The long-awaited Garmin Venu 3 has arrived, carrying across some of the best features from last year's Venu 2 Plus, and adding a bundle of extra tools to help track and improve your health.
The Venu 3's launch was preceded by a flurry of leaks, including news of the new Sleep Coaching tool, images of the screen, renders of the whole watch, and even a box in a locked cabinet at a branch of Best Buy. These gave us an idea of what to expect, but now we know the specifications for certain – and they're pretty impressive.
The Garmin Venu 3 comes in two sizes: 45mm and 41mm diameter. The larger watch comes in black and whitestone colorways, while the smaller one is available in French gray, slate, sage gray, dust rose, and ivory. It's available to buy now direct from Garmin for $449.99/£449.99. If you live in the UK, you can upgrade the standard silicone band to leather for an additional £50.
Physically, it's very similar to previous Garmin Venu watches, with the same round face topped with a bright AMOLED display. Like the Venu 2 Plus, it has a microphone and speaker that allow you to use your phone's voice assistant and take calls without touching your handset. You won't be able to make calls without a Bluetooth connection, though; the Venu 3 doesn't have cellular connectivity.
For many users, the most exciting new feature will be Sleep Coaching. Previous Garmin watches have tracked your sleep stages and given pretty general tips, such as advising you to get to bed earlier, but Sleep Coaching goes further by determining how much sleep you actually need and giving you more personalized guidance. It also finally tracks naps, which is something many Garmin users (myself included) have wanted for years.
Another big update is the addition of specific workout modes for people who use wheelchairs. The Garmin Venu 3 can also track daily pushes if you use a manual wheelchair, and provide weight shift alerts. This is something that's been available to Apple Watch users for years, and it's great to see Garmin catching up.
Elsewhere, the Venu 3 offers the same set of health and fitness tools you'd expect, including 30 workout apps, access to adaptable workouts through Garmin Coach, VO2 max estimates, and daily workout suggestions.
Looking at the back of the watch, you can see that it has the same upgraded heart rate monitor as the Garmin Fenix 7 Pro and Epix Pro, which features sensors spread over a larger area for more accurate readings.
Interestingly, there's no mention of ECG monitoring in the official specs, but that doesn't mean that the hardware isn't there. At the time of writing, the Garmin Venu 2 Plus is the only watch that supports the ECG app, and it's not available in all countries, so it's possible that it's still going through the complex process of approval from international regulators.
It's also worth noting that the Venu 3 doesn't support wireless charging, instead using the same proprietary charging cable as most other Garmin watches released in recent years. The Vivomove Trend is still the only Qi-compatible Garmin watch, but hopefully that will change before long.
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