Garmin Venu 3 Review: Why It's The Best Thing I Tested in 2024

As a lifetime health and fitness aficionado, I’m always prowling for products to help me take my routine up a notch. When it comes to getting a truly holistic look at not only my workouts but my overall health, Garmin’s Venu 3 might just be the single most useful tool in my regimen. Yes, there are other Garmin fitness trackers and multisport watches that deliver more detailed information. But the mid-range Venu 3 hits the sweet spot between fitness tracking and smart lifestyle features.

A Versatile Multisport Tracker

I use my Venu 3 primarily for logging runs, strength training, and swimming laps whenever I’m lucky enough to have access to a pool. But it also tracks some 30 other activities, including HIIT, boxing, golf, meditation, pickleball, and archery. It also provides all the key metrics I’m looking for, including calories burned, steps, intensity minutes, steps, distance, and the like. While no watch tracks everything perfectly, the Venu 3 is about as accurate as it gets. It’s not as granular as the similarly priced Forerunner 265, but it doesn’t need to be. While I wish I was that dedicated a runner, the fact is I just don’t end up using much of the more zoomed-in data, like running dynamics, short and long term training load, performance conditioning, and a handful of others. For me, it’s more important to have an overall portrait of health. The Venu 3 delivers.

Used alongside the Garmin Connect app, you’ll have a powerful suite of information and features to help boost your fitness efforts. I like to keep an eye on my Intensity Minutes—basically, a log of moderate and vigorous movement you perform—which ensures that I’m getting enough activity throughout the week. This is essential when you have a job that requires a lot of sitting. (Which I do.) The Venu 3 also pairs with Strava, MyFitnessPal, Apple Health, and many other apps to expand its tracking and activity capabilities.

Tons of Lifestyle Features

The Venu 3’s broad range of lifestyle apps and practical tools are also major benefits. Its sleep tracking feature has changed the way I approach rest (a relief for a lifetime semi-insomniac), even if it is typically about 30 minutes late at recognizing the nod-off and the whole realm of sleep tracking data insights is still developing. Then there’s the high-stress alert. When I first started wearing the Venu 3, the frequency with which it went off was genuinely alarming. On the plus side, this made me much more aware of stress management—with notable results.

Plus, as a roving freelancer, I get a lot of use out of the various smartwatch features, from email notifications to taking calls to contactless payments. The calls come through clearly through its speaker and mic, and its controls are easy to use.

I’m also a big fan of its bright AMOLED screen. One of the biggest issues I encounter with sports watches involves screens that become near impossible to see in direct sun, which can be a real hindrance when you’re literally on the run. But the Venu 3’s screen is easy to see in any light and has vivid colors, which looks great if you customize its face with a pattern or image.

The Price: Good or Bad?

The Venu 3 is typically sold for about $450. Whether that price is high or low depends on how you expect to use it.

If you expect to leverage the full suite of smart and fitness features, that’s a pretty good price—especially considering the fact that the Garmin Epix or Apple Watch Ultra can go for double that or more. From my experience, most of the high-priced bells and whistles offered by those luxury lines don’t deliver a lot of value for the average user, so a trimmed down Venu 3 for half the price seems like a pretty good deal.

On the other hand, if you don’t plan on using more than the most basic tracking features (calories burned, steps, workout time, etc.) or don’t have much need for wide-ranging smart features, the price is pretty high. In that case, you’re probably better off with a more affordable Garmin or a Fitbit Charge or Versa.

Pros: What You’ll Love

One of the biggest benefits of the Venu 3 is its intuitive—but not overcomplicated—health features. If you’re serious about data and coaching programs, you can get in the weeds. If you’re more casual about your tracking, you don’t have to wade through a bunch of obscure data to get a sense of your performance.

As a sleep tracker, I don’t think there’s a better option around. Garmin’s accuracy is among the leaders in the field. The Venu 3 in particular has an outstanding sleep coach program. Its morning report provides information about the duration and quality of your sleep (if mine is poor and I have the opportunity, I’ll catch a few more zzz’s and feel noticeably better because of it). And its Evening Report provides useful insight into how you can make your sleep more restful.

The Venu 3’s navigation is also pleasantly intuitive, which is definitely not the case with the majority of smartwatches. The clean appearance and stunning screen look fantastic. And I’m a sucker for the flashlight.

Cons: Why It May Not Be Right for You

There are two situations where I could see the Venu 3 not being the right watch for your needs.

First, its lack of hyper-granular fitness metrics may disappoint if you’re an elite runner looking to fine-tune your performance for competition. It’ll do plenty for most of us, but if you’re all about the numbers, you’re probably better off with a Forerunner or Coros Pace 3.

Another situation where you might pass involves the Venu 3's abundant smart features. If you’re not going to use it for calls, apps, sleep tracking, and the other day-to-day lifestyle stuff, it may be too much watch for you. In that case, you may prefer to save yourself a few bucks and go for a Vivoactive instead.

Verdict: A Perfectly Balanced Sportswatch

For me—an enthusiastic if more casual athlete living a highly connected life—the Garmin Venu 3 delivers the ideal balance between fitness tracking capability and smart versatility. Let’s put it this way: there’s no other piece of fitness gear that I use so consistently and to such impact. Unless 2025 has something unexpected in store, the Venu 3 might end up being the standout of the year once again.

Features: Garmin Venu 3

• Price: $449.99
• Dimensions: 45 x 45 x 12 mm
• Weight: 46 g
• Case/bezel: Fibre-reinforced polymer case, stainless steel bezel
• Display: 454 x 454 1.4-inch AMOLED touch
• GPS: GPS, GLONASS, GALILEO
• Battery life: Watch mode 14 days, GPS 26 hours, GPS + Music 11 hours
• Connection: Bluetooth, ANT+, WiFi
• Water resistant: Yes, 5ATM

Why You Should Trust Me

I’ve been a running and fitness enthusiast for 30 years, and began testing and reviewing products for over a decade ago for publications like Men’s Fitness, Men’s Journal, Runner’s World, the Los Angeles Times, Popular Science, and more. I’ve also been using personal fitness trackers more or less since their inception, and over the past several years, I’ve tested most if not all of the key multisport watch lines from the top brands.