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Garmin Venu 3 getting starting: Ten how-to guide

Tech Gadgets Reviewer — Tue, 21 May 2024 04:43:01 +0000

As a first time Garmin watch owner, some of the basic customizations and actions took some getting used to. Furthermore, I believe that some of the options are not very intuitive. Hence, the post summarizes some of the key how-to that will help a new owner of the Garmin Venu 3 to quickly get started. The getting started list should also work for the Garmin Venu 3S and probably on other Garmin watches.

1. How to restart Garmin Venu 3?

Though there is not direct restart option, the watch can be shut down and started to complete a restart. After all restart is a common solution to many technology issues.

Long hold the top button till the menu option shows up. Scroll down to the end and hit the ‘Power off’ option to shut down. Once the screen goes blank, long hold the top button again till the screen start and the Venu logo appears.

2. How to change the watch face?

The watch comes with many watch face out the box. More watch faces can be added from Garmin Connect IQ store. But how do you change the watch face? Just long hold on the bottom most button and tap ‘Watch Face’ option. Swipe through the different options and select the watch face from the list.

3. How to use the watch to find your phone?

Keep your phone in silent and lose it often? Know how to find your phone using the Venu 3. Long hold on the top button and tap ‘Find my phone’. Click the top button again to stop the annoying ringing sound once the phone is found. One caveat, the watch uses a bluetooth connect to the phone to ring it. If the require connection is not established, the ‘Find my phone’ will not work.

4. How to keep the watch screen always on?

By default the watch screen times out and goes dark to conserve battery. However, it provides an option to keep the screen always on. The screen dims but makes the information still visible. The option will reduce the battery life though. Long hold the bottom button and tap ‘Settings’. Then tap the following

 'System' -> 'Display' -> 'General Use' -> 'Always on' toggle

The same steps can be follow to turn off always on feature.

5. How to connect a Bluetooth headphone?

To play music from the watch without a phone, the watch will need to be connect to Bluetooth headphone.

Long hold on the bottom most button and follow the below path:

Settings -> Music -> Headphones -> Add New

As prompted by the watch put the headphone in the pairing mode, and hit the green check to continue pairing. One paired the headphone name will show up under headphones and accessories option.

6. How to connect the watch to a Wi-Fi network?

Having a Wi-Fi connect is required to perform a system update directly from the watch and also to stream music from apps such as Spotify.

To connect to Wi-Fi network, long hold on the bottom button and tap through the following path

Settings -> System -> Connectivity -> Wi-Fi -> My Networks -> Search for Networks

Select the network to connect and type the password using the tedious option provided on the watch screen.

Or setup using the Garmin Connect App. On iPhone, from the home screen tap the More button on the bottom and tap Garmin Devices. Select your watch name followed by the path listed below:

System -> Connectivity -> Wi-Fi -> My Networks -> Add a Network

Choose a network and enter password and tap Add. The watch will light up showing the message ‘Connecting to network’. Once completed, a success message will be displayed.

7. How to check for software update and install directly from the watch?

Ensure a Wi-Fi connection is setup as per # 6 above. Long hold on the bottom button and tap through the following options:

Settings -> System -> Software Update

The watch will connect to the Wi-Fi network and check for an update. If an update is found, it will proceed to install the update.

8. How to enable notification only for text and calls but not for apps?

In initial version of the review for Garmin Venu 3, I mentioned it as one of the cons. However, I realized later that there is a setting in the watch to only notify for text and / or calls.

To prevent notification from apps except calls and text, long hold the bottom most button and follow the path:

Settings -> Notification & Alerts -> Smart Notifications -> General Use

There are three options for calls, text and apps. Apps notification can be setup to different than text and calls. The setting is great if you want no notifications for apps but notification for calls and text.

9. How to load music to Garmin Venu 3?

One of the great feature of the Garmin Venu 3/3S is that it can hold music files so that you can play it directly from the watch.

Other options such as streaming from music apps and playing music from phone is still available. Each of these source of music is called as music provider by Garmin.

To load music into the Garmin Venu 3 or 3S, connect the charging cable to a Windows computer. Once connected the watch will show as a drive on Windows Explorer. Navigate to the folder for music and copy the audio files needed.

For playing the music, long hold on the lower button and tap through the following:

Settings -> Music -> Music Providers -> My Music -> Select the songs to play

The output audio will need to be selected from speakers or any of the connected Bluetooth headphones / speakers.

If the music provider does not need to be changed, the Music app can be accessed from the App list.

10. How to create a custom watch face?

There are two ways to create custom watch face. First way is to create the face directly from watch. The steps are same as the one mentioned in #2. Scroll through the list of available watch face, till you find the ‘Create Custom’. Tap this option and follow along to create the custom watch face.

The second option requires using the Connect IQ app but provides more flexibility. It also provides the option to add custom images. Open the app and go to the ‘Face it’ option. Click the add icon and follow along. Once the customization is complete, click the ‘Install’ and the watch face is installed on the watch and activated.

For most of these how-to, we have provided the option to navigate and perform the how-to on the watch. However, many of these options can also performed using the Garmin Connect App. From the home screen, hit the ‘More’ on the bottom right app bar (on iPhone) and select the ‘Garmin Devices’. Then tap on your watch name. Now the many of the options on here should mirror the ones on the watch and should also work when completed through the app.

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Garmin Venu 3: Smart fitness tracker with excellent battery life

Tech Gadgets Reviewer — Sun, 05 May 2024 22:46:59 +0000

A month back I wrote why I decided it was time to upgrade from Polar M430 watch. Six years later, my wife again got me for my birthday the watch that I wanted: the Garmin Venu 3. I plan to do an in-depth review of the watch as I found there are many fascinating features. I have been using the watch for the last four weeks during which I tried to experiment with the different features of the watch and the related Garmin app on iPhone. My experience with the watch is limited to using with iPhone. Furthermore, I have not tried all the features yet. But I plan to add to the post, if I find new features that would dramatically alter my view of the watch.

My Use Case

Feel free to check my previous post that details my requirement for a fitness tracker. As a quick recap, I absolutely did not want to charge my watch everyday. I wanted it to be modern looking with color screen and touch capability. Ability to track naps and play music without a phone would be greatly appreciated. Any new features not available in my old polar watch would be great.

About Garmin Venu 3

Design

From a pure aesthetic sense, the watch looks great. I wondered whether, the large diameter of the Venu 3 would make it appear too big for my small wrist. But it does not look odd. It has a beautify AMOLED touch screen. The screen looks very bright even when viewing outside on sunny days.

Garmin Venu 3 - Back View

Garmin Venu 3 - Front View 2

Garmin Venu 3 - Front View 3

Garmin Venu 3 - Front View Screen On 1

Garmin Venu 3 - On Wrist Screen

Garmin Venu 3 - Microphone and Speaker

Garmin Venu 3 - Side Buttons

During my initial days with the watch, I kept hitting the screen against something, hence I decided to install the IQ shield screen protector before getting a scratch. Around the screen is a metal rim that is used when measuring ECG reading.

There are three buttons on the right. The bottom works like a back button. All the three buttons support long hold to pull different options. Coming from Polar watches, these three buttons seems totally chaotic. For the first few weeks, I was still hit multiple buttons to get what I wanted. It got better once I started remembering the options each button pulls up.

The default watch strap that comes with the box seems to cover many different sizes as many holes are available to buckle the strap. I also like the easy pull out and replace strap design, unlike the struggle I experience with my older Polar M430. The watch comes with a USB-C type charging cable that plugs into the watch. The end that plugs into the watch is proprietary. I like the Apple watch design of having a wireless magnetic charger end that snaps onto the watch better. Furthermore, I wish that a charging block were provided but I guess those are becoming a think of the past.

Overall, the watch design seems well designed and premium. It also feel comfortable to continuous wear without any irritation to the skin.

My Experience

As someone new to Garmin watches, the sheer options and features can easily be overwhelming. Also, initially it was hard to find some the options that would be considered basic. Such as changing the watch face – I installed different watch face from apps and it would automatically change the watch face. I was not sure how to go back to the initial watch face without uninstalling the watch face app I installed. Finally, figured out that long hold on the lowest button pulls up the option for watch face. Of course, as simple google search for any such question always seem to pull up with the Garmin support that showed how to do it. That said anyone coming from a basic fitness tracker without needing all the bells and whistles that this watch brings might feel frustrated.

I will go over the different areas and features of the watch that I have tried so far.

iPhone Integration

Garmin Venu 3 - Sleep Score

Garmin Venu 3 - Sleep Coach Recommendation

Garmin Venu 3 - Sleep Coach

Garmin Venu 3 - At a Glance

Garmin Venu 3 - App In Focus

Garmin Venu 3 - App Fitness Age

Garmin Venu 3 - HRV Status

Garmin Venu 3 - App Tennis HR Chart

Garmin Venu 3 - App Home

Venu 3 connects to the iPhone using a Bluetooth connection. Once connected many of the data and features can be accessed using the Garmin Connect app. The Garmin ConnectIQ app, lets you install apps for music, watch face apps and mapping apps from the Garmin store. It also lets you create custom watch faces on the phone and upload to Venu 3.

By long holding on the middle button, the watch can connect to Siri. You can speak into your watch with the commands for Siri and the Siri will respond back through the speak on the Venu 3. There is not reply option to text message when connect to an iPhone. However, the Siri on the watch can be used to response to text and WhatsApp messages. Furthermore, the watch can also make a call or pick up calls on you phone. In a way, the watch acts a client to the phone connected through Bluetooth. The app can be also used to setup the Garmin pay. Once setup through the app, Garmin pay can be used to pay by holding the watch near a card reader, even when you do not have the connected phone near by. The watch can also be used to find the connected phone, using the ‘Find my phone’ feature that is accessible by long holding the top button. This a great feature, if you keep your phone on silent and often search for it around the house.

One area of the iPhone integration that I am disappointed with is notifications. All notifications on the phone comes on the watch. Initially, vibration or sound for each notification was too overwhelming. Hence, I turned off the sound and vibration on the watch. But, since the watch mirrors all the notifications from the phone to watch, there is no easy way to select few apps for which to get the notification on the watch. The options to control notifications are based on text, calls and apps. For example, you can set the sound and / or vibration for calls and texts but not for apps, so that all the app notifications go to the notification center. Unfortunately, there is no flexibility to control notification sound or vibration per app. This could be a limitation because of the closed nature of iOS, however, it would be nice to have such app level control.

Activities

There are many activities available in the watch by default. It also provides option to add new activity. I added mowing as an activity as I seem to burn enough calories mowing my front and backyard. I have tried, tennis, walking, running, threadmill running, strength training and cardio so far. It does a fairly good job of tracking the workouts. Strength training is little weird. It lets you add the number of reps and weight per set. I could not find a way to group the three sets of a particular workout. So when I strength train, I mark each set of any workout separately. So in the end, I may have 18 sets in the workout summary, even though those are three sets of six different workouts. On most of the workout, it did a good job of tracking the number of repetitions per set but it always can be overridden. In the workout statistics, I noticed that it shows what muscles I worked out. It was correct in many instances. For some reason, when mowing, the watch had a hard time tracking my steps. The first time that I mowed without starting an activity, the watch figured out that I was doing some activity and guessed I was biking. It was surprising it could not track the steps though, as even my old Polar M430 would track the steps during mowing, even though the steps may have been little inflated.

Sleep and naps

The sleep tracking seems to be fairly accurate in terms of sleep time. It also provides a commentary about you sleep and how it helped you or not help you. Like with most of the data provided by the watch, it provides a break down of you sleep in terms of deep, light, REM and awake. It calculates and provides a sleep score based on all these data points. The watch also has a sleep coach that recommends hours of sleep each night adaptively based on your activities, stress and previous night sleep. I felt that the recommended hours are often not realistic. The quality of sleep metric seem to be mostly right. On one occasion when the watch mentioned I did not have enough REM and hence I will feel tired and irritable. I was not convinced with the feedback as I felt the great in the morning. I did not feel irritable but around noon I felt very tired and getting through the rest of the day was a drag. Occasionally, I would feel totally opposite to what the watch would predict based on my sleep. Overall, I feel that I can trust the sleep rating provided.

The watch has the ability to track naps. It says it can automatically detect a nap greater than five minutes. The preferred approach is to start a nap and optionally set an alarm, so that the nap does not turn into sleep. In the first week, the nap tracking acted funny. On a few occasions, it did not pick up my nap, even though the nap was more than five minutes. On another day, it said I took two naps and scolded me for taking too many naps, even when I did not take one. My work involves sitting and working on the computer and I assume it seemed from all the data points that I was napping. I wonder whether this happened because the watch did not have enough data points to make a good judgement. I haven’t had this issue since then. I mostly let the watch automatically track my naps and it is fairly accurate.

Body battery

The body battery feature treats the human body as a phone that charges and discharges. Garmin has kept the feature very simple. When you sleep or take naps, your body gets charged. Stress on the body causes the battery to drain. I tried to understand what type of stress Garmin measures, physical or mental.

By reading the help section, it seems the key determination of stress using HRV (Heart Rate Variability). Higher the HRV, lower the stress levels. The help link on the stress section of the app, has detailed explanation. I believe that Garmin attempts to measure both mental and physical stress though I did not find it explicitly stated. I believe so because by the the end of my work day, the watch will often tell me how I had a stress free day and hence I have enough battery left for a workout or activity. In reality, I feel that my work is mentally stressful but not physically demanding. In addition to stress, the workouts and activities also drain the body battery.

As such the body battery feature works good to get a sense of how your body is doing before a workout. It is especially helpful because I workout later in the evening or at night. That said, the premise of the body battery does seem to have a few holes. Obviously, the human body is more complicated that a simple charge and discharge. Other factors such as hydration level, quality of food intake, emotional state may all impact your body battery in someway. Overall, the feature is helpful to do a quick pulse check on your body situation, even though it might be best to listen to your body!

Other fitness features

The watch comes with the general fitness features such as steps, floors climbed and intense minutes. The user can select a fitness goal that would provide targets to achieve each day and each week. One another feature that I like is the fitness age. The watch estimates personal fitness age based on the different parameters such as weight and workout information. The accuracy will be better if you can enter a BMI. While calculation might be an estimate, it has been motivating to notice that working out consistently and achieving the targets has been helping my fitness age move below my actual chronological age. The watch can also be used to measure oxygen levels, VO2 Max and to take ECG.

Conclusion

Following the success of the Venu 2, Garmin has launched another great watch with the Venu 3. Even though some of the fitness features might not be perfect, it motivates enough to get you moving. In the current age, when you are expected to charge all your devices overnight, it is joy to have a watch that can go almost for a week without a charge with normal use. The smart features thrown into the fitness tracker are very handy, even though the integration with the iPhone could be much better. Of course, there are other smart watches that has better integration to phone and other fitness trackers that are for fitness geeks and runners. But, for anyone looking for a great fitness tracker with decent smart watch features, the Garmin Venu 3 is a excellent choice. Almost one month of using the Garmin Venu 3, I feel that it has certainly lived up to the expectation that I had from the watch.

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Polar M430 watch: Time for an upgrade!

Tech Gadgets Reviewer — Sun, 24 Mar 2024 01:21:38 +0000

I got the Polar M430 watch as a gift for my birthday in 2018. Over the last six years, it is not just my hair that has gone gray. My watch has also started to show signs of aging. During the period, I often looked at different options for upgrading the M430 but so far I figured out it is not worth the upgrade. I am revisiting the topic again in the post.

About Polar M430

The watch has been very reliable for the last six years. I have used it to track my sleep, workout sessions, tennis sessions, running sessions, and cardio workouts. The below table provides a list of pros and cons from my experience.

Polar M430 - Pros and Cons
Pros	Cons
Extra-ordinarily long battery life	Hideous looking
Many workout options	Outdate monochromatic screen
Good GPS and heart rate accuracy	No nap tracking
Sleep tracking is good	No onboard music storage
	Changing band is a pain

Some of the cons might be little unfair considering that the watch is six to seven years old. However, it is mainly a wish list of things that I want my watch to do. Mainly, I want my watch to look modern. When I go out for runs after work, I would love to drop the phone at home and still be able to listen to music. Knowing the impact of a nap would be so great. Unfortunately, most Polar watches I looked do not have nap tracking at all.

On the other side, the sleep tracking seems to be fairly accurate. It may be a little psychological but generally looking at the sleep statistics gives me an idea how I am going to feel the rest of the day. Furthermore, the battery life is such a big plus that I did not want to give up. It almost used to last a month on a charge. The watch is always ready to track my workouts. I often see my wife putting her Apple watch series 8 to charge as it is dead when she is about to start a workout. I do not want to factor in the watch charge status into my workouts. It will just adds another excuse to not workout! Especially, when the watch needs a charge every day. Luckily, at this point my M430’s battery life has come down to a week per charge. In away, it is a nice way to transition to most modern watches that do not last as long as the M430 did even a few months back.

Lastly, the Polar M430 does give me more steps than what my wife gets on the Apple watch 8. My wife would be out the whole day walking around, while I will be at home working on my laptop and I would end up getting more steps than her. I suspect the outdate technology in the M430 is probably the cause of it. That said, I do not know whether it would be a pro or a con. At least it gives me more steps and makes me feel good in the process!

Give all the above, I am ready to upgrade to a new watch if it adds enough value without compromising too much on the battery life.

Upgrade Options

he budget for the watch is around $350 to $400. The battery life requirement immediately eliminated Apple Watches. Though I have to give credit to Apple for the different watch and strap color options. I would have loved to try some of the Android watches, unfortunately, they do not play at all or play well with Apple iPhone.

Polar Ignite 3

As a repeat customer of Polar watches, I always kept an eye on the newer Polar releases. The Polar Flow app is very reliable and something I am used to for the many years. However, Polar had only addressed a few of the cons from the M430 list over the years. The Polar Sleep wise still does not seem to consider naps and there does not seem to be a push to add onboard music storage to these watches.

Given the modern color screens, the battery life advantage has gone down as well. That said I found that the Polar Ignite 3 Titanium is one of the most beautifully designed watches. Just based on the look of the watch, I had it on my wish list for Christmas 2023.

Garmin Venu 3 or Venu 3S

I have been looking at the Venu 2 and Venu 2 Plus before the Venu 3 series was launched. It seems Garmin had done a great job to appeal the consumers of my kind. It almost checks all the cons that I have listed in the cons of the M430 and not addressed in the Polar Ignite 3. It is a good looking watch, has a decent battery life, has onboard music storage, tracks naps, while still not losing on the good features of the M430.

With that said, it is always hard to get a consumer to switch from one brand to another, especially, when they are used to software associated with it. Hence, it took me a long time of going back and forth to decide that I am going to switch to a Garmin watch during the current upgrade cycle. Moreover, Garmin Venu has many other features that I am excited to try it out such as Body Battery, Fitness Age, Pulse Ox and other smartwatch features. The MSRP for the Garmin Venu 3 and Venu 3S is $449. However, I have seen them go on discounted to $399 multiple times already, which would still fit in my maximum budget.

Of course, if only making a decision were so easy! I had to ponder whether I should go for Venu 3S or Venu 3. Furthermore, the Garmin Vivoactive 5 seems very similar as well. I went to Best Buy to see how these watches look in my wrist. My wrist is relatively smaller and I was wondering whether Venu 3S would be a better option. However, the longer battery life on the Venu 3 is hard to pass. Vivoactive 5 is a little less bulky and might actually look better on my wrist. But, it does lack a few sensors as compared to Venu 3/3S. Most likely, I do not need any of those sensors, but still would want them anyway. Hence, at this time, I have zeroed in on getting the Garmin Venu 3. One thing I wish is that the Venu 3 series watches come with more color and band options like the Apple Watches do.

Summary

To conclude, I decide that my reliable Polar M430 is well past its due date. Introspecting, I believe that the super awesome battery life was one of the biggest reasons why I held off an upgrading it for such a long time. Furthermore, since I am not using the watch for features such as payments, I was not forced to upgrade because of not receiving any more security updates, as it often happens with tablets and phones. Finally, as of today my plan is to upgrade to the Garmin Venu 3. Beyond the features that I want, I look forward to try many of its other features that are exciting. I will write about my take on the Garmin Venu 3, especially, the exciting features, and whether the watch lives up to its expectation for my use cases when I put it to test in real life.

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