The Garmin Venu Sq 2 is one of the brands more affordable fitness trackers out there, and although it hasn’t made it into our fitness tracker yet the best Garmin watchesthere’s a lot to love about this little beauty.
It’s hard not to think of it as a budget band when there are super-expensive watches like the Fenix 7 and Epix 2. But the Venu Sq 2 really is a direct competitor to the high-profile Fitbit Versa 4 or Apple Watch SE. Not quite the budget now, is it?
The Garmin Venu Sq 2 handily beats both in terms of battery life, and is probably the best of the trio if you’re looking for an easy-to-use, low-maintenance fitness watch. It’s also much better looking than the original Venu Sq, although it’s much more expensive.
Check out our guide to the best fitness trackers for more inspiration or read on to find out everything you need to know about Venu Sq 2.
Price and availability
Garmin released the Venu Sq 2 in September 2022, two years after the original Venu Sq. The base model costs $249/£229/$399AU. Or you can pay $299/£259/$499 for the Garmin Venu Sq 2 Music Edition, which has 3GB of free space for locally stored music and podcasts.
Design and display
The Venu series is home to some of Garmin’s most polished watches. This one is closest to the Apple Watch style, “Sq” stands for square shape.
There’s tough Gorilla Glass 3 on top, an anodized aluminum band around the dial, and polymer/plastic for the rest of the body. It’s a bit of a pragmatic look, but still a significant upgrade over the original Venu Sq, thanks to the OLED screen. This screen has a resolution of 360 x 320 pixels, which looks super sharp. It also just looks great and can get bright enough to make up for sunny days.
This watch is very light at just 38g. I actually find myself regularly taking it off in the middle of the night when I’m asleep or at least half asleep, but it’s easy enough to replace the 20mm strap with something more comfortable.
Features
This sleek touchscreen watch still has plenty of Garmin’s hardcore sports tracking genetics. Swipe up from the bottom of the watch face and you’ll see a series of what Garmin calls views. These are stats like your steps, heart rate, calories, body charge and stress.
You can also press the top side button to access the activity screen, where you start your tracked workout. In this section I have counted 32 different exercise regimes. There are other interesting things here than just a lot of the same track sports that some watches offer.
For example, Navigate lets you see where you are relative to a point on the map. Health Snapshot monitors blood oxygenation and heart rate for two minutes to assess your stress and breathing rate. And there are plenty of classic exercise modes too, from running, walking and cycling to more exotic pursuits like skiing, rowing and pickleball. Yes, salty.
The Minutes of Intensity feature allows you to set training goals. And after each run, you’re shown your VO2 Max, which you can track as a measure of long-term progress. You can also do some basic workouts with the watch.
There’s enough here to make you wonder what differentiates the Venu 2 Sq from the much more expensive Venu 2. We dug a little deeper to find out.
First, there is no altimeter in the Venu 2 Sq. That means it can’t record the number of stairs you climb, and it won’t show your altitude—a very important metric for hiking and skiing. It also lacks the Venu 2’s gyroscope, which is used to detect when you transition from running to walking. You also won’t get the fancy animated workouts of the Venu 2. They show visual representations of gym exercises and yoga moves.
It also doesn’t offer Performance Status, Training Readiness, and Training Load features. These are found in high-end Garmin devices and allow athletes to customize their training regimen. However, it does have a Body Battery that lets you see if you’re possibly driving too hard into the ground.
Overall, it’s pretty simple by Garmin standards. But this is reflected in its price, and there is enough here to work with those who are not keen on statistics.
Productivity
The sensor overhaul is one of the main reasons for the existence of the Garmin Venu 2 Sq. It gets the same Elevate v4 heart rate tracker as higher-end models like the Garmin Epix 2 and a new GPS chip.
We reviewed a large handful of watches with Garmin’s latest heart rate hardware. They’re all pretty great, but some of them suffer a bit in more strenuous workouts compared to the Garmin Fenix 7, which we often use as a benchmark.
We did not notice such problems in the Garmin Venu 2 Sq. It seems to record almost identical heart rate readings to the Fenix 7, which is pretty much the perfect result. Here, you get better accuracy than the Fitbit Versa 4, and the results are comparable to those of the Apple Watch SE.
Location accuracy is another case. Venu 2 Sq may take a few minutes to triangulate if you are in a new area. The actual distance accuracy of the Venu Sq 2 is okay (we compared it to the Garmin Fenix 7 to make sure), but you won’t get the parity of high-end Garmin watches.
Battery life is another highlight, especially when considering the Venu 2 Sq as an alternative to the Apple Watch SE. Garmin says this watch can last up to 11 days, or 12 on battery saver mode. After two full days of normal use with one hour of tracking training, the Venu 2 Sq lost 22% of its battery. This suggests that it will last around nine days in actual use.
The bad news is that one of the coolest features cuts into battery life dramatically: the always-on mode. By default, the Venu 2 Sq screen only turns on when you bring the watch up to your face or touch the screen or one of the buttons. Always-on keeps the display lit all day, turning off when you reach the hours you set in the Garmin Connect phone app.
To get a “worst case” reading, we monitored the battery for a day (well, 26 hours) in this mode and did a fairly long 80-90 minute workout with GPS tracking. After 26 hours, the Venu Sq 2 had lost 29% of its charge, suggesting that 3-plus days of use should be the minimum endurance most people see.
Judgment
Garmin’s Venu Sq 2 has received a significant display upgrade over the original. This makes this watch less “cheap” to use. It’s just a shame that it’s also literally less cheap than its predecessor, at $50 more.
However, the available angle is still a work in progress, as the sleeker Garmin Venu 2 costs significantly more, and the Sq 2 has clear advantages over both the Apple Watch SE and the Fitbit Versa 4. Its stats are more accurate than the Fitbit’s. Battery life varies by Apple.
Like any other great Garmin, the Venu Sq 2 delivers good fitness tracking in a watch that doesn’t need to be charged that often. Some of Garmin’s more advanced features are missing here, but the altimeter is the only one that stands out. This means it cannot directly record your height or determine how many stairs you climb each day.
If it’s not for you
What else does Garmin offer for similar money? Not much. Closer alternatives come from elsewhere: Fitbit’s Versa 4 and Apple’s slightly more expensive SE Watch.
Both look a bit sleeker than the Venu Sq 2. The Apple Watch also has the tracking accuracy of the Garmin, but you’ll have to charge it pretty much every day—one of the best reasons to buy a Garmin.
The Fitbit Versa 4 costs a bit less than the Venu, but some of its features are locked away by the $9.99/month Fitbit Premium. It also doesn’t seem to have the same heart rate accuracy as the Garmin.
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