Smartwatches have become a more advanced daily companion. They help monitor sleep, stress and activity levels while keeping notifications at your fingertips. It’s understandable that you’d gravitate toward a smartwatch made by your favorite phone brand, such as an Apple, Pixel or Galaxy watch.
However, there are plenty of third-party watches that are sometimes more capable and worth considering, and one such watch from Garmin – the Venu 3, released in August 2023 – claims just that.
Garmin Venu 3
With its gorgeous 1.4-inch AMOLED display, the Venu 3 is Garmin’s latest addition to the Venu lineup. Depending on usage, its battery can last up to two weeks or just under a month in power-saving mode. Its satellite connectivity and various activity tracking modes also make it an excellent watch for athletes.
- Ridiculously long battery life
- Built-in speaker for calls
- Store entire playlists or audiobooks
- GPS connection for tracking outdoor running and walking
- Special charger
- No crown controls
Price, availability and specifications
The Garmin Venu 3 is priced at $450 and is available at several outlets, including REI, Scales, Amazon, Best Buy, and Garmin. Pricing and availability may vary depending on case size and model color. Select models are currently on sale for $400.
What are the good features of the Garmin Venu 3?
Packed with all the features of a smartwatch, the Venu 3 is a big step up from previous generations of Garmin and a worthy investment for first-time Garmin owners. The company has made some significant updates and upgrades to the Venu series with this third generation in hardware, features, and user experience.
The crown jewel of the Garmin Venu 3 is its battery life, but before we get to that, let’s talk about a different kind of battery this smartwatch offers — a body battery. I appreciate the brand’s approach to providing easy-to-digest health and wellness data. While you can and probably should look at your deep sleep trends through the Garmin app, such as time spent in REM and moments of wakefulness, each morning, Garmin presents that as an overall sleep score and rates the result as fair, poor, excellent, etc.
Like the Sleep Score, Body Battery is another surface-level daily score that Garmin calculates based on your sleep quality and stress levels, providing a quick representation of your daily energy. Hard numbers are important, but they don’t suit everyone’s preferences when it comes to monitoring their health. The latest version of Garmin’s Venu series includes a sensor for continuous ECG monitoring as well, if that’s a necessary component of your personal health.
Overall, Garmin’s approach to activity and fitness has been favored over Apple’s. Garmin’s movement goals (for calories, steps, etc.) are dynamic by default, changing daily based on your recent activity levels. This neutral, stick-to-your-ground strategy has worked better for me than the rigid, unmoving daily goals and UI that puts rings begging to be closed at the center of everything. (If that’s your preference, you can switch your Garmin watch to manual goals instead of automatic ones.)
The Garmin Venu 3’s 1.4-inch display is a bit larger than its predecessor, but I quickly noticed the brighter, sharper display on the Venu 3. The Venu 3S is smaller if you’re looking for a great smartwatch for women. This is especially important because the Venu 3, unlike the 2, includes images in its notifications where applicable, such as a text message or a preview of a social media post.
While the larger face, achieved by slightly narrowing the Venu 2’s bezel, puts the Garmin Venu 3 slightly ahead of the competition (1.3 inches on the Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 and Pixel Watch 2), these three models are roughly on par with each other in pixel density. In fact, the Venu 3 lags slightly in this regard, with a pixel count of around 319 pixels per inch, while the other two models have over 320 pixels per inch. However, for the average user, this is likely to be an imperceptible difference.
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The built-in speaker is a noticeable upgrade over the Venu 3 series. I had no problem receiving phone calls on the Venu 3 as long as my smartphone was within range. The speaker and microphone quality are up to expectations; if I hold the watch a foot or so away from my face, the person on the other end can hear me just fine.
Garmin has also added a third button to the outer edge of the Venu 3, which opens a convenient recents menu for accessing the apps you use most. It would be nice if this menu included recent activities as well. Battery life is largely dependent on your usage situation.
Some smartwatch batteries only last a few days. Garmin says its “smartwatch mode” should have a battery life of two weeks. But I’ve found that watches with mixed use last about a week, with a maximum of about 10 days, which is still well ahead of the competition. (For me, mixed use means nightly sleep tracking, which involves tracking my blood oxygen, playing music for one to two hours of workouts, and regular bouts of exercise tracking and using GPS for outdoor walks. I don’t regularly use all-day blood oxygen tracking, the always-on display, 24/7 GPS, or playing music for hours on end.)
The power saving option increases the battery life to just over three weeks. Even with various features that shorten its lifespan by a significant margin, the Venu 3’s battery life outperforms many of its competitors, even its predecessor. For example, the Google Pixel Watch 2 only offers about 24 hours of battery life in always-on mode, while the Venu 3 will last at least three or four hours with minimal GPS and music playback.
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What’s bad about the Garmin Venu 3?
For a while, many have considered GarminOS to be behind the times, especially compared to Apple’s highly advanced WatchOS or Google’s widely adopted WearOS. While I’ll admit that Garmin is making good progress in refining and updating its UI (the new horizontal swipe to access a programmable shortcut like Spotify or start a run, for example), there are still some scattered opportunities for improvement.
The Venu 3 lacks a digital crown, which may disappoint some users who prefer a side wheel for navigation. (Apple’s smartwatches are a good option for anyone who prefers crown-based controls.) I barely noticed its absence, even as a longtime Apple user, and found using the touchscreen for basic navigation easy to get used to.
I dream of a day when changing smartwatch brands — or even switching from one model to another within the same brand — doesn’t mean using a different proprietary charger. The Venu 3 uses the same charger as the Venu 2, but it’s different from other Garmin-branded watches.
Should you buy it?
As one of the more expensive general smartwatches today, Garmin has been under a lot of pressure to deliver exceptional performance compared to competing watches, especially competing watches from original smartphone brands.
Fortunately, Garmin is up to the challenge. While using a third-party smartwatch isn’t as easy as using an Apple Watch with an iPhone or a Pixel Watch with a Pixel, Garmin makes up for it with an easy-to-use companion app, reliable sleep and fitness tracking, high-quality hardware, and a commitment to improving the overall user experience with each new generation.
I liked the impressive battery life, the easy access to activities like walking and hiking, and the built-in speaker for calls or enjoying personal music. And because the Venu 3 supports many native and third-party fitness and activity apps, it’s a solid smartwatch choice for golfers, weightlifters, cyclists, and swimmers—casual and serious athletes alike.
There are simpler, more affordable, hybrid-style smartwatches out there, which are great for people who don’t need much health tracking beyond a simple step counter. But the Garmin Venu 3 has my enthusiastic endorsement for most casual users who exercise in some way at least twice a week, and for people who want to explore a consumer-level approach to sleep tracking — it’s a great tool for getting more insight into your health.
Garmin Venu 3
Garmin’s Venu 3 isn’t among the cheapest Android smartwatches out there, but it’s easily among the most capable for most users, thanks to its built-in speaker, satellite positioning, and comprehensive sleep tracking.
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