1. Garmin Venu Apps
2. Best Garmin Venu Watch Face
3. Watch Faces For Garmin Venu
4. How To Change Garmin Venu Watch Face
5. Garmin Venu Sq Watch Face Options Reviews

Garmin's first cheap multisport watch in years is a win. The Venu Sq offers 95% of what made the original Venu so great. It's a step down in build quality and the display isn't as. Or again, you can just go to the Garmin Connect IQ app store and download one of a gazillion watch faces. Well, eventually. Right now the Venu SQ is actually one of the fairly rare Garmin watches that’s got a rectangular watch face, versus the round faces that have proliferated Garmin devices over the last few years since the Garmin FR920XT days. In the below instructions, we show you how to smoothly change time in GARMIN Venu Sq. If you are looking for the time settings in order to manage time settings in your GARMIN device, follow the presented tutorial and set up current time in GARMIN Venu Sq successfully.

Garmin Venu Sq review TL;DR: a well-priced fitness smartwatch from Garmin for fans of Garmin watches that could also lure in some of Apple Watch and Fitbit’s audiences.

I really enjoyed using the Garmin Venu Sq. It looks pretty snazzy, and even considering the comparatively small screen, it's easy to use and work with. The Venu Sq uses a similar widget system to other Garmin watches, such as the Garmin Forerunner 745 and the Garmin Forerunner 245, so navigating around in the menus and the app was a familiar experience for me.

It was when I received a review sample of the new Fitbit Versa 3 when the ball dropped: I didn't like the Garmin Venu Sq because it was a good fitness tracker, I liked it because it was a good Garmin fitness tracker. The menu and widget screens of the Venu Sq are tailored for more casual users but unlike on a Fitbit, they were not designed from the ground up for them.

This is the most apparent when you try to find data in the Garmin Connect app. Although the dashboard shows the basic stats and you can even customise the view, there is a definite emphasis on physical activities here, understandably. That said, none of the data is hidden and all the health, wellness and lifestyle stats are only a couple of taps away. You’ll find as much health gamification here as in the Fitbit App, when you look.

Is the Garmin Venu Sq a good fitness tracker-cum-smartwatch? Trials in tainted space stats. For certain users, it might just be the best.

Garmin Venu Sq: price and availability

Available now, the Garmin Venu Sq is priced at £179.99 / $199 | AU$349 and the Venu Sq Music Edition is priced at £224.99 / $249.99 / AU$429. The the Garmin Venu Sq is available to buy at Garmin and selected third party retailers.

The standard Garmin Venu Sq is available in orchid/metallic orchid, white/light gold, and shadow grey/slate colourways.

The Garmin Venu Sq Music Edition is offered in light sand/rose gold, navy/light gold, moss/slate and black/slate colours.

Garmin Venu Sq review: design

The name is a giveaway here: the Garmin Venu Sq has a square watch face, influenced by the Apple Watch SE and the likes. It has a decent enough 1.3' display hidden under Corning Gorilla Glass 3 lens. The thick bezel is blends well with the display, making it feel like the screen is bigger than it really is. Thanks partially to the fibre-reinforced polymer case, the Garmin Venu Sq weighs only 37.6 grams and sports a silicone strap that's comfortable to wear.

The display has a resolution of 240 x 240 pixels. The small-ish liquid crystal display of the Venu Sq is less vivid than the AMOLED screens found on the OG Garmin Venu and the Fitbit Versa 3, but sharp enough to use nevertheless.

The combination of a touchscreen and two physical buttons offers a not overly complicated navigation and thankfully, the touch controls are responsive and quick too. I found the responsiveness of the Zepp E snappier but that said, the interactions on the Garmin Venu Sq are not slow either.

Garmin Venu Sq review: features

The Gamin Venu Sq benefits from being a Garmin watch and comes fully equipped with both casual and sport features. Apart from the usual fitness tracker stuff, the Garmin Venu Sq also tracks and scores stress levels based on respiration and heart rate as well as providing you with a 'Body Battery' score that is visual representation of how much energy you have left each day.

Body Battery (BB) score is influenced by your sleep, something the Venu Sq also tracks automatically, as well as your activity levels and sport activities. For example, standing up from your desk every now and then to walk around a bit will increase the BB score whilst strenuous physical activity decreases it.

How to use microsoft media player for windows 10. The Garmin Venu Sq also tracks respiration and is equipped with a blood oxygen sensor which measures SpO2 numbers 24/7. There is a respiration tracker on the watch too and you can also do 'guided breathing sessions' using the Venu Sq, something that's included in most fitness wearables nowadays. Hydration can be tracked manually, should you want to.

Smart notifications are also supported by the Venu Sq so you can check messages, calendar appointments and also the weather. There is no smart assistant on board, like in the case of the Fitbit Versa 2 and 3, but the Venu Sq is Garmin Pay ready so you can use it in shops where contactless payments are accepted.

Garmin Venu Sq review: sport modes and tracking

Being a Garmin wearable, the Venu Sq leaves the competition in the dust when it comes to tracking physical activities. Not only it has more sport modes than other fitness trackers but it also utilises the immense amount of data Garmin gathered over the years to more accurately measure performance.

The Venu Sq has GPS built-in and should you choose the music version, you can also download music from Spotify to the watch and listen to it using the best running headphones. This feature works well and since you can synchronise music using WiFi, it doesn't take half a day to load some music onto the watch either.

I tracked runs and indoor rowing sessions using the Garmin Venu Sq and it worked pretty well. For example, when rowing, it displayed the same stroke rate as the rowing machine I was using at the time, the excellent NordicTrack RW900 smart rower. The GPS seems accurate enough and so does optical heart rate sensor. The GPS signal was picked up easily wasn't dropped when tracking outdoor runs.

Automatic sleep tracking also worked well straight away from the first time. Sleep length can be adjusted in the app too in order to increase tracking precision in the future. The Garmin Connect app doesn't provide any advice or recommendation to understand and improve sleep scores like other apps, it merely provides you with sleep data. Not like the advice in other apps helps much, to be fair.

Garmin Venu Sq review: battery life

Another area where the Garmin Venu Sq outdoes the competition is battery life. Well, not all the competition but definitely the Apple Watch and the Garmin Venu. The Venu Sq will last 'up to 6 days' in smartwatch mode and it can track 14 hours of sport activities with GPS turned on.

This is on par with the Fitbit Versa 3 which has an 'over 6 days' battery life in smartwatch mode and and 'up to 12 hours' in GPS mode. Considering that the Versa 3 has a bigger AMOLED screen, that's pretty impressive.

The Garmin Venu Sq uses the standard 4-pin Garmin charging cable.

Garmin Venu Sq review: verdict

The Garmin Venu Sq is a decent fitness smartwatch, especially considering the asking price. Some corners have been cut to keep the price down but nothing really spoils the experience too much.

The display is small but responsive and bright enough. The sensors are precise and uses Garmin's algorithm that's proven to give accurate readings, especially during high-heart rate exercise sessions. The watch's interface will be familiar to people who used Garmin watches before but even if you didn't, it's straightforward enough to use.

Would I recommend the Garmin Venu Sq over other fitness smartwatches such as the Fitbit Versa 3? I would, especially for active people who don't require the oversimplified, gamified health system of Fitbit, prefer a more mature approach and a watch that tracks a variety of health metrics in an Apple Watch-like body.

The price might not be much cheaper than the asking price for the Versa 3 but it's still somewhat cheaper and that might make the difference to some people. Regardless of the cheaper price, the Venu Sq has a bunch of premium features such as built-in GPS, blood oxygen/stress monitoring and sleep tracking. And measures it all with relative accuracy too.

Garmin Venu Sq review: also consider

Despite all the buzz around the Fitbit Sense, the Fitbit Versa 3 is likely to be the most popular new watch from Fitbit. It improved a lot of shortcomings of the Versa 2 and now comes with built-in GPS, two voice assistant options, a revamped UI and improved physical design. The new infinity band makes wearing the Versa 3 bearable for longer periods of time. All this for the same price as the Versa 2 and just a little bit more than the Garmin Venu Sq.

It remains a mystery why Garmin named its new watch Venu Sq as it hasn't got all that much in common with the original Garmin Venu. The latter has a large AMOLED screen and a shorter battery life and most of the lifestyle features found in the Venu Sq, but so does pretty much all other Garmin watches. The Gamin Venu makes full use of its large screen, using it to display animated, on-screen workouts.

If you’re willing to spend a bit more, the Apple Watch SE is the other obvious rival in the ‘lifestyle fitness watch‘ category. With a wealth of apps at its disposal and GPS and a heart rate sensor built in, it‘s easy to transform Apple’s more affordable Watch into a fitness powerhouse. It’s also way more stylish and slickly designed than the Venu Sq.

The $200 (£179, AU$300) Garmin Venu Sq has almost every fitness - and health-tracking feature you could want in a smartwatch for less than competitors like the Apple Watch and Fitbit Versa 3 . It has a bright LCD touchscreen, built-in GPS, SpO2 (blood oxygen) tracking and up to six days of battery life, which makes it a compelling buy, especially if you want a watch that's compatible with both Android and iOS.

It's not the most premium-looking smartwatch out there and it misses out on features like a voice assistant and altimeter, but it makes up for it in health and fitness features that elevate it from the rest.

Garmin Venu Apps

A functional watch without the wow factor

Like the name suggests, the Venu Sq has a square watch face with rounded edges, unlike the original Garmin Venu and almost every other Garmin sports watch with circular designs. Its 1.3-inch color LCD display feels a bit cramped compared to other Garmin watches, but it's clear and easy to read even in bright sunlight and you can keep the screen set to always-on. Having used the larger Garmin Venu for a while, the smaller size of the Venu Sq took a bit of getting used to, especially during workouts when I couldn't see as many stats at a glance and had to scroll to find the right metric like heart rate, which was all the way on the last page.

The overall build quality is sturdy enough thanks to an aluminum bezel, although the plastic case and buttons make it feel like a cheaper watch than it actually is, especially compared to something like the Apple Watch SE , Galaxy Watch Active 2 or Fitbit Versa 3 for example, which all have metal finishes and OLED displays. The Venu Sq has two side buttons: one to start/stop activities and the other to navigate back and forth between menus. Once I figured out which did what, it took me a few days to get completely comfortable using them to navigate the interface.

My biggest complaint with the Venu Sq's design is the vibration motor, which is not particularly strong. Half the time it was the buzzing noise, not the vibration itself, that clued me in on a notification.

Blood oxygen monitor and heart health alerts

Garmin's biggest strength is in health and fitness tracking, with the Venu Sq squarely hitting the mark. It has an SpO2 sensor to identify blood oxygen levels, either as a spot check or automatically throughout the day and night, similar to the $399 Apple Watch Series 6 . Although setting it to monitor constantly will reduce battery life a lot faster. It's also hard to find the SpO2 option in the menus and I found that adding it as a widget in the settings is the best way to get it to pop up on your wrist.

Unfortunately I didn't have a pulse oximeter to compare the readings from the Venu Sq to determine accuracy. Either way, it's important to note that the Venu Sq has not been approved to be used as a medical device and should not be used for diagnostic purposes. Always consult with a physician or other qualified health provider about any health-related issues you may have about a medical condition or health objectives.

Though the Venu Sq doesn't have an ECG, or electrocardiogram, like the Apple Watch Series 6 and Galaxy Watch 3 , it does give you the option to receive high and low heart rate notifications that will let you know if your heart rate spikes above or falls below what it considers to be a healthy threshold.

The Venu Sq also uses heart rate variability to determine your stress levels, but doesn't really offer much guidance on how to decrease your stress. I found Garmin's Body Battery meter, which takes into account heart rate variability readings, activity levels and sleep, a more accurate representation of how my body was working that day and helped me decide what kind of workout to do and how hard to push myself. It works better than the Stress Management Score in the Fitbit Sense that is a bit more difficult to interpret for me.

Garmin also offers breathing rate and estimated VO2 max, the maximum amount of oxygen your body can use during exercise, which can be used to gauge and improve athletic performance. The higher the number, the more fit you are.

Sleep tracking is also great on the Venu Sq and clearly identifies your sleep stages of REM, deep and light sleep. You'll also be able to see breathing rate and SpO2 levels in the morning. The downside is that the Garmin Connect app doesn't give you any tips on improving your sleep quality. Menstrual cycle tracking is also available on the Venu Sq and like other Garmin watches, it offers pregnancy tracking to log symptoms and monitor baby movement.

The Venu Sq has a range of workouts preloaded onto the watch, including cardio, strength, Pilates and yoga, so you can follow along with a preset routine on your wrist. There aren't any visual cues on the screen though, just text cues, so if you're doing yoga for example, you'll need to know what 'standing forward bend pose' or 'low lunge pose' means to get the most out of the routine. You can also build your own workout, such as a circuit of weights, a Pilates routine or a run, within the Garmin Connect app and sync them to the watch. There are also over 50 additional Garmin-created workouts you can load.

On top of these preloaded routines, the Venu Sq can track more than 20 different workout types, from the usual running and walking variants to golf and pool swimming. There's also a personal running coach you can use to help you train for a race or to hit a set goal. It doesn't give you personalized feedback on your form or audio cues like the Galaxy Watches , for example, instead it's more a guide for when you should warm up or how long you should run for, displayed on your wrist.

Best Garmin Venu Watch Face

The Venu Sq has built-in GPS, meaning you don't have to rely on your phone for distance tracking when you're outside. Just be warned that it does take at least 30 seconds to lock on to a GPS signal when you are outside (regardless of whether you have your phone with you or not), which seems like an eternity if you're an impatient runner like me who just wants to get on with it. Once it finally locked though, it tracked my route accurately.

The downside is that there is no gyroscope or altimeter on the Venu Sq, so if you need accurate elevation data you'll likely want to look elsewhere. The Garmin Connect app does a good job of clearly showing you all the details after your workout, but it doesn't dive any deeper into metrics than what similarly priced rivals like the Apple Watch SE or Fitbit Versa 3 offer.

Redis tool. Like other Garmin watches, the Venu Sq has Garmin Live Track which lets you share your location with a safety contact when you are doing an outdoor workout. It does however require a cellular connection, so you will need your phone with you to use this feature.

Just enough smarts for most people

Watch Faces For Garmin Venu

While the Venu Sq is geared towards fitness and health tracking, that doesn't necessarily mean you'll miss out on smartwatch features. Like almost every other watch, the Venu Sq displays notifications from your phone and pings your phone to locate it if you lose it within Bluetooth range. You'll be able to see call notifications come through regardless of which phone you have the watch paired with, but only Android users will be able to decline calls and respond to text messages from the watch with prewritten responses. There is no speaker or mic onboard so you can't use voice-to-text responses.

The Venu Sq runs Garmin's own operating system (Garmin OS) which is not as seamless as that of Apple or Samsung's smartwatches, but I found it to be stable and more responsive than the Fitbit OS. It's faster to sync updates and doesn't experience any lag in selecting menu options or opening apps.

The biggest pain point for me when using the Venu Sq paired with an iPhone has been notifications. The Garmin Connect app on iOS doesn't let you filter out what notifications come through on your wrist and simply mirrors whatever notifications you have set up on your phone. It might not be a deal breaker for many, but I like to push only the most important notifications such as calls and text messages to my wrist, rather than everything that my phone shows. Android users get more control over which notifications come through.

If you want onboard music storage, you'll need to opt for the music edition of the Venu Sq that costs $50 more, which is the version I tested in this review. The Venu Sq Music lets you store music for offline listening from apps like Spotify (with a Premium subscription) or songs you already own. It's also the watch to get for faster data transfers as it has Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity, whereas the regular Venu Sq only uses Bluetooth.

Garmin has plenty of watch faces to choose from, including third-party options to help personalize the look, plus a fairly wide selection of apps through the Connect IQ Store (a separate app you need to download on your phone). You can also make contactless payments with Garmin Pay on all versions of the watch. The main Garmin Connect app is where you see all your stats and change settings on the watch, while the Connect IQ Store is for adding apps and watch faces.

The Venu Sq, however, lacks a voice assistant, a feature that by now has become standard for most of its similarly priced competitors. This might not be a deal-breaker for you, but it means you miss out hands-free voice control, which I like.

A week's worth of battery life

How To Change Garmin Venu Watch Face

The Venu Sq has great battery life and you can get up to six days worth of use before you'll need to charge it up, though that number may start to whittle down if you're using it for a lot of GPS workouts, listening to music or continuously tracking your blood oxygen levels. Garmin quotes up to eight hours of battery when playing back music, 14 hours if you are using it in GPS mode, or up to six hours with GPS and music playback.

A great fitness watch without extra bells and whistles

Garmin Venu Sq Watch Face Options Reviews

If you're willing to sacrifice a few smart features for better health and fitness tracking, the Garmin Venu Sq is a solid choice that works with Android or iOS. That said, I do wish that Garmin wouldn't charge the extra $50 for the music version, as it does alter the value proposition quite a bit, particularly if you are an iPhone user who might also be considering the Apple Watch SE which, at that point doesn't cost you that much more.