Following the launch of the premium Fenix 8 Pro earlier in September, Garmin has added a few more wearables to its ever-growing lineup.
Among the launches is the Garmin Venu 4, a new smartwatch designed to be “a personal on-wrist fitness and wellness coach.” But how does the new Garmin Venu 4 compare to the Venu 3? Are there enough new features to make the Venu 4 a more appealing option?
To help you decide, we’ve compared the specs of the Garmin Venu 4 to the Venu 3 below. Keep reading to see what’s new with the smartwatch and determine whether you think the Venu 4 will overtake the Venu 3 on our best Garmin watch guide.
Price and Availability
Available now, the Garmin Venu 4 is available in two sizes, 41mm and 45mm, with a starting price of £469.99/$549.99.
Naturally, as the older model, the Garmin Venu 3 doesn’t only have a cheaper starting price of £399.99/$449.99 (45mm), but it is also more likely to see price cuts too. In fact, we wouldn’t be surprised if this price dropped even further following the launch of the Venu 4.
Garmin Venu 3 boasts longer battery life
Perhaps surprisingly, the 2023 Garmin Venu 3 offers a slightly longer battery life than its successor, with up to 14 days between charges. In fact, even with all features enabled, including the battery-draining always-on display, we were able to see a whopping ten days of battery life.
While we’re yet to review the Venu 4, Garmin promises users can expect around 12 days of use, which falls slightly short of the Venu 3. However, it’s worth remembering that the newly announced Apple Watch Series 11 promises up to just 24 hours of life; Garmin’s offer of multiple days remains impressive.
Garmin Venu 4 has a built-in flashlight
Unlike the Venu 3, the Venu 4 benefits from a built-in LED torch for greater visibility when out in the dark.
The Venu 4 isn’t the only wearable in Garmin’s mighty lineup to sport a built-in flashlight. In fact, the more premium Fenix 8 and Forerunner 970 are equipped with a bright LED torch to help illuminate your path even in total darkness.
Garmin Venu 4 includes Lifestyle Logging tools
One of the new features found in the Garmin Venu 4 is its lifestyle logging tools. Similar to the likes of the Whoop strap, the Venu 4 allows you to enter custom or preset behaviours, such as caffeine and alcohol consumption, and see how those choices can impact your sleep, stress and HRV.
The idea behind lifestyle logging is to help users make more health-conscious and informed decisions by seeing how their habits affect their daily lives.
Garmin Venu 4 has advanced sleep metrics
Another key update with the Venu 4 is its sleep tracking tools. Although most Garmin watches naturally provide sleep monitoring features like Sleep Score, which offers a numerical measurement between 0 and 100 to depict how well you slept, the Venu 4 benefits from advanced monitoring.
The Venu 4’s sleep alignment tool promises to offer even more personalised sleep guidance by “keeping track of how aligned the body is to its inner sleep cycle”. This, Garmin explains, is supported by sleep consistency, which looks at the average bedtime over the past seven days.
These advanced sleep tracking tools are part of Garmin’s suite of health and fitness metrics, which include HRV, respiration, skin temperature, and more. Plus, you’ll also find Garmin Fitness Coach within the Venu 4, which provides personalised workouts for over 25 different activities, and adjusts according to your own sleep and recovery history.
Both are compatible with iOS and Android
It’s always worth remembering that not all smartwatches are compatible with both iOS and Android smartphones (we’re looking at you, Apple Watch).
Fortunately, both the Garmin Venu 4 and Venu 3 are compatible with iOS and Android. In fact, with compatible phones, you can even control your watch with voice commands or use your phone’s voice assistant to reply to text messages and more.
Having said that, it’s worth noting that Android users benefit from a few additional tools, including the ability to reply to text messages directly from your watch, view photos sent to you from your watch face and see turn-by-turn navigation.
Early Verdict
Considering the Garmin Venu 3 made its way into our best Garmin watch guide, the Venu 4 has a lot to live up to. Based on its spec sheet, it seems like a promising update to the Venu 3, featuring Lifestyle Logging, more advanced sleep tracking tools, and a Fitness Coach. That said, the slightly shorter battery life could put some off.
We’ll update this versus once we’ve reviewed the Garmin Venu 4.
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