Garmin Venu 3S Soft Gold Stainless Steel Bezel 1 2-Inch AMOLED Touchscreen Display Smart Watch with 41mm Dust

The media could not be loaded. Let me preface this by saying I chose this one after buying, trying, and then returning the Apple Watch, the Samsung Galaxy Watch, FitBit, and a couple of other lesser-known brands. I actually went with a Garmin Venu Sq. 2 first and I loved it, at which point I bought this one due to the beautiful, large AMOLED screen and because it runs on the sand base software. That’s a GOOD thing, so let me elaborate. This is by far the most accurate watch for counting the total calories burned. The Apple Watch simply did not let me view the TOTAL calories burned, as it would show your estimated basal metabolic rate and then stack the active expenditure in a separate category, so you’d have to go back and forth to view each one and then add it up. The Galaxy watch suffered a similar problem, but it was not that accurate at measuring steps, which would directly affect the caloric expenditure. The FitBit was just WILDLY inaccurate and once told me I burned 5000+ calories in a day because I had a panic episode after something bad happened in my personal life, and so that night it registered me as having burned thousands of calories just laying in bed. The Garmin, however, did everything right (accurate steps that match the ones my iPhone said to within 5%, heart rate matched a professional blood pressure cuff, and the calorie counter tracked my weight loss exactly). It is extremely useful when counting calories where a slim margin is needed, such as aiming to lose 750 calories a day to lose 1.5 lbs/week. It it’s off by just 100 or 200, that’s already a half pound off, or 26 pounds a year. It is extremely important to me that it gets it right. It also has a ton of features, but I don’t use them honestly. It’s very easy to connect and set up, too. The price is subjectively fair but objectively it is quite high. Regardless, I am very pleased with it. The battery life is EXCELLENT if you turn Bluetooth and WiFi off, too. 5/5 all around! Read more

I abosolutely love this watch. I had a heart attack 6 months ago so I thought it was important to be able to keep an eye on my health and healing progress without needing all of the workout information and bulk of the Forerunners. This watch is the perfect size, has great battery life (I can go 2 weeks before charging, unlike an Apple you have to charge daily), and it can track all of my health measures including ECG, SPO2, heartrate, sleep effectiveness, and more. It also tracks my workouts whether running outside, on a treadmill, or just using a stationary bike. Also, my cardiologist and I are amazed at how accurate it is compared to their monitors! Oh, and don't forget the OLED screen. It's bright and brilliant, especially indoors. But I also have no issues seeing it in full sun. For me, it's the perfect watch. It won't track a triathlon for 17 hours, but it does everything I want and more. I also love being able to create custom faces for it. :) Read more

This is my 1st purchase of a Garmin Smartwatch. I had several Fitbits in the past 10 years and I was pretty much satisfied with just using the basics of that simpler watch. Music, payments, advanced workouts, messages, all the rest – I never used my watch for those functions. I was looking for a smartwatch to count my daily steps, track heartrate (see why below), quickie weather forecasts, a few stock quotes, oh yeah…and the time. That was pretty much the limits of my Fitbit usage. So having those plus a bunch of other simple apps or glances (Garmin’s terms for simple and oft-used apps), I was more than happy. The Garmin Venu 3S does all of this and more. If you want to do music, videos, payments, and lots of other features the Venu 3S can do those too, but that’s not my bag, as Austin Powers once said. The glances features are pretty easy to navigate once you get comfortable with these app-like functions. The Body Battery function is interesting, combining data from several apps to determine how much energy your body has or needs. Sleep Score is also useful. I even found a nifty Sun & Moon app that gives me the time for sunrise/set and moonrise/set plus the Moon phase -- useful for my daily activities and those days and nights when I pursue my astronomy hobby. I am especially pleased with the heart apps. I have several heart issues including HOCM (Hypertrophic Obstructive Cardiomyopathy) so being able to check my heart rate at rest and during rigorous walks is very important to me. The ECG and HRV Status apps are nice additional features to have (if you have an arrythmia check with your cardiologist/doctor before activating the ECG function). The Pulse Oximeter is also good to check upon during long walks or other strenuous activities. Battery life consistently averaging 10 days is fantastic, especially compared to Apple smartwatches that need to be recharged in under 2 days. My Fitbits could last 5 days but that meant bringing a charger for most vacations or longer times away from home. The Venu 3S is able to last 10 days right on the dot, and that included during the setup run when the watch was being used a lot more and downloading updates, glances, apps, etc. A battery saver option with a “sleep” mode will help you survive until you can get back to your home and charger, preserving battery life if you’re using the watch but running low on power. I got the Venu 3S instead of the brand new model 4S (which had just come out) because for someone not maxxing out on all the apps/glances/features, the 3S was more than enough for my needs. I didn’t see a revolutionary change from the Venu 3S to the 4/4s. If you are a person who lives more off their smartwatch than your smartphone, then perhaps the additional features and new OS (assuming no glitches) on the Garmin Venu 4 will be worth it. At an extra 20% in cost, make sure you need the latest features or it’s an unnecessary expenditure. Net-Net: this is a really nifty smartwatch for the advanced or beginner smartwatch user. The interface is very nice…swiping is easy and seamless....button navigation also very simple...the watch face colors are bright and easy to see even in direct sunlight. The 41mm size is fine for me (I’m under 6 feet tall) and most people, but if you like having an oversized watch or are a bigger person with a bigger wrist, than the 45mm size of the Venu 3 might be better for you. Very happy with my Garmin Venu 3S and if my prior experience with their GPS car navigation systems holds, I should have many years of trouble-free usage ahead of me. Read more

I had a fitbit versa 4 before this watch and Garmin outshines it in every way especially since Google took fitbit over and ruined them. The tracking apps a major improvement and highly accurate compared to fitbit. The strength training is really good overall nothing is 100% so when you do like a bench press it might come up in the app that you did a lateral raise or some other workout. Again I dont expect it to be 100% accurate on those. It is nice to be able to log those on the app and edit them for a digital journal instead of a paper one. Battery does pretty good but just remember the more you track activities it does drain the battery quicker even with always on off and battery saver on. The display is is nice and clear bout like looking at my phone clear. Still better than fitbit Read more