Europe’s largest consumer electronics show, IFA, where the world’s leading brands present their new products, saw Garmin announcing the launch of two new smartwatches to its Venu series – the Venu Sq 2 and Venu Sq 2 Music Edition.
Venu Sq 2 succeeds Venu Sq – Welcomes longer battery life, bigger display and features
The Venu Sq 2, which is an update to the Venu Sq watch Garmin released two years ago, stands out from other Garmin watches due to its new square face. The new smartwatches sport a 1.41-inch always-on AMOLED display, a nice upgrade from the previous generation that came with a 1.3-inch LCD display. Not only do the new smartwatches get a larger display but also a higher screen resolution of 320 x 360 pixels. By replacing the old display with an AMOLED one, Garmin offers a more beautiful and colorful display on your wrist with the Venu Sq 2.
While the Venu Sq 2 is priced lower than the Venu 2 smartwatch, Garmin cut back some design and features to facilitate the price reduction. However, the new smartwatches still boast eye-popping features that put them ahead of their predecessor. For a start, Garmin announced that both watches could go up to 11 days in Smartwatch Mode after a full charge, this is an almost 100% boost in battery life from its predecessor, which could only last up to 6 days in smartwatch Mode.
The Venu Sq 2 and Venu Sq 2 Music Edition are essentially the same smartwatches in that virtually all their specs and features are the same. What sets the duo apart is that the Music Edition has a Wi-Fi connectivity option and inbuilt storage for offline music playback from various music streaming platforms, including Spotify, Deezer, and Amazon Music. With these features, the Music Edition allows you to listen to songs without your phone via a Bluetooth headphone.
Although Garmin tried to keep costs down by not using premium materials and cutting back on some features, the Venu Sq 2 is not exactly what you would describe as a budget smartwatch. The non-music version retails for $250, while the Music Edition retails for $300. Both variants of the watch come in 3 colors for both men and women and are suitable for everyday wearing and every night sleep as it weighs only 38 grams.
The health and fitness features on the watches include stress monitoring, heart rate monitoring, blood oxygen level monitoring, sleep tracking, and hydration tracking. The watches also come with the usual Garmin sports modes but exclude a few modes such as trail run. Interestingly, they added new modes such as HIIT and pilates workouts. Users can also create their personal workouts using the Garmin Connect app. The best part of the Venu Sq 2 is that it can accurately recognize most activities without user interaction. So if you forget to switch on your activity, the watch will automatically start monitoring by itself. This is possible thanks to the improved Move IQ feature.
What’s more? The Venu Sq 2 and Venu Sq 2 Music Edition are water resistant and can work with both iPhones and Android smartphones. The watches are already available in the US through Garmin’s official website.