Garmin unveiled the second generation of the Venu smartwatch, which was its first with an AMOLED display. The new models come in two sizes, the Garmin Venu 2 measures 45mm in diameter and packs a 1.3” display, the Venu 2S is 40mm with a 1.1” display. They have 416 x 416 px or 360 x 360 px resolution, respectively, and an optional Always On Mode. The displays are protected by Gorilla Glass 3, the bezel around the glass is stainless steel and the body of the watch is fiber-reinforced polymer. As before, the Venu watches are rated at 5 ATM water resistance (pool swimming is supported).
The big upgrade this generation is the
battery – it’s double what the old models could achieve. The 45mm version can
last up to 11 days in smartwatch mode, the 40mm one can go on for 10 days. The
original was available in a single 43mm size and could only manage 5 days on a
single charge. A key selling point of the Venu line is the GPS tracking and the
endurance of that has gone up as well – up to 8/7 hours on the Venu 2, up from
6 hours on the original model (and that’s with music playing). Charging is fast
too, 10 minutes add 1 day of smartphone mode or 1 hour of GPS tracking.
Note that besides GPS, GLONASS and Galileo
are also supported, there’s a compass on board as well as a barometric
altimeter. Also, Venu 2 duo is the first with the new Elevate V4 optical heart
rate sensor. A major new exercise mode is High Intensity Interval Training (aka
HIIT). This includes support for TABATA, AMOM, AMRAP and variations – you can
read more about those here. Hiking, indoor climbing and bouldering are also
new.
Other upgrades of note are the more
advanced sleep tracker that calculates a sleeping score based on heart rate,
respiration, blood oxygen and stress. Light, deep and REM stages are still
tracked. The new Health Snapshot records a 2-minute session to give you an
instant reading of your health status, including things like heart rate
variability. Features carried over from the original are 24/7 heart rate and
respiration rate tracking, blood-oxygen saturation monitoring, stress tracking,
plus hydration and women’s health features.
As for smartwatch features, you will get
text messages from your phone (Android owners can even reply from the watch),
calendar reminders, weather information and more. You can download watch faces,
widgets and apps from Connect IQ. Garmin Pay is on board so you can go out
without a wallet or even a phone. Speaking of, the new watches can store up to
650 songs (up from 500 on the original) from Spotify, Amazon or Deezer. In
gigabytes, that’s 7 GB, up from 3 GB (or so). And if you do have your phone
with you, there are music controls on the watch.
The Garmin Venu 2 and Venu 2S are
available now, at a price of US$ 400/€ 400 (yes, both cost the same).
