The Garmin Venu 3S is more than just a fitness smartwatch – but is it any good for runners?
Having spent plenty of time testing both the Garmin Venu 2 and the Garmin Venu 2 Plus, I’m pretty much a self-proclaimed Venu mega-fan. So when a press release announcing the new Garmin Venu 3 landed in my inbox, I was intrigued to see exactly what tweaks Garmin have made to upgrade what’s already a beautiful, sporty-looking smartwatch.
Featuring a bright AMOLED touchscreen, the Venu 3 series boats plenty of fitness insights and an impressive battery life that tracks your metrics day and night. And, brand new for the Venu 3, this latest version includes features tailored for wheelchair users – empowering them to track pushes, follow wheelchair-specific workouts and more.
Garmin Venu 3 review
Available in two sizes – the Venu 3 (45mm) and Venu 3S (41mm) – the newest iteration of the Venu smartwatch is designed to support every health and fitness goal (and, importantly, comes in a cute pale pink colour). From sleep to stress, PBs to meditation, the Venu 3 series is positioned as more of a health and fitness smartwatch rather than a dedicated running watch, and is designed to help users get a more complete picture of their health.
Unlike some of the more 'running focused' Garmin watches – such as the Forerunner 265, fēnix 7 or the epix Pro – the Venu 3 doesn’t have a training readiness score or training status score, so if you’re used to your Garmin watch telling you whether you’re training productively, peaking or strained, then you’ll likely miss this on the Venu 3. In fact, there aren’t really any training-specific features on the Venu watches – you don’t get daily suggested workouts which adapt after every run or ride, recovery recommendations based on your latest training, or race predictions where your watch estimates what you could run a 5K, 10K, half-marathon or marathon based on your current training and fitness.
But just because the Venu 3 lacks some running-specific measurements, doesn’t mean it’s not a great watch for runners. In fact, if you’re the type of runner who also likes going to a weekly yoga class, dipping your toe into Reformer Pilates and conquering a strength workout, then you’ll probably love how versatile, smart – and pretty – the Venu 3 is.
Garmin Venu 2 vs Garmin Venu 3: What’s new?
From a hardware and functionality standpoint, the Venu 3 has a speaker and microphone (like the Venu 2 Plus), so it gives you more of a direct connection to your phone, and the ability to answer calls from your wrist (yes, really, if you have an incoming call you can talk and hear from your watch).
Elsewhere, sleep has had a real overhaul. Not only does the Venu 3 give you a sleep score, but it also offers personalised tips on how much sleep you need and how you can improve. Those familiar with Garmin will already know how the sleep score works. It’s essentially a score that rates your sleep on a scale of 0–100, looking at how things like stress and restless moments influence the quality of your sleep.
Sleep Coach is brand new for Venu 3, and gives you recommendations on how much sleep you actually need – for example, when I tested the Venu 3, it recommended that I get seven hours and 50 minutes of sleep, but that recommendation can change throughout the day if you’ve had a particularly strenuous workout or stressful day, so different factors feed into it.
On top of the new sleep coach feature, the Venu 3 automatically detects and tracks naps – you can also physically turn this on, so if you know you’re going to take a 20-minute power nap, you can set a timer on your watch and it will log you nap, adjust your sleep needs for the following night.
Another major improvement from Venu 2 is the body battery feature. Body battery isn’t anything new – it’s a score that shows your energy levels throughout the day so you know when your body is charged up and ready to workout or run or if it’s drained and needs to recharge. But what is new is the amount of information now accessible to Venu 3 owners – so you can understand exactly how the body battery is affected by what you do during the day. For example, if you do a spin class at lunch, your body battery level may drop by 10 points.
Also new for Venu 3 – and driven through the body battery stats – are morning report and evening summary alerts, which pop up at the beginning and end of the day. The morning report gives you a concise overview of your sleep, recovery, daily calendar and HRV status as soon as you wake up. The evening summary tells you how balanced your day has been, and offers recommendations on how to wind down for bed.
RW verdict
While the Venu 3 is definitely more of a health and fitness smartwatch than a core running-specific tracker, you can still use the Venu 3 to train towards – and complete – big events like half marathons and marathons. Although this Garmin is probably best suited to those who like doing lots of different exercises, who spend time in the gym and perhaps have smaller running goals, such as improving their 5K PB.
Looks-wise, the Venu 3 is a much prettier watch than something bulky like the fēnix 7 – the Venu 3S I tested has a soft gold stainless steel bezel with dust rose case and silicone band – so if you’re after a watch that tracks your runs and also looks good paired with a blouse or dress in the office, then this really does tick both boxes.
Great for amateurs and those newer to the running game, there’s also a new mediation activity (not available on the Venu 2) which uses the speaker. The mediation practice is similar to the 'breathwork' offering, but instead of asking you to focus on your breathing, it asks you to focus on what’s most important to you. You can input a mantra into your phone, pick an audio or a theme – such as the sound of waves – and listen to that through the speaker on the watch, and follow a guided meditation.
So, if you’re thinking about buying a smartwatch and wondering whether to just opt for the Venu 2 because it’s on sale, then our advice is it’s really worth upgrading to the Venu 3 – and not just because it’s 2023 (aka the year of Barbie) and everyone should invest in a watch with a pink wristband to be like Margot Robbie, but because it really is so much more than just another fitness smartwatch.
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