Garmin has always made excellent fitness-focused watches, but now it’s stepping up its smartwatch game with the Venu 2 Plus and Vivomove Sport.
Garmin is known for offering watches that are targeted across its extensive spectrum of users. The Venu 2 was released last year and is a fantastic GPS sports watch with a brilliant AMOLED display, while the Vivomove series offers a hybrid watch/sports watch experience.
Today, Garmin announced an innovative upgrade to the Venu 2 alongside an intriguing new hybrid watch.
The Venu 2 Plus builds upon the great features found in the Venu 2, adding the ability to make and take phone calls from the watch when paired to your smartphone, much like the non-cellular Apple Watch models. You can also now use your smartphone’s voice assistant to send text messages, ask questions, and more from your wrist.
Users can expect up to nine days of battery life, as well as core Garmin features such as sleep scores, stress tracking, Body Battery, pulse oximeter readings, animated workouts, and more. Garmin’s safety and incident detection functions are also supported with a connected smartphone. Garmin Pay, subscription music downloads, Connect IQ apps, and more are also supported.
The Venu 2 Plus is available in three colours with a 43mm watch case and 20mm standard quick release band. The device also features a new rapid charging capability, with which 10 minutes of charging adds up to one day of smartwatch use or one hour of GPS and music.
The Venu 2 Plus, available now, has a gamut of neat features, but it’s also a pricey device at a starting cost of $449.99 USD.
The Vivomove Sport, on the other hand, is an entry-level fitness tracker that looks like the kind of watch you used to wear before you cared about fitness. It’s got the ticking hands of a traditional watch, as well as a smart display. It’s also packed with health-tracking features usually reserved for Garmin’s more expensive smartwatches, such as blood oxygen levels.
There’s little in the way of new features here, but the Vivomove Sport has been given a bunch of new colorways, with green added to the mix, and there’s a customization tool, so buyers can pick from an array of strap and dial choices.
Tracking of respiratory rate, heart rate, Body Battery (energy levels), and blood oxygen saturation join more core metrics such as steps and activity for an overview of health. There are sports mode tracking but no GPS — although you can piggyback off your phone for outdoor runs.
It’s also a decent smartwatch, and will notify of calls, messages and other notifications. The screen can show details of notifications and calendar alerts, and Android users can also send message replies.
The Vivomove Sport also goes on sale today, costing $179.99 USD.
