizable to the point I'd need. Phone app lets you change what is priority for workouts and fitness and what is not. Also let's you select quick swipe options and such.- watch band is the same one since three years ago. This is hands down the most durable watch band I've seen. Like I said I use this daily and I'm rough terrain. The band is faded but still functioning well without issue.-battery life still lasts 5-7 days depending on activity.Cons:-kind of slow. With multiple updates over the years I'd hoped it'd speed up but it hasn't. It's not terrible but it is noticeable. Moving from screen to screen has about a 0.25-1 second delay. It may sound minimal but becomes a nuisance when you have to swipe 3-4 screens.-GPS is kind of false advertising. It only has gps connected to your phone. So really no phone signal means no GPS. This wouldn't be a problem if it connected to my Garmin In Reach Messenger, but it doesn't. I don't see a reason to limit Bluetooth connectivity to specific GPS devices like the messager. Connectivity between devices seems to be paywall gated by the higher end watches which seems lame sauce.Overall, still happy with my purchase after all these years. If I had more cash at the time it would've been worth it to get a watch twice the price just for GPS connectivity. If you're not worried about GPS you can't go wrong with this watch.