This is the brand new garmin venue, 2 plus, which updates the original venue 2 with some features that makes this garmins best smart watch yet so the venue 2 plus it comes with all the features of the original venue. 2, like the ability to track tons of different types of activities, a super vibrant display, as well as really good battery life, but now comes with some features that actually have never been seen on any garmin watch before, which makes this an even more compelling option. If youre, considering something like an apple watch or a samsung galaxy watch, so in this video well be going over all those new features, as well as my overall thoughts on how this device performs is both a smart watch as well as a fitness device, and just Like all my reviews, ill be going into a lot of detail where ill be showing a lot of examples with different types of activities like running cycling, weight, training and i even went skiing with it just so, you can get a good idea if this device is Going to be right for you and if the information, this video does help you out at all dont, be shy by hitting that, like button down below its a small little thing that you can do, that will help this video and the channel quite a bit. And i appreciate it: oh and this isnt, the only video i have coming out today, garmin also released the vivo move.
Sport, hybrid smartwatch, and i have an in depth view of this one as well. Im also going to have a user interface, slash setup, tutorial type, video on the venue, 2 plus and then another video thats coming out today on a different product that i actually cant tell you about right now. But if you subscribe to the channel and turn on that, little notification bell youll get a little when that video comes out. So first up lets check out the hardware, so the venue 2 plus splits difference in terms of size between the original venue 2 and the venue 2s. The new venue 2 plus, is 43.6 millimeters in diameter. The original venue 2 is a smidge larger at 45.4 millimeters and the menu 2s is 40.4 millimeters, and even though the case size is just slightly smaller than the original 45 millimeter venue 2, they still managed to use the same large 1.3 inch diameter display with 416 By 416 pixels and that display just like the original venue 2 – is super bright. Its really crispy, with lots of colors its just a really nice display, oh, and it does also have an always on display mode. The touchscreen is super predictable and moving throughout the interface is really easy and the interface is snappy. Animations are smooth and its just a nice experience, and then another difference with the hardware is that the venue 2 plus has a stainless steel rear cover, which definitely adds a little bit more class to it, and also weighs just slightly heavier at 51 grams versus 49 Grams, oh and then another smaller difference when it comes to hardware, is that it uses 20 millimeter industry standard bands versus the 22 millimeter band on the original venue 2 and the 18 millimeter band on the original venue 2s.
But a bigger difference with the hardware, though, is that the venue 2 plus adds an additional third button on the right hand, side of the device, and this button can be customized to a bunch of things like launching a voice assistant like siri or google assistant, and Then, on the other side of the watch, heres the feature that kind of puts the plus in the venue 2 plus underneath these holes. Right here is a new speaker which you can use for calls as well as even playing music through the watch itself, and not only that. It does also have a microphone for calls, and you can also use that microphone with voice assistance like we talked about earlier. So, with an iphone, you can use siri with an android phone, you can use google assistant and then with a samsung phone you can either use bixby or google assistant, and the venue 2 plus, is actually the first garmin device to come with a full blown speaker. Not just like a beeper on some previous devices, so when youre in bluetooth range of your phone, you can answer, calls and speak and listen through the watch itself and then heres. What that speaker sounds like with somebody that youre speaking with yeah hows it going and then heres what the microphone sounds like for the other person on the other end of the line, mr does. How goes pretty good is lucy done drinking all the water and by the way, this functionality is available with both iphones as well as android phones, so youll notice that the venue 2 plus actually just shows up as another bluetooth connected device when youre taking a call.
So you can always just switch between the vendor 2, plus your phone or a pair of bluetooth earbuds. If you have those connected and then on the watch itself, theres also going to be controls here, where you can pass the call back to your phone. If youd like now calls arent the only use for that speaker, you can even listen to music that youve downloaded to the venue 2 plus. Now this is a speaker on a pretty small device, and not only that theres, a lot of other stuff going on in here. So its not like, sounds gon na, be mind, blowing or anything like that, but i found it to be not bad. Its gon na be pretty darn good for calls, but music not as much and then on that subject. The venue 2 plus also has music storage and playback capabilities with plenty of different music streaming services like spotify and deezer, and you can even download your own purchase tracks to the device itself. It has about 8 gigabytes of internal storage, with about 6 gigabytes, usable and garmin. Officially says that you can store up to 650 tracks on the watch itself, but theres one more trick with that microphone and speaker, and that has to do with safety and tracking, where, with both instant detection, as well as requesting assistance, you now have the option of Calling in addition to messaging or cancelling the request, so it defaults to sending a text message.
But now you can also use the microphone and speaker to speak through the watch. If you choose to call but just note with all this calling functionality, including the safety and tracking, you will need to be in range of your phone, because the venue, 2 plus doesnt, have any cellular capabilities. But the speaker is also utilized in other areas of the device where they have some nice pleasant tones when you start and save activities, alert, steering activities, completing goals and also some nice tones for notifications and texts and then with text messaging with an android phone. You can reply to text with predefined responses, as well as even custom messages you can set up in garmin connect and then with an iphone. You can read those messages, but you wont be able to reply, and that has nothing to do with garmin. That actually has everything to do with apple, because apple keeps the reply, functionality and imessage exclusive to apple watches and then just like the original venue, 2 and even the original venue. You can see your events receive other smart watch notifications and see weather information. Battery life is rated up to 9 days in smart watch mode and thats without recording any outdoor activities, and then you can get up to eight hours of gps recording time battery life will vary depending on how you use it like how many outdoor tvs that you Track taking calls listening to music and just in general, how much you interact with the watch itself, but i was getting a solid six to seven days out of it, even while recording some outdoor activities, and that was without using the always on display, if youre gon Na be using the always on display, i would take that down to about four days, but still thats, very respectable, considering some other smart watches in the market.
Today, the battery life is a smidge less than the original venue too, but i think thats understandable, because they had to make room for a speaker on the venue, two plus and then for activity tracking itll track. Your steps, itll track your floors, climbed using the venue. Two pluses barometric altimeter itll also track your intensity minutes which are basically minutes, spent doing vigorous activity and then itll also track your calories all day and then on the health and wellness side of things. The venue 2 plus has garmins latest 4th generation elevate, heart rate sensor, which i found to be garmins most accurate, yet and well talk about the accuracy of that heart rate when we go over these sports and fitness performance of the venue, 2 plus here in just One second, and then the venue 2 plus also has an spo2 sensor or pulse oximeter for measuring blood oxygen saturation levels, and you can enable this all day jurisdiction, sleep and you can also take on demand measurements and for the accuracy i found it to be pretty Darn close to a fingertip blood oxygen sensor, the venue 2 plus also comes with garmins health snapshot, feature which you can kind of think of as taking a bunch of different health metrics all at one time. To give you an overall gauge on your health at a given point in time, it takes about two minutes to collect this data where itll collect your blood, oxygen, saturation level, stress level, heart rate as well as respiration rate.
It also has garmins advanced sleep tracking or it can track your sleep stages, including deep sleep, light, sleep, rem and time spent awake and then a couple other things at the venue 2 plus, is that it can also estimate your vo2 max for running, and they also Have this metric, they call fitness age which may be an easier way of gauging your fitness level versus vo2 max, which may not be as relatable figure for some folks and then for actual sports and fitness profiles. The venu 2 plus is a super, capable watch being able to track a ton, and i mean a ton of different activities from all the standard stuff like running both inside and outside cycling, both inside and outside, as well pool swimming strength, training and high intensity. Animal training walking hiking yoga and pilates indoor, climbing and bouldering and then add some outdoor recreation profiles like stand up paddleboarding and golf as well as some even some winter sports like skiing, snowboarding and cross country skiing. But when it comes down to how well the venue 2 plus does for tracking all those activities, i usually focus on two main areas, so gps accuracy for tracking outdoor activities and then heart rate accuracy for tracking all the activities. And then i also have some data to share in terms of elevation gain for outdoor activities, since this does also have a barometric altimeter so for gps. Actually lets first check out this outdoor run, where basically, everything lined up perfectly with the other test devices.
The total distance was pretty much spot on with the other three devices, so were all good to go here and then for the finer detail of the actual gps tracks. It was nearly perfect for the entire run. As i started out here, it was falling along the road – just fine, in fact a little bit better than the device thats in green that took a little bit wide and then on these curves and corners at the park. Right here again, quite good. I saw just two sections where it drifted just slightly off the road right here and then over here on the right, but other than that. I have to say that these results are really quite good and then for longer distance activity on this road ride. Again, things lined up really nicely. The total distance was right in line with the other test devices, as well as the elevation gain and then for the final detail of the gps track accuracy on that ride on basically the entire ride. The venue 2 plus was actually quite accurate. You can see that it lines up really nicely with both the map, as well as the other devices and again a little bit better than the device in green. There was one spot right down here at the bottom of the map, where it drifted just ever so slightly off the bike path, but that was incredibly minor, but one spot i wanted to point out right here is where i exited the tunnel, where the venue 2 Plus was actually the first device to reacquire gps, which was kind of awesome to see and before we get into hardware accuracy.
I also wanted to go over a couple more activity profiles, so the vending two plus also comes with garmin, skiing and snowboarding activity profile, which is able to automatically track your runs without you having to interact with the watch at all, and it does this using the Venue two plus built in altimeter to detect when youre ascending on the chairlift and descending down the ski runs and for how this works. All you do is just start the activity at the bottom before you head up on your first chair and it just kind of knows that youre sending the lift and automatically pauses the activity and then, as soon as you start descending, it automatically resumes and starts tracking. Your run and then, during your run, you can see your current elevation and speed and then, when youre done with that run and start ascending back on the chair, lift it again just automatically pauses and tracks that as a run and then you can see your current Run or last run information, including the time of that run, distance elevation loss, maximum speed, as well as average speed and then during your activity. You can also see the total information for the day and then, when you go to save the activity, you can see all this information later in garmin connect where it gives you a pretty detailed breakdown of your day, and this also does sync over to strava by The way even showing the number of runs and then moving on to a couple gym activities.
I also wanted to share how the venue 2 did at estimating distances run on a treadmill without gps and, quite frankly, it did an amazing job in this 10k run. Being extremely close to the distance collected on the treadmill and then for some reason the distance is off, you do have the option of also calibrating the distance. After your run, the venue 2 plus also comes with garmin strength, training activity profile, which you can use to automatically count your reps in the gym. So all you do is just start the activity when youre about to start your first set and when you complete each set youll just press the lower right hand key to initiate a rest period, and then from here you can edit the number of reps. If for some reason, theyre off and then you can also log the weight, if youd like that, you lift it on that set. But dont worry if you dont want to interact with your watch during your workout. You dont have to press anything on the screen and then, after a few seconds, the screen will just go away. So the rep counting works pretty well and with most exercises it was spot on. But with a handful of sets, the rep count was just off by just one rep, but not really that big a deal garment strength, training activity profile will also attempt to identify the exercise that youre doing like lets say. Bicep curls, which i was indeed doing on this first group of sets right here.
I find the rep counting to be quite good, but the automatic exercise recognition is not necessarily something that i would rely on, but the nice thing is you cant, edit. Each set with the actual exercise that you were doing, and there is just a gigantic list of exercises that they have listed in here, along with editing the reps, if youd like, as well as adding the weight, if you didnt, choose to do that during the activity And then one more thing to note is that you dont have to use the rep counting feature all if you dont want or need to count your reps and sets, and you can just turn this feature off in the settings of the strength, training activity profile. So now on to hardware accuracy and lets start out with one of the easiest types of activities for these types of wristbase optical heart rate, sensors to track and thats going to be indoor cycling. So, as you can see, the venue 2 plus did a very good job here, where it tracked basically right in line with other chest and arm heart rate sensors. I was wearing for comparison and then for running, which is a little bit more challenging activity. The venue 2 plus did a pretty good job here, so at the beginning it took just a bit for all the sensors to line up, but after that, for the majority of the run, things were pretty much in line.
It did, however, start to drift a little bit at the end of the run where it had some higher readings, but no crazy spikes or dips, or anything like that. So id say this is a pretty good result and then for strength, training, which is one of the hardest types of activities for risk based optical heart rate, sensors, to track accurately due to all the arm movement and wrist flexion. For the most part, the venue 2 plus did a pretty decent job on this section. Here, where i was doing some bicep curls. There were a couple sets where it tracked a bit high, and then this set right here where it tracked low and then for the remainder where i was doing: tricep extensions and shoulder flies. Those are pretty much good to go. Maybe, except for this set right here, were tracked a little bit low and then for the high intensity intervals. At the end, those are pretty good results. Overall, i think this is a pretty great update to the original venue 2, with the addition of the microphone and speaker and im, not talking about just for calls being able to listen to music on that speaker is actually kind of neat and its actually currently something An apple watch cant do and also, i think, its kind of smart that they leverage the microphone and speaker for the safety and tracking features. So the venue 2 plus runs 450, which is 50 more than the original asking price of the original venue.
2.. Now is it worth the upgrade its really going to come down to whether or not youre going to utilize that microphone and speaker? But i do have to say that garmin did utilize, that speaker pretty darn well throughout many portions of the interface, but when it comes to activity, tracking and sports and fitness performance. Honestly, the original venue 2, as well as the venue 2 plus theyre, both going to be fantastic in that department.ZVZuLoisAq8
