Garmin Venu 2 Plus Full Specifications, Features, Pros, Cons and Price

Description

Garmin Venu 2 Plus Specifications, Features Pros, and Cons – A new member has been added to the Venu 2 series and it is the Venu 2 Plus. A more classy variant with a loudspeaker and microphone that enable Bluetooth calls and as well as a long battery life of up to 9 days. Although the Venu 2 Plus is not a standalone smartwatch, it allows you to make and receive calls directly from the watch when your phone is nearby. It also features three voice assistants; Siri, Google Assistant and Bixby.

Design

The Venu 2 Plus comes in a more compact and lightweight design. It’s slightly smaller than the Venu 2, yet has the same display size. It’s also durably built with the regular fiber-reinforced polymer material but has a more durable stainless-steel rear cover. The slimmer bezel is made of stainless steel, while the display is protected by a Corning Gorilla Glass material. It has three physical buttons plus a touch-sensitive screen for easy navigation. The 20mm wide silicone straps are interchangeable just in case you wish to swap straps. The Venu 2 Plus comes in three colors, black, gray, and ivory. I think the Ivory color is the most charming if you ask me. Even more, this smartwatch is rated 5ATM which makes it swim-proof up to 50 meters. It’s recommended to wear to the shower, under the rain, and while swimming in the pool.

Display

Although the Venu 2 Plus has a smaller case size when compared to the Venu 2, it has a 1.3 inches AMOLED powered display which is very colorful at 416 x 416 pixels resolutions. If you wish to swap the watch face, there are lots of watch faces to choose from in the Garmin Connect app. The display is very bright and can be read clearly even under direct sunlight.

Fitness Tracking

Just like the Venu 2, the Venu 2 Plus is packed with loads of fitness tracking features. It comes equipped with a heart rate sensor, accelerometer, thermometer, compass, SpO2, gyroscope, barometric altimeter and inbuilt GPS, GLONASS and Galileo. These sensors enable over 100 fitness tracking features which include tracking your heart rate continuously, stress, sleep in four stages, steps, calories, and blood oxygen.

Hydration tracking, mindful breathing, body battery energy monitoring, menstrual cycle tracking, and respiration tracking are some of the health tracking features available on the Venu 2 Plus.

The inbuilt GPS enables outdoor activity tracking for select apps, plus there are preloaded outdoor and cycling profiles. There are also loads of preloaded sports modes as well as 25 preloaded sports apps to choose from. Animated onscreen workout and the strength training feature that shows what muscle is worked is also available.

Media and Storage

Although Garmin didn’t specify the exact storage capacity of the Venu 2 Plus, it can store up to 650 songs which is the same as Venu 2. It is the first-ever smartwatch from Garmin to be equipped with a loudspeaker and a microphone. Just in case you don’t want to listen to music via a Bluetooth headphone, you can play music via the loudspeaker. You can also download songs from your Spotify, Deezer, and Amazon Music playlists.

Bluetooth Calls and Voice Assistants

As a result of the presence of a loudspeaker and microphone, you can make and receive calls directly from the Venu 2 Plus when your phone is nearby. In other words, it’s not a standalone smartwatch but can make calls via Bluetooth connections. Moreover, you get access to Bixby, Siri and Google Assistants out of the box. These voice assistants allow you to do simple tasks with your voice plus you can also reply to notifications with your voice

Notifications

Beyond the design, loads of fitness tracking features, and other interesting features, the Venu 2 Plus will also alert you when you receive a call or SMS notification as well as notification from other apps installed on your phone. You can reply to messages received with text or with your voice. Garmin Pay is also available on the Venu 2 Plus. It’s a non-contactless payment system that lets you make payments directly from the watch.

Battery Life

Despite the 1.3 inches large display and loads of features, the Venu 2 Plus still has a long battery life of up to 9 days. With GPS enabled, it’s up 24 hours of battery life. Moreover, when you enable the battery saver mode, you can get up to 10 days of battery life.

Garmin Venu 2 Plus Features

• It comes with a 1.3 inches AMOLED display that is very colorful and also easy to read outdoors. Navigation is via three physical buttons and touchscreen.
• Features lots of preset sport modes to choose from.
• Clock features include time/date, GPS time sync, auto daylight saving, alarm, timer and stopwatch.
• Download watch faces, widgets, data fields and apps from the Garmin Connect IQ Store.
• Calls reject/text response with preset texts (Android only).
• Find my phone, watch, control music on smartphone and remote camera control.
• Keeps you connected to all that matters to you, so you never get to miss important updates.
• It is rated 5ATM which represents 50 meters waterproof rating (swim-proof).
• 20mm interchangeable straps with quick release feature.
• Make payment directly from watch with Garmin Pay.
• You can download custom watch faces, add data fields, and get apps and widgets from the Connect IQ Store.
• Compatible with both Android and iOS devices. Check if your device is compartible
• Sync and upload data from watch to the Garmin Connect community – a thriving community of fitness enthusiasts where you can connect and share.
• 4GB onboard storage capacity with support for streaming services such as Spotify, Deezer and Amazon Music. You can download your playlist from any of the aforementioned services and as well store personal music to the watch.
• Has a microphone and a loudspeaker that enable Bluetooth calls.
• It features three voice assistance; Bixby, Siri and Google Assistant. These will allow you do simple tasks with your voice.

Garmin Venu 2 Plus Activity Tracking Features

1. Health Monitoring features include

Heart rate monitoring with abnormal heart rate alerts. Battery energy monitor gives you insight into your fitness level to help you know the best time to train. Also, Fitness age uses chronological age, your weekly activity, resting heart rate, and BMI to show if you’re older or younger than your age, while Pulse Ox. monitors blood oxygen saturation levels to support advanced sleep monitoring and altitude acclimation. Others include sleep tracking, menstrual cycle tracking for women, hydration tracking, stress monitoring, and sedentary reminders.

Mindful breathing will allow you to relax or focus, you can start a breathwork activity, and this watch will track your stress and respiration to help you get a better understanding of how you’re breathing.

The Health Snapshot feature will allow you to record key stats, including heart rate, heart rate variability, Pulse Ox, respiration, and stress. You can then generate a report with those stats via the Garmin Connect™ app on your compatible smartphone to share.

2. Safety and Tracking Features include

LiveTrack lets you invite others to join in your training goals and group LiveTrack lets you invite more people to join in your training activities.
Features Incidental fall detection and assistant that let you seek help when a fall has occurred. The watch will automatically send your location to preset emergency contacts when an incidental fall or a problem has happened (phone must be connected to the watch to enable this feature).

3. New: With the presence of a microphone and loudspeaker, you can make a call to a preset contact when the watch detects a hard fall. Note that your phone must be nearby for this feature to work.
4. Activity Tracking Features include

Steps counter, sleep monitoring, calories, floors climbed, distance traveled, intensity minutes, TRUEUP and MOVE IQ.

5. Gym and Fitness Equipment include

Cardio workouts, yoga workouts, strength workouts, HIIT workouts, pilates workouts, and automatic rep counting. Available gym profiles include strength, cardio, HIIT and elliptical training, stair-stepping, floor climbing, indoor rowing, yoga, pilates, and breathwork.

Features animated on-screen workouts that are easy to follow. Available preloaded workouts include animated cardio, strength, yoga, Pilates, and high-intensity interval training (HIIT). You can also download more from the Garmin Connect app.

Features on-screen workout muscle maps – a detailed activity profile that puts scaling and strength PRs right at your wrist plus graphics that show what muscle groups you worked.

6. Heart Rate Tracking Features include

HR zones, HR alerts, HR calories, % HR max, and HR broadcast data to the paired device.

7. Training, Planning, and Analysis Features include

Downloadable training plans, VO2 max, activity history on watch, GPS speed and distance, create custom activity profiles, advanced workouts, auto lap, and manual lap, and more.

8. Running Features include

GPS-based distance, cadence provides realt-time steps per minutes, run workouts and foot pod capable. Available run profiles include running, indoor track running, and treadmill running.

9. Golfing Features include

Yardage to layups, measures shot distance, and stat tracking. Others include Garmin auto shot, pinpointer, hazards and course targets, digital scorecard, and round timer.

10. Outdoor Recreational Features include

Back to start, total descent/ascent, sun and moon information, hunt/fish calendar, and area calculation. Available outdoor recreational profiles include hiking, indoor climbing, bouldering, skiing, snowboarding, xc skiing, and stand up paddleboarding, rowing.

11. Cycling Features include

Alerts triggers alarm when you reach goals including time, distance, heart rate or calories. Also features advanced vector support, speed and cadence sensor support, and race and activity. Compatible with Varia Lights, and Varia radar. Available cycling profiles include biking and indoor biking.

12. Swim Tracking Features include

Pool swim metrics include lengths, distance, pace, stroke count, swim efficiency (swolf), and calories.

Stroke type detection include freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke, and butterfly (pool swim only).
Other features include drill logging (pool swim only), basic rest timer (up from 0) (pool swim only), “repeat on” rest timer (pool swim only), auto rest (pool swim only), time and distance alerts, pacing alerts (pool swim only), countdown start (pool swim only), pool swim workouts and critical swim speed.

Also features underwater heart rate tracking. Available swim profiles include pool swimming, open water swimming, swim running.

Pros

• Stylish, compact and lightweight design.
• Comprehensive activity tracker.
• Make payment on the go with Garmin Pay.
• Pulse ox sensor onboard.
• Make and receive calls via Bluetooth calls.
• Features three voice assistants.
• Onboard music storage.
• Up to 9 days battery life.

Cons

• Quite pricey.

Garmin Venu 2 Plus Review

Garmin Venu 2 Plus detailed review