Garmin Venu

Garmin Venu Update and Hands On Follow Up Review

CrossFit Review

Full Review - General

Initial Thoughts.

Verdict: Great Sports Watch, Great Screen, Decent HR Tracking

Garmin Venu Issues & Update Video

Workouts.

Open 20.1

20.1 - my HR Chest Strap was failing to function properly so this is just the watch. It held up really well from the likely heart rate impact, and there are no clear disturbances from the ground to overhead or Burpee movements either. Overall a great first full CrossFit eval.

Assault Bike Workout

Assault bike workout - Venu compared to H10 and new Whoop. All held up relatively well, other than HR loss for Whoop at two points.

Stationary HIIT Ride

This was just a basic HIIT stationary bike workout. The heart rates did okay on averages, although the Whoop accessed a very high HR in the beginning, and the Garmin a slightly higher one than the Chest Strap via Polar. I think the Garmin is showing great reliability in general, as past devices somehow had a struggle with tracking the higher rates for my arm/skin tone.

Open 20.2

This workout involved more wrist movement, and the Opticals showed it, badly. I don’t know why they performed so poorly compared to the accurate chest strap, but they were not very in line. The Garmin was correct at the top end of the range, but the average of 142bpm versus the chest strap of 161bpm shows significant error - and it was for sure 161 bpm average as the heart rate stayed up for the full 20 min AMRAP. The Whoop brought the same average HR at 142, but clearly dropped the accuracy for the second half of the workout, as Garmin didn't gain ground until the second half.