Customer Ratings & Reviews

I loved the look of this watch and the metrics it provided. But it would often be inaccurate or stop working. I would need to restart my watch and phone on a daily basis to get the app to sync. It is very pretty but too much work to get it to work.

Garmin still stuck in the 1900 technology with a 51mm watch bezel that offer more like 36mm display everything else is garbage you going to need a telescope to see you time or go into a dark room to see your time that is what Garmin offer no spo2 low oxygen level alert no stress levels monitor no .... is garbage is the best way to tell you

I’ve been using a smart watch more or less daily for several years now and have tried several different brands over that time. This was my first experience with Garmin’s take on the concept, and I have to say it surprised me in several ways. Rather than leaning into the more traditional smart features, Garmin instead chose to put the health and fitness features at the forefront. And while it is a little weird to get used to coming from a more traditional smart watch, I think there’s a lot that someone looking for a step up from more basic fitness trackers might find to love. The first thing that drew my attention upon taking it out of the box was the screen – which is just as big across as the largest of the current generation of flagship watches. However interestingly enough it’s paired with a somewhat slimmer body, making it look significantly smaller on the wrist. The band is made of high quality silicone and is extremely adjustable, though not exceptionally breathable. But since it uses standard quick-release lugs to attach it to the body it would be fairly easy to replace if the amount of sweat that builds up underneath it becomes a problem. Controls are all handled via the touch screen (which is vibrant, colorful, and very responsive) and three buttons along one side. There’s also a surprisingly good sounding speaker and mic combo to take calls, use a virtual assistant, or even listen to music if you find yourself lacking a pair of earbuds to pair with it. As far as usability goes, it’s a big departure from what I’m used to with WearOS devices. To start with, almost all the commands are mapped to a variety of button combos that I found a bit hard to memorize and the watch doesn’t do much to teach you about them when starting up. The user experience is also very focused on the fitness tracking features. Notifications are present but not immediately available without going through two menus, customization and settings adjustments more or less have to be taken care of on the app in the paired phone, and the integration with Android at least is a bit less seamless than I was used to. I discovered early on that certain apps which provide real time updates to their notifications end up spamming the watch, requiring you to block them to keep the thing from becoming unbearable. And watch face selection is certainly much more limited – though to be fair still quite acceptable in my opinion. I wouldn’t call any of it a deal breaker by any means, but it’s definitely a device with a learning curve. Moving onto what the device does best, however, there’s a lot of good things to highlight. The fitness tracking features are top notch, with sensors like a barometer to help alert you to sudden shifts in the weather while you’re out on a hike. The fitness apps I tried generally make very good use of them too – and the GPS performance is exemplary (as one might expect, given Garmin’s history as a company.) I am somewhat concerned that there doesn’t seem to be an official rating for waterproofing, but according to the company it should be able to stand up to most things you might encounter on trails and I can confirm that getting splashed or partly submerged for brief periods doesn’t seem to be a problem. One particularly interesting feature I experimented with is the “body battery” meter, which takes into account activity levels and sleep quality to give you a heads up as to how much energy you might be able to expend before becoming fatigued. While I can’t say it’s perfect it did at least roughly line up with when I found myself needing to stop for a break – and again seems like a great thing to have when you’re out hiking and may be trying to decide when to turn back or stop for the night to make camp. It also gets high marks for battery life – which can easily last several days with a bit of power management. In conclusion, the Venu 3 is probably not a watch for everyone. But for a very particular type of user – someone who is very active, enjoys the outdoors, and isn’t necessarily looking for an extension of their phone – it’s probably going to be sitting at the top of a very short list of smart watch options.

My first Garmin was the clunky Forerunner 305, which I still have and it still works! Since then, I’ve had other brands of GPS sports watches, as well as the Apple Watch. The new Garmin Venu 3 caught my eye, so I decided to upgrade my sports/smart watch. As a runner, I appreciate having physical buttons because they work better when wet, and the Venu offers the best of both worlds with physical buttons as well as a vibrant touch screen. Inside the box, you get the watch, a proprietary charging cable, and some instructions. The watch is very lightweight, and the soft rubber band is comfortable and secure. Setup is pretty easy, and the accompanying Garmin Connect app guides you through the setup process. If you want to add additional apps to the watch, you must also get the Garmin Connect IQ app, which Garmin’s app store for their watches. Downloading apps (such as additional watch faces) is very easy, but that’s where the setup process seemed to grind to a halt. After trying to figure out why the apps were not installing to the watch, I figured out that I had joined the Venu to my guest wifi network, but my phone was on the main network. Setup didn’t warn me about this, and while I should’ve noticed this, it would have been nice if the setup process could have at least shown a message to remind me. Once I noticed that, it went a lot more smoothly, and I was able to finish the process. The Venu 3 has a beautiful AMOLED touchscreen and 3 physical buttons. I have the 45mm size, and I love the big screen which is very easy to see. The buttons are sufficient for tracking activities, but for non-sports activities, you’ll use the touch screen. The button functions are well laid-out, but it does take some exploration to figure out how everything works. Even though I’ve had the watch for a week and have been using it every day, I still haven’t discovered where everything is located within the menu structure. I do wish the buttons provided a little more tactile feedback than they do. Of the 3 buttons, the top and bottom buttons are pretty good, but the middle button has a smaller profile than the other two, and as a result it seems a little harder to reliably press it. Perhaps this is by design, but I’m not sure. Holding that button down invokes the voice assistant, so maybe this behavior is designed to prevent accidental presses. Hopefully this isn’t a harbinger of the future reliability of the buttons. Using the watch for sports activities really couldn’t be easier. A press of the top button brings up the activity menu. Select your chosen sport, press the button again, then one more time to start tracking. GPS activation on this watch is quicker than on any other watch I’ve owned, which is fantastic. I’m able to pick up a signal in about 5 seconds, which means my running group no longer has to wait for me to get a signal before we can start the run. Choosing which stats to show on the face is easy, and I love that I’m able to do that from the watch itself, instead of having to go to the app for things like that. By default, the Venu 3 announces your lap time after each mile, but this is adjustable. I mostly only use the watch for running, walking, biking and indoor biking, but I’m glad to know it can handle other activities as well. The Venu does a great job of making information easily available. Swiping up from the bottom brings up the “glances” screen, with a big list of things like steps, heart rate, intensity minutes, sleep coaching, etc. Pressing on any of these brings up a full screen with more details, or you can go to the app on the phone for even more. This is a great feature and makes it easy to find what you want. Garmin offers a lot of widgets that you can download, so that’s an area for me to explore later. Garmin advertises battery life of 14 days when the screen is only on when you raise your wrist, or 5 days if you put it into “always on” mode. I’m not sure if that’s accurate, since I didn’t experience this myself, but I wonder if I used up more battery because of initial setup and downloading of music (more on that later). After getting everything set up and using the watch every day for a 40-minute run, I got about 6-7 days of battery life. Even that is better than anything I’ve used before, and allows me, for the first time, to be able to wear the watch at night for sleep tracking. Garmin includes a morning report to get your stats from the night before, and a sleep coach tracks your sleep, including naps. This is a pretty nice feature, and provides insight into your overall sleep patterns and their impact on your health. It’ll also suggest how much sleep you need, adding more after an especially strenuous day or reducing it after a restful day. Garmin also has something it calls a “body battery”, where it calculates an overall rating that is the net of things that recharge your body (like sleep) and those that deplete your body (like vigorous exercise). You can find out each data point that went into this calculation to get an idea of your overall energy status. Garmin watches always excel at sports tracking, and the Venu 3 is no exception. But, can it take the place of your smart watch? The Venu has a legit speaker and microphone, allowing to place and receive calls using just your watch (assuming your phone is nearby). While you won’t want to take a long call this way, it’s just fine for a quick call when your phone is too far away to reach it, and callers said I sounded just fine. The Venu also supports onboard music, meaning you can leave your phone behind and still have some tunes with you. Old school MP3s may be loaded, or you can use a supported music service such as Amazon Prime Music or Spotify. For Spotify, a subscription is required before you can load music, so I didn’t try that one. Instead, I tried out Prime Music. As a Basic subscriber, I was only offered a preselected set of all-access playlists, which is very easy, but what if I’m not in the mood for their options? Downloading the music was easy enough, but does take some time. Also, I could see the battery strength declining as the songs were copied over, so I guess that’s a power-hungry operation. It’s a really nice option to have, but it’s probably easier just to take your phone with you. You can also control playback of the music on your phone, but you have to bring up the playback interface manually after the music starts playing on the phone. The Venu 3 supports the ability to read text messages as they come in, but there’s no way to reply to them in iOS, due to some Apple restriction. I was used to doing that on my Apple Watch, so it’s a bummer to not be able to do that. The Venu also supports the ability to get notifications from all the apps, and you can select which ones to turn off. One of my most-used features on previous watches is the ability to instantly check the temperature outside, and I can do that on the Venu as well, and also get a full-blown forecast for the week ahead. I think I’m going to be learning things about this watch for some time to come, but I really like it, and it’s a very capable watch, whether you’re exercising or not. The only thing I miss from my Apple Watch is the ability respond to text messages on the watch, but it’s offset by the great battery life and physical buttons for use during sports. The overall health reporting is top notch, with plenty of details for the statistics lovers. I’ve been using it as my main watch since I got it, and I really don’t miss my regular smart watch—I don’t think you will either.

I got my Garmin Venu 3 GPS smartwatch several days ago and I have been having a lot of fun learning all the things it can do. This is the first smartwatch I have ever owned so I wasn’t completely sure if I would actually enjoy using it. I mean I haven’t worn any sort of watch for probably 20 years. I can definitely say I love this thing. Its functional, cool looking, easy to use, comfortable and I find myself always wearing it now. To start with, I was worried it may seem too clunky or heavy to wear all the time. This is not an issue at all for me. Though it’s certainly not the lightest watch I’ve ever worn, it’s also not the heaviest. The band is great, very comfortable. The screen is incredible. I mean, I’m near 50 years old and I remember as a kid wondering if we would ever have a watch like this, ala Dick Tracey or something like that. It really exceeds what I was expecting in every way. It has an incredibly sharp and bright screen with just a slight lag on the touch screen feature. It seems like everything is customizable on this thing. Adjust how the face looks, can even add your own picture as the background. The various apps and widgets are great. Monitor your heart rate, your sleep or how much you have walked or ran. It can tell you how much of your sleep was light, deep, REM and when you were awake. The body battery widget is interesting. It monitors your body’s heart rate, sleep, activities and rest and tells you if your internal battery is charged or drained. All of this info can be more deeply explored on the companion app. There is a flashlight setting, that isn’t much light but you can walk down a dark hallway with it or read something in dim or dark lighting. You can set your watch to be always on (dim when not being used) or go to sleep when not in use and wake up once used. Simply raising your wrist to look at the watch will trigger it to turn on. You can even turn that feature off and make it so it only comes on when you touch it. You can play music, even pairing BT headphones if you so desire. The battery life is fantastic and it charges fairly quickly. Using it like I have been, where it’s usually off and I only occasionally use features it feels like I could get away with weekly charging if not longer. All in all I am really impressed with this device. It has exceeded my expectations and I know there are some features I haven’t even explored yet. If you have been putting off getting one of these until the tech got to a point where it is truly functional and easy to use like I did, I think you should consider the Venu 3. I would absolutely recommend this to a friend.

The Garmin Venu 3 touch all the bases for a great smartwatch. There are so many features and options to personalized your Garmin Venu 3 to fit your health and fitness goals. I own three other Garmin smartwatches, the Garmin Vivoactive, Garmin Vivoactive 3 Music and the Garmin Venu SQ Music. I can proudly say that they all are still in good working condition. The Garmin Venu 3 was too good of an upgrade to pass up. The Garmin Venu 3 has everything the active person on every level would ever need. The bright big display is a must have and the battery can last up to 14 days. The Garmin Venue 3 is so light its hard for you to tell you have anything on your wrist. The Garmin Venu 3 comes with 3 buttons, the third built in speaker button for calls and Goggle Assistant and Android coming with a keyboard. The Garmin Venu 3 goes the extra mile in providing a detailed health wellness and fitness insights such as body battery, energy, stress, heartrate variability, blood oxygen level and a sleep coach that lets you know how your sleep went the night before. When you go for a workout it tells you how the workout had an effect your fitness level and what you need to do to recover. The Garmin Venu 3 comes with 30 plus sports Apps for you to enjoy. The Garmin Venue set the bar by adding a dedicated wheelchair mode to track pushes. I love that they added a better variety of watch faces and that you can go to the connect store from the watch instead of using your phone as I had to do for my Garmin Venu SQ. I downloaded a host songs from Itunes Jazz Library to Garmin Express and connected my Apple Beats with ease. The Garmin Venu 3 Morning Report and daily greeting helps you get your day started. The GPS is more on point. I went for a run today and battery level was at 99 percent and after my 5K using music from my watch with headphones the battery level was at 88 percent. That is a 10 percent improvement from my Garmin Venu SQ Music. Right now my Garmin is at 77 percent with a 12 day expectancy battery life.. With the narrower bezel and 1.4 amoled display screen plus upgraded sensors on top of consistant improvements, Garmin is keeping ahead of the competition with their activity and smart watches.

The Garmin Ven 3 Health & Fitness GPS Smartwatch is most definitely a health and fitness device followed up with smartwatch technology. The watch itself is thin and sleek but the 45mm size is just that, 45mm. This is on the larger size and may very well be slightly large for many smaller arms. Just a caveat to take into account, but Garmin does have a smaller version to my understanding. The watch is lightweight and comfortable to wear with a 22mm band. The watch is comfortable enough to sleep with, which allows for night time tracking. This Health & Fitness watch provides vast information regarding overall health and tracks fitness, equipped with touchscreen display that is easy to read. Display is clear and at the standard I expect from smartwatch technology in this current age with an adequate backlight able to be read in all environments. The watch does have an apps that allows for information tracking in multiple modes; I did find it a bit intensive to obtain multiple apps to get full features out of the watch but I feel part of this is just my accustom to previous smartwatch use with a certain fruit product. But those that are available are mostly directed toward health/fitness as expected and appreciated. Of note, there is a music download option with headphone pairing which allows for a lighter profile while active on the go. I had difficulty transitioning from a traditional smartwatch with certain apps to a health/fitness watch but do see the added benefits in the change overall. The battery life is boasted to be up to 14-days, which given the sleep monitoring features is important compared to most smartwatches that if not charged every night will end up dead in the morning. I have gotten 3-days use prior to charge, but I do not like for my technology to run low on charge so here we are not putting that statement to the ultimate test. The watch charging requires a plug-in connection, which is one of the larger downfalls is no standardizations without ease of charging by convenience but rather must have the watches specific charge at hand. Overall, it is wonderful being able to access workouts, heart rate, pulse ox and other information directly from the watch that can also track sleep habits. I feel that I am more enlightened in my own life journey with this watch just believe that the smartwatch portion could have improvement but is adequate considering it is for multiple device types and is not made by a phone device company directly. I would recommend this to the right person, who is into fitness/exploration of the world and wants a diverse watch to accompany their journey

Sends notifications when Android phone is in Do Not Disturb mode. So much for German engineering. I can't think of more idiotic behavior from a device.

I went through 6 of these watches. The product was nice however my screens kept breaking, that it water damage from handwashing despite its water rating.

Returned for a different watch did not do what it said it could do.

Very poor build. Feels like a toy watch. Upgraded to Galaxy 6. Much better watch woth tons of extras!!

I'm so disappointed with my Garmin watch. It broke down after just a month, and the customer service from Best Buy and Garmin has been terrible. Switching from Apple was a huge mistake.

Bought 3 items to the same address, 2 of them were delivered and 1 wasn't, so I can't tell you if this watch is good because it hasn't been delivered an no refund was made.

Watch did not work correctly for golf round, kept skeeping from hole to hole.

Stopped working after 4 months. The screen went black and won’t come back in I’ve tried everything under the sun. Very frustrating spending 649 on a watch only to last 4 months. Garmin you can do better.

Not sure I expected some of the apps to work like Spotify. The time screen was troublesome to see. Too much fitness reminders.

Garmin really outdid itself with this smartwatch. The Venu 3 is sleek, lightweight, full of surprises and is way better than I anticipated. The OS is fairly straightforward and definitely not overwhelming. In all honesty I did not expect much when I opened the packaging. When I opened the box it did not feel like the box matched the goodness I was yet to find inside. There are two apps you will want and need to download. One is the actual fitness app. It is called Connect. This will allow you to manage most anything ON the watch and track your fitness stats. Why did I capitalize ON? In order to download apps or watch faces you will need a second 'store' app called Connect IQ. Most of the store is watch faces, but there are quite a few apps to peruse and try out. Interestingly enough most payments are done outside the app and directly with the developer. There is a proprietary charging cable included, it plugs into a USB Type C port on PC or if you have a wall charger of that type. Charging is pretty quick. A full charge is lasting me about 2 weeks after I adjusted the alerts I was getting. No need for every social media post to pop up on my wrist. Unfortunately Garmin did not explain the navigation well in their tutorial. If you long press a button, for instance bottom right, you can change the watch face from the watch itself. Unfortunately i could not find anywhere in the Connect apps to do this other than uninstall and reinstall which loses any custom settings. The other options under the long press bottom right include Clocks and Settings. Long pressing the middle button will open your assistant of choice. Alexa, Google, Siri, etc. Long pressing the top right will get you into Controls. This includes Volume, Brightness, Power Off, etc. It also has a edit button to change what is available in the menu. Pressing bottom and top together will do a screen shot. To edit what app notifications you get on the watch, go into the Connect app and navigate to More | Settings | Notifications | App Notifications There are so many features i am just going to hit a few: - Wheel chair mode for anyone that uses a wheel chair. Might be the first watch I have seen this on. - Answer and make phone calls with your paired phone. Sound is not overbearing if not using headphones, you could have issues hearing in a crowded area though. - Play music from your watch. You can have local music or use a streaming service. The different services are available in the Connect IQ store. - Sleep score - If you can sleep with a watch on, this will monitor pretty accurately your sleep patter. - Pulse Ox - I went to the doctor and tested while they tested mine, pretty exact. - Body Battery - very cool feature that lets you know when you are getting tired, when you need to move, etc. Eerily accurate also. - Respiration once again, very accurate. Overall this is a very attractive watch by itself. With all the built in functions it is a fantastic smart watch. The display is sharp and clear. It feels like it can take a beating. I highly recommend the Venu 3.

I've had the watch for under a month. The nap feature is useless. The watch incorrectly documents sleep constantly. If you expect accuracy, then don't purchase this.

I’m loving my Venu 3 so far! Fitness tracking is 2nd to none. I love seeing all the stats on my workouts after I’m finished. Sleep tracking has been quite accurate and is helping me improve my quality of sleep. The body battery gives you a good idea on how much energy you will have throughout the day. Watch battery life has been great lasting a solid week with normal use. I found a free watch face that I like and customized the widgets to my liking. It would be nice if Garmin would add a bigger variety to the free watch face selections. A couple of minor gripes I have would be that there are two apps you have to download to get full customization of your watch. Garmin Connect app which shows all of your watches internal information and Connect IQ app which is where you get a plethora of watch face options (many of which you have to pay for) I wish Garmin would consolidate everything into one app. Also, my final gripe is I wish Garmin Pay would add Citi Bank as a compatible Bank. My Citi Card is my main card I use which essentially makes Garmin Pay useless to me. Overall, I still love it and I would recommend it to anyone who is more fitness oriented and wants a great alternative to the Apple Watch.

In the world of smart watches, there are two clear tracks you can go down - Apple, Samsung and Google try to build watches that can do anything and everything with a plethora of apps and a ton of multi-purpose features. On the other hand, there are a number of other watches that focus instead on being a good watch and a fitness companion. This Garmin Venu 3 falls squarely into that second category - and well that it should since Garmin is well known for producing fitness trackers of all sorts. To that end, this watch has all that you could want in a fitness focused watch. It's a watch, certainly, and does a great job tracking your biometrics. I especially like the new body battery feature that measures your energy taking into account sleep/activity/etc. The watch has TONS of profiles to track every type of exercise and even wheelchair pushes for those that are differently abled. It can even provide coaching and help you understand how the exercise you're doing impacts your body, Of course it can provide GPS tracking and guidance which is nice when you're out running a long distance (or cycling, etc.). Of course you get more features when you pair it with your smartphone and the Garmin Connect app (and Connect IQ to get additional watch faces and the like), but you can actually store music directly on the watch and connect to a headset so you can go without your smartphone if you so choose. The watch is compatible with any 22mm band with quick connect pins (huge variety available in many places). While apps aren't the focus here, there are a number of apps you can add - Garmin Pay is helpful for paying with your watch at a tap to pay location and you can add different music apps like Spotify and Apple Music. Of course you get things like the weather, calendar and so on - and you can access your phone's voice assistant through your watch with the built-in speaker and microphone (which you can also use to make calls if you wish). So the choice of what watch you want boils down to what you're going to use it for. If you want a great watch with a ton of fitness focused features to track and encourage your activity, the Garmin Venu 3 is a great choice. I can highly recommend it - regardless of what brand of smart phone you might be using.