Garmin Venu 4 Gets a New Fitness Trainer and Flashlight
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Garmin’s latest watch is an update to the Venu line. The Venu 3 was one of the brand’s best everyday watches, while the Venu X1, released earlier this year, was a premium version. Now, the Venu 4 , equipped with a flashlight, will go on sale on September 22.
Prices and main characteristics
The Venu 4 is available in two sizes ( 41 and 45 millimeters), corresponding to the Venu 3 and 3S, respectively. It costs $100 more than the previous version: the Venu 4 costs $549.99, while the Venu 3 costs $449.99.
Like its predecessor, the Venu 4 features an AMOLED touchscreen, a stainless steel frame, Gorilla Glass 3 protection, and a speaker and microphone that allow you to take voice calls as long as your phone is in range.
It adds training status, training readiness, and Garmin Coach data for four different activities: running, cycling, strength training, and a new fitness coach. Here’s a quick overview of some of the key new features:
Flashlight
It’s a simple feature, but it’s important to many. Garmin used to equip outdoor watches with LED headlights—the budget Instinct and the expensive Fenix—but the Forerunner 970 has one , and it seems to have proven itself well. Even Amazfit added a headlight to its T-Rex 3 Pro . The Venu 3 didn’t have one, but the premium Venu X1 does, and now the Venu 4 does too.
Health status
The new health metric takes into account your overnight vital signs (heart rate, heart rate variability, skin temperature, and pulse oxygen levels) and tells you whether they’re within your normal range or deviating from your usual baseline.
Keeping a lifestyle journal
Garmin has traditionally simply collected your data and displayed it, without providing the lifestyle analysis offered by other companies like Whoop and Bevel . But the Venu 4 features a lifestyle logging feature, allowing you to record your habits and behaviors and track whether they impact your performance. (As an example, Garmin records your caffeine intake at the end of the day to assess its impact on your sleep.)
Fitness trainer
Garmin’s daily recommendations are no longer just for runners and cyclists. The watch now features a relatively new strength coach (it’s been on my Forerunner watch for a while now), and the Venu 4 now has a fitness coach who can recommend any of 25 workouts. A daily workout plan could include a walk, a high-intensity interval workout, or a rowing machine session.
Accessibility features
The Venu watch was already one of the most accessible watches for people with disabilities: in addition to walking and running workouts, it features a mode for people with disabilities. The Venu 4 adds the option of speaking the time through the speaker, as well as color filtering on the display.