If you don’t mind the shape, you’ll be happy to find comprehensive fitness-tracking features that Garmin’s fans love. These include sleep and constant heart rate monitoring, a blood oxygen saturation sensor, abnormal heart rate alerts, stress tracking and more. The Music Edition ($250) will also offer onboard storage for your tunes, so you can go on a run without your phone and still enjoy music in your earbuds.
The 1.3-inch Gorilla Glass touchscreen and aluminum bezel make for a pleasant aesthetic, even if it is a little basic and familiar. Compared to the Venu, the Sq doesn’t have a barometer or gyro sensors, so elevation is calculated with its GPS sensor. This means you won’t be able to use the Sq to track your floors climbed or total ascent. You’ll also miss the workout animations and live watch faces that the original Venu supports.
Still, for $200, the Venu Sq offers plenty of features that you’ll find on pricier competitors like the Fitbit Sense, Apple Watch and Galaxy Watch. Garmin is not the best at smartwatch features like notifications or apps (nor at timely responses when data breaches happen), but those who want a great fitness tracker and don’t need sophisticated smartwatch tools might find the Venu Sq compelling.
