Garmin venu 2 plus

The Garmin Venu 2 Plus comes after the Garmin Venu 2, which came out in 2021. It has all the same features as the Garmin Venu 2, with one big difference: it has a microphone. This lets you answer calls from your wrist and use the voice assistant on your phone without touching it. It works with Siri, Google Assistant, and Bixby, and it makes an already great smartwatch even better.

The Venu 2 Plus costs $50, £50, or AU$70 more than the original, but it’s not just a gimmick because you can now use your voice to control it. We used our phone’s voice assistant a lot more than we would have before because we could just press a button on the watch we were already wearing. This was true whether we wanted a quick translation to another language, to control a smart home device, to calculate a tip for a bill, or to control our music app. It might seem like a small feature, but it’s actually very useful and makes it even easier to recommend this excellent smartwatch. Like the original Venu 2, the Venu 2 Plus is a great all-around smartwatch. It’s a good choice if you want one device you can wear all day, whether you’re working out or not. It has a sharp, bright display and a stainless steel case, so it looks good for almost any occasion. It only comes in one size, but its mid-sized case should fit most wrists.

Design

• Almost identical to Venu 2
• One available in one size
• The microphone on left side of case

The Garmin Venu 2 Plus is almost the same as the Garmin Venu 2, but the original watch came in 40mm and 45mm sizes, while the Venu 2 Plus only comes in a 43mm size. It’s a good compromise. It’s big enough to hold the extra parts of the new watch, but not so big that it’s too big for smaller wrists.

The new parts have to do with the watch’s new microphone, which is on the left side of the case. A new button on the right side gives you quick access to your phone’s voice assistant. It’s a nice addition. You’re much more likely to use it if you only have to hold a button for a second instead of going through menus. When we tested the watch, we used Google Assistant a lot more than we normally would.

The watch is charged with the same custom USB-A cable that is used to charge the rest of Garmin’s watches. It’s easy to plug into the back of the watch case and stays in place, but it’s not as convenient as charging by induction. The AMOLED touchscreen on the Venu 2 Plus is bright and has a high resolution. It is also smooth and easy to use. It has a mode that keeps it on all the time, but this really drains the battery.

Battery life

• Up to 10 days in the power-saving mode
• The battery dies much faster when the screen is always on.

As always, the battery life will depend on how you use the watch, especially the SpO2 and GPS features. Garmin says that the watch can last up to nine days in smartwatch mode, up to ten days in battery saver mode, up to eight hours with both GPS and music or up to 24 hours with GPS but no music.

We used the Venu 2 Plus with an all-day pulse ox turned off and tracked one workout a day. The battery drained at a rate of about 10% per day, which is better than what was promised and is very good for a powerful AMOLED smartwatch. To put things in perspective, the Fitbit Charge 5, which has a smaller screen, can only stay charged for up to seven days at most. The Venu 2 Plus is one of the most power-efficient watches of its kind. It’s not quite as impressive as the 46mm Huawei Watch GT 3, which has similar specs and can run for up to two weeks on a single charge.

Feature of Smartwatch

• Use your wrist to make and take calls.
• Use the voice assistant on your phone
• Contactless payments

As we’ve already talked about, the main difference between the Venu 2 and the Venu 2 Plus is that the Venu 2 Plus has a microphone. This lets you use your phone’s voice assistant and make and take calls as long as your phone is within Bluetooth range. The sound quality from the mic is great. Your voice is easy to hear when you’re on a call, and we had no trouble getting Google Assistant to understand our requests when we tried it with an Android phone connected to the watch. In fact, having Google Assistant on our wrist made it so convenient that we used it a lot more than we normally would, even when we weren’t working out.

There is also the ability to make contactless payments, which is something that the Huawei Watch GT 3 doesn’t have. Our UK-based bank isn’t one of those supported, so we weren’t able to test it for this review, but it’s compatible with a huge range of banks in the US, plus public transport services.

Tracking your fitness

• Super accurate GPS
• Responsive heart rate tracking
• Animated on-screen workouts

As you might expect from a Garmin watch, the Venu 2 Plus is a great sport watch. It doesn’t have the advanced training tools of a high-end Fenix or Forerunner, but it’s great for beginners and intermediate athletes.

The latest optical heart rate monitor from the company is especially impressive because it can track your heart rate all day and responds quickly to changes during interval training. We put it to the test in a few hard spin sessions, and the results were almost exactly the same as those from a chest strap heart rate monitor. If you prefer, you can also use ANT+ to connect a chest strap to the Venu 2 Plus. You can also connect a running pod, a Garmin Edge bike computer, or Varia lights this way.

GPS is also great. It tracked our 5k running route to within 100 meters, which could be explained by the fact that it was on public roads and not a track.

Even though the Venu 2 Plus doesn’t have real-time turn-by-turn navigation like Garmin’s top-of-the-line sports watches, it does have a return-to-start feature, which is very helpful if you’re working out in a new area and want to check it out. Before you start, go to the menu and choose Navigation. The watch will then use GPS to lock on to your current location so you can find your way back when you’re ready.

One of the best new features of the Venu 2 is that it has animated Pilates and yoga workouts that you can follow in real time, as well as on-screen muscle maps that show which parts of your body you’ve been working on recently. It really takes advantage of the watch’s big AMOLED screen, and even though there are only three Pilates and three yoga sessions to follow right now, we hope that more will come with a future firmware update.

Buy it if

You only need one watch for everything.
There’s no need to buy different devices for everyday use and exercise. The Venu 2 Plus is a smartwatch with a lot of features. It looks good enough to wear every day and has great tools for tracking your workouts.

You want to play different sports.
All of Garmin’s watches are great for tracking running, cycling, and regular gym work, but the company is growing, and the animated yoga and Pilates workouts on the Venu 2 Plus will help you mix up your training.

Don’t buy it if

You don’t want to bring your phone.
The Venu 2 Plus, unlike Garmin’s LTE watches, doesn’t have its own SIM card. To make and receive calls, you’ll need to keep your phone within Bluetooth range.

You don’t work out often, and you have no plans to start. The Venu 2 Plus is geared toward fitness, so if you don’t work out often, you won’t be able to use most of its best features.

Pros	Cons
Calls come to your wrist	There is only one size screen
Accesses phone’s voice assistant	No charging without wires
In normal use, a battery will last 10 days
The AMOLED screen is clear and bright

Product	Expected Price
Garmin Venu 2 plus	Rs 52,985