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Matthew Miller as a mobile gadget | June 4, 2021 | Topic: Mobility

Garmin recently released Venu 2 and Venu 2S. In the past few weeks, I have been running, cycling and walking with the larger Garmin Venu 2 GPS sports watch. Venu 2 is optimized for active people and is a great alternative to Apple Watch. It has a lovely AMOLED display, improved heart rate sensor, amazing exercise (HIIT) animation support, and may appeal to most people looking for GPS sports watches.

Venu 2 and Venu 2S provide the same functions, but the size of the watch is different, and the related battery in Venu 2S is smaller. These watches are available now at a price of $399.99 and are available in a variety of strap and bezel colors.

In addition: Garmin Venu Review: The vibrant AMOLED display makes it one of the most suitable GPS sports watches for the masses

The original Garmin Venu brought an OLED screen to Garmin's product line, which is an eye-catching watch. Looking back on past models, Venu 2/2S has the following improvements:

These are just additional features and functions on the watch, and we still see many Garmin features included. These include pre-loaded animated workouts, 25 exercise apps, safety and tracking features, offline music support for Spotify, Amazon or Deezer, Garmin Pay and Connect IQ app support.

Since I have a larger wrist and prefer larger watches, Garmin sent me Venu 2 with a Slate bezel and black case for testing for a few weeks. I checked the original Garmin Venu at the end of 2019, so I can't directly compare it with Venu 2. However, I still own the Garmin Darth Vader Legacy Saga device, and Venu 2 looks almost the same until you turn it on.

Garmin Venu 2 has a lovely, vibrant 1.3-inch AMOLED display with striking black and vivid colors. There are still some borders around the visible screen facing the watch case. The display is also very sensitive to swipes and clicks.

There are two buttons on the right side of the device. The button in the upper right corner is the operation button used to start the activity timer, view the control menu, and initialize the event detection/notification function. The bottom button back is used to return to the previous display, mark a circle, view device settings, etc. On the watch face, you need to press and hold the back button to enter the settings menu.

In addition: Garmin Venu Sq Review: $200 GPS sports watch with advanced health indicators

Venu 2 comes with a soft silicone strap. There are quick release levers and pins on the strap, so you can change the strap quickly and easily. The heart rate monitor is located in the center of the back. It is also great to see the common 4-pin Garmin charging connector on Venu 2.

If you have used Garmin GPS sports watch before, you can pick up and use Garmin Venu 2 quickly and easily. Even if you are not familiar with using the touch screen and two buttons for navigation, it should only take a short period of time to figure out how to navigate and find everything.

The default dial is very basic, the focus is to show some brilliant colors on the AMOLED screen. Several others are loaded on the watch, some of which also have customization options. You can also download hundreds of (and possibly more) watch faces from the Connect IQ store.

Venu 2 is designed for everyday leisure athletes, and can integrate running, cycling, walking, swimming, yoga, Pilates and other indoor/outdoor sports. There are more than 25 sport applications available, and in each sport, you can customize the display and data displayed. The real power of Venu 2 lies in the HITT and exercises supported through the Garmin Connect app. Many specific activities in the exercise (such as yoga) show you animated graphics of various actions. As a person who rarely does these exercises, this is an essential feature on the watch. You can get more applications and data fields from Connect IQ Store.

As someone who spends more time on the golf course with the Garmin Approach CT10 club tracker I purchased, I am very happy to see that Venu 2 provides extensive golf support. Venu 2 aims to be a very attractive GPS sports watch option for the general public, rather than mastering the course like the Garmin MARQ Golfer we saw optimized for golf.

Swipe up or down on the watch face to scroll through the list of your widgets. Clicking on any of these small browsing options will open the complete widget so that you can view the collected data in great detail. There are more options here in 2021, including body batteries, stress, sleep and more. Sleep will now also display Venu 2's sleep score. This sleep score and insights are provided by Firstbeat Analytics.

Like most of the latest Garmin devices, Venu 2 has an integrated Wi-Fi radio, so when you return to the previously established Wi-Fi zone, you can sync activity data to your Garmin Connect account. It's great to enter my house after exercise and automatically sync my data to my Garmin account.

One exercise option is called "health snapshot", you can select it to view various health data captured within two minutes, and then you can record and share this data. Pranayama is another activity available, and there are a variety of techniques that can be used to reduce stress and improve your health. During these stressful times, breathing is a great way to focus and rejuvenate yourself.

Collecting data is important, but using this data to track trends, improve performance, challenge friends, and identify problem areas is also very important. Garmin provides the Garmin Connect app for iOS and Android. It is a powerful and powerful app that matches the Connect website experience very well.

When you start the smartphone application for the first time, you will see a screen called My Day. This is a dashboard, fully customizable to your liking. Just scroll to the bottom and choose to edit my day. Here you can choose from the following cards: heart rate, steps, intensity minutes, floor, sleep, stress score, weight, and calories. You can also switch to view the statistics of yesterday and the statistics of the past 7 days. In addition, when you record the day’s activities (running, cycling, etc.), a box will appear at the top of the card. Tapping any card will allow you to get finer measurement details.

See also: Best running GPS sports watches of 2021

Other tabs in the smartphone software include challenges, calendars, news feeds, and notifications. Click the tab icon to view more detailed information about each option.

You can also click the more icons to jump to insights, activity statistics, health statistics, exercise, courses, segments, equipment, connections, groups, LiveTrack, Connect IQ store, Garmin devices, settings, and help. This menu and user interface are also consistent with what you see on the website. You can view the data in different time ranges, view your records, view the badges you have obtained, view the total number and average value, and so on.

A major feature of Venu 2 is to support HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training), and three exercise options are installed by default on the watch. However, in the Garmin Connect app on your smartphone, tap Training> Exercise> Find Exercise to view more than 80 available exercises for you to choose from, and then sync directly to Venu 2. Some of these exercises are supported on other Garmin watches, but HIIT is unique to Venu 2 devices. This excellent support for development exercises is an important reason to consider Venu 2 and why I use it more often than Forerunner 945, even though the device provides more detailed support for running and cycling.

These exercises are labeled as elementary, intermediate, and advanced, including the number of muscle groups to be exercised, the time to complete the exercise, and so on. Venu 2 supports TABATA, EMOM (per minute per minute), AMRAPS (as many rounds as possible) and more formats of exercise. Click on a specific exercise to view detailed information, including animations and step-by-step instructions for specific exercises, so you can also use Venu 2 as a great coach and coach. You can also create fully customized workouts and sync them to your Venu 2.

During your event and at all other times when you do not record data as part of the event, you can choose to control phone notifications. If you are connected to an Android smartphone, you can go to Settings> Smart Notifications in the Garmin mobile app to customize exactly which apps provide notifications to the Forerunner 745. When connecting to iPhone, you don't have every application control.

With a paired Android phone, you can also choose to reply to messages with the text you set up on the phone in advance. This includes custom text responses.

Although there are plenty of exercise options on the watch, you can also download preset exercises from Garmin Connect. Even better, you can create your own customizable exercises, with more than 1,400 exercises to choose from. There are 75 preset animated exercises for aerobics, yoga, strength training, HIIT and Pilates, so you really have no reason not to develop exercises that appeal to you and meet your health and wellness needs.

The Garmin Connect website experience is very similar to what you see in a smartphone app, with more features to generate reports, import or export data, set up connections with other apps (such as Strava, RunKeeper, and MyFitnessPal), and more. Similar to the snapshot interface on your phone, you have a customizable dashboard on Garmin Connect.

In addition: Garmin Darth Vader Legacy Saga series review: Star Wars-themed sports watches provide a wide range of health and fitness functions

Garmin Venu 2 is a solid upgrade of the first generation model and is clearly one of the best Garmin devices for recreational athletes and those looking for an excellent daily activity tracker. If you are interested in completing HIIT workouts, then Garmin Venu 2 is for you. Since I have a few pieces of equipment at home and never go to the gym, Venu 2 is a near-perfect trainer, and it will definitely help me achieve my weight, health and fitness goals in the next few months.

Venu 2’s heart rate sensor has been updated to accurately capture your heart rate. The battery life is also improved compared to the original Venu. Unlike the Apple Watch, it’s also nice to have a cute AMOLED display watch that can last for several days.

Provides automatic event detection and manual triggering of alarms, so you can notify people via a connected smartphone when you are in trouble.

In the past, it was easy for me to charge my body battery to 100% after sleeping for a few hours, but Garmin made some changes to its algorithm to more accurately capture the quality of your sleep. You won’t see it reaching 100% every night, which is more accurate, because some nights you do experience poor sleep or sleep interruptions. Then, this realistic analysis can more accurately estimate your daily situation and performance potential.

Garmin competes fiercely with the more affordable Polar Vantage M and Coros Pace 2 in this area, but the amazing exercise support, extensive ecosystem, focus on daily activities, Connect IQ customization, etc. make Venu 2 a compelling GPS sports watch masses. It is available in a variety of colors, the Venu 2S has a smaller size, and the price is $399.99.

Matthew Miller as a mobile gadget | June 4, 2021 | Topic: Mobility

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