I had avoided using a sports watch until I tested this watch from Garmin

Until the Garmin Venu 4 landed on my wrist, I had mostly avoided using dedicated sports watches from brands like Garmin or Polar as my daily driver. Part of that was imposter syndrome. I’m a fitness enthusiast, not a full-fledged athlete (yet). But mostly, I wasn’t willing to accept the trade-offs that came with them: outdated software, limited smart features and designs that felt more like sports equipment than something I’d want to wear all day.

The Venu 4 isn’t the only beautiful sports watch on the market, but it’s the first watch that comes close to convincing me to move on. It’s well-rounded (literally and figuratively) and packed with fitness features that don’t feel condescending to a wannabe athlete like me.

The dividing line between sports and traditional watches Smart watches It seems to get murkier every year. Apple and Samsung are both powerful now Super smart watch Lines and sports watches are starting to look (and act) more like traditional smartwatches.

The Venu 4 feels like Garmin’s strongest attempt yet at bridging these two worlds. It goes all out on fitness features with advanced insights like training readiness and suggested workouts typically reserved for top-tier Fēnix models, but it has an accessible design and price for people who live somewhere between casual fitness enthusiasts and aspiring athletes.

The $550 price tag (for both the 41mm and 45mm models) is $100 more than its predecessor, and upgrading from the Venu 3 only makes sense if you plan to use the data it provides. If you’re someone who mostly wants to track workouts occasionally, the Venu 4 will be overkill.

I may not be a complete convert (yet), but after weeks of living with it day and night with the Venu 4, I’ve developed an obsession with Garmin, and I can see how a sports watch could help me up my fitness game when I’m ready.

Venu 4 Fitness: Garmin’s core powerhouse

The Venu 4 supports pretty much every workout imaginable, from running and cycling to rowing, HIIT, and even golf course mapping. It supports multi-band GPS, which I found provides more accurate location tracking, even while running without my phone. Heart rate tracking stayed impressively close to my Polar chest strap after the initial jump from rest to high-intensity sprinting.

Garmin’s strength lies not only in the sheer volume of data it collects, but in how it helps you understand how these metrics impact your training. On the Venu 4, you can get heart rate, respiratory rate, blood oxygen, pressure, ECG, skin temperature changes, heart rate, advanced sleep, and menstrual cycle tracking.

On their own, these metrics may seem overwhelming or even meaningless. What Garmin does well is connect the dots through features like Body Battery, Training Readiness, Load and other recovery insights that translate raw data into a clearer picture of how prepared your body is for activity. And because you’re not constantly taking it off to charge, Garmin can build a more complete picture of your health and recovery that becomes more accurate over time.

I found that waking up to a low body battery score when I was feeling down was both frustrating and affirming: no, maybe I can’t just “snap out of this,” and yes, maybe I should take a rest day (or two) before returning to my New Year’s resolution.

The watch also highlights when you’re theoretically at your best for working out, even if real life isn’t always cooperating. There is no greater irony than being seen at the “peak” of training readiness while rocking my toddler to sleep, or rushing to get a story on time. This is ultimately the biggest barrier to full crossover into the Garmin ecosystem. I’m not always in a position to follow advice that makes these metrics more valuable.

Garmin Connect Plus subscribers ($7 per month) get access to personalized training plans and suggested daily workouts that adapt based on their sleep, recovery, and activity history. I tried a running plan to prepare for a 10K, but by day three, I had gone rogue and settled back into a tired, but realistic, workout routine. Learning new routines takes time, and at this stage of life, 20 minutes of practice in between everything else will be enough.

Venu 4 battery life: Amazing for a smartwatch, but great for a Garmin

The Venu 4’s shiny new upgrades (brighter display and improved GPS tracking over the Venu 3) come at a slight cost to battery life: you get 12 days on the Venu 4 versus 14 days on the Venu 3. But I think it’s worth it when you consider everything else about it.

We averaged about 10 days of battery life per charge for the smaller 41mm Venu 4 I tested. But this is in smartwatch mode, disabling the always-on display. If, like me, you prefer an always-on display, your battery life will decrease. I got about four days on a charge (a little less on longer walking days when the GPS was on). It’s not quite the multi-week endurance like Garmin’s Enduro or Instinct lines. But even at the lower end, the Venu 4 is still much better than most apple And Samsung watches.

I’ve never worn a smartwatch this long without taking it off for a fee, which turns out that can be a good or a bad thing. On the plus side, it has made sleep tracking more consistent, which is key to unlocking Garmin’s best features like Body Battery, HRV (heart rate variability) and recovery insights. Wearing a watch for an extended period is also important for determining long-term health trends and detecting early signs of disease.

The flip side of wearing it non-stop is skin irritation. After about five days in a row, the skin just below the watch became red and itchy. I tried to get over him, which made things worse. The perfect storm of winter weather, a suppressed immune system, and the polymer backing on the underside of the watch probably didn’t help matters. After taking a week off, cleansing more regularly, and giving my skin a break every now and then, the problem didn’t come back. And if you have sensitive skin like me, it’s probably worth building in a little breathing room.

Venu 4 Design: Not your average sports watch

The Venu 4 is one of the best-looking watches I’ve tested (note: I didn’t say sports watches). It even got its fair share of compliments from friends who didn’t know it was a sports watch. The Venu 4 comes in two sizes, 41mm and 45mm, both with a 1.4-inch AMOLED display and a stainless steel case in moon gold, slate, or silver. It is covered with Gorilla Glass 3 and has a fiber-reinforced polymer back.

The bezels are larger than those on the Apple Watch Series 11, and the usable screen area feels smaller than expected. The Venu 4’s screen is bright and readable even in direct sunlight. You may not find it as responsive to touch if you’re coming from a higher refresh rate LTPO OLED or Super AMOLED display, like those found in Apple or Samsung watches. This is why physical button navigation is so important.

Garmin has pared down the design to two physical buttons (the Venu 3 had three). One button displays navigation, while the other handles quick settings. Long pressing the bottom button activates other actions, like the flashlight, but until muscle memory kicks in, it’s easy to forget which one does what.

The built-in LED light is a standout feature. It’s an actual light built into the side of the watch, not a screen-based solution as found on other smartwatches. It’s surprisingly powerful and incredibly useful, whether you’re participating in an ultra-fast race or, in my case, checking on a sleeping baby without any lights on.

Venu 4 basics: Functional, but not sleek

On paper, the Venu 4 checks most smartwatch boxes. It has notifications, mobile payments via Garmin Pay, music storage, voice assistant access (via your phone), and supports calls from your wrist. Android phone Owners get the added benefit of answering texts from the watch; iPhone Owners of luck.

In my testing, this is where Garmin still lags behind true smartwatches. Everything works, but it’s not smooth; Simple procedures often require more steps than they should, and the Garmin app ecosystem remains limited. Even changing your watch face requires an additional phone app (Garmin IQ). The upside is cross-platform compatibility, and apart from the ability to respond to texts, the experience is consistent across iOS and Android.

Venu 4 accessibility features

Garmin has also added more accessibility options to the Venu 4. There are spoken watch faces that read time and health data, hourly audio alerts, and multiple color filters for people with color blindness.

Place 4: Final Thoughts

I’m still a hands-on specialist in the throes of working motherhood, but the Garmin Venu 4 is the closest I’ve been to full sports viewing. If I’m ready to make fitness a real priority, the Venu 4 will be my gateway to a Garmin watch.

It’s a solid choice for anyone looking to get into the world of sports watches for the first time, and it’s one of Garmin’s more comprehensive options. The Venu 4 has battery to last you through the week, training insights that feel genuinely useful rather than burdensome, and a design that’s polished enough to be ready for date night.