Venu 2/2s is Garmin’s latest smartwatch and second AMOLED display watch with the brand new ELEVATE sensor. The watch comes in two sizes: the standard Venu 2 for average and large wrists and Venu 2S for small wrists, aimed at womens. Featuring a full-touch display, it comes packed with plenty of smart features along with sports and fitness features that many know are anonymous with the company’s name.
The Garmin Forums are full of people asking questions about Garmin Venu 2/2S tips and tricks so I decided to write this post in order to help all those who want to unleash the full potential of their latest Garmin Venu.
Table of Contents
Top 10 Garmin Venu 2 Tips and Tricks:
Listen to Spotify Offline:
Garmin Venu 2 has improved on the original Venu in a number of ways, but one significant improvement is the increase in music storage capacity. The watch can now store about 650 songs and offers support for Spotify Offline.
Venu 2 can also stream music from iHeartRadio and Deezer. But for all the music streaming services, you need a premium subscription to listen to music offline.
To download your favorite playbacks and podcasts follow the steps given below.
On Compatible Smartphone:
Garmin Connect>>Select Venu 2>>Tap on Music>> Get Music Apps>> Select and Install Spotify
On the Venu 2:
Go to Music Provider>>Select Spotify>> Tap on Library>> Select Music and Podcasts>>Add Playlist
or Artist>>Tap on Done.
Remember: you will have to connect wireless headphones or earbuds to listen to music, as the watch has no speaker built-in. And even if it has any, the music experience on smartwatch speakers can’t be worse.
Custom Replies to Texts and Calls:
Venu 2 like all other Garmin watches doesn’t have a voice assistant or a microphone-speaker pair.
Even if they can connect to the headphones or earbuds, the Company hasn’t added the functionality yet to pick calls right on the watch (a feature now ubiquitous in Samsung and Apple Watches).
So what other options do we have?
We can customize replies to calls or texts. But here is another caveat. This feature only works when the watch is connected to a compatible Android smartphone.
To customize responses, open the connect app on the smartphone and navigate to quick responses. There you would find two options: ‘Respond to texts’ and ‘Respond to incoming calls‘. Just tap on any of the two. Once inside, tap on the blue ‘Plus’ button in the top right corner. You can type your quick response here.
Set up Emergency Contacts:
The Apple Watch introduced the fall detection sensor to automatically send texts and emails with your GPS location in case of any emergency. Garmin Venu 2 offers the same under its ‘incident detection feature.
The watch will automatically detect an incident when you are out for a run or hike. And if it doesn’t, you will have to manually trigger incident detection, but before you get full benefits from it, you will have to set up emergency contacts in the Garmin Connect App.
In the smartphone app, go to safe tracking and tap on safety features. Fill in ‘Emergency Contacts’ and ‘My Information’.
Inside Venu 2, you will have to long-press the bottom/back button. There you will find the Safety features again, and enable them for your hike, walk or run. You can also set the timer for it.
Connect Dexcom G6 To Venu 2:
If you are suffering from Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes and have a CGM like Dexcom G6 to track your sugar levels, Venu 2 can offer great help by allowing a second screen apart from your smartphone to view glucose data. Garmin
Venu 2 cannot display Dexcom G-readings directly. You will always have to keep your smartphone in the loop.
The way it goes, you would have to install the Dexcom G6 app on the smartphone, and a third-party app like Nightscout. Next, you will have to install a watch face on the Venu 2. Once all of these are configured, you can get your sugar data right on your wrist.
Sorry Folks, I will have to direct you to another post. Find here the step-by-step process to connect Dexcom G6 with Garmin Venu 2/2S.
Try New Workouts:
Venu 2 has come with a couple of new workouts unseen on any other Garmin Watch. Of course, the company later updated it on other devices with a firmware update.
Here is a list of all new options if you don’t know.
- High-intensity Interval Training (HIIT)
- Indoor Climbing
- Bouldering
The most interesting of them is the HIIT tracking. Once you tap into the HIIT icon, you get a lot of strength training options, and you can even customize your own. For what it is worth, each workout is followed by onscreen animations to help the beginners.
Sleep Tracking and Body Battery:
Garmin brought advanced Sleep Tracking with the Garmin Fenix series. Later they introduced it on other devices like Venu, Vivoactive, and Forerunner watches.
Related Post: Garmin Venu 2 Vs Garmin Fenix 6
No athletes can deny the importance of good sleep in the recovery of the body during training. While Apple Watch is still limited to telling the duration of sleep, Garmin devices including the Venu 2 goes ahead to tell you all four stages like the Fitbit (REM, Awake time, Light, and Deep sleep). It is so far the best Sleep tracker by Garmin.
The advantage this Garmin watch offers is to allow you to view the sleep data right on the watch. In older devices, you have to open the smartphone app to get detailed insights.
Not only that, Garmin takes a lot of different factors like Sleep, Heart rate, and Stress data to give you one comprehensive metric: body battery. It basically tells you when you need to sleep and when your body is good enough for strenuous exercise.
Save Battery:
Venu 2 comes with 11 days of battery performance on a single charge, but only if you turn off all the battery hogs. These features include:
- Continious GPS tracking
- Bluetooth and ANT+ connection to multiple devices at a time
- Continious Pulse Ox usage
- Spotify Syncing over Wi-Fi
- Special Connect IQ watch face usage
- Always on display, high backlight intensity.
Here are some tips by Garmin’s own resources to help you.
- Lower the backlight intensity and set the timeout to the lowest option.
- Disable alert and key tones, or lower the intensity of vibration alerts.
- Disable GLONASS or Galileo from the ‘GPS settings’ as in most cases when the accuracy of only GPS is more than enough.
- Avoid Connect IQ watchfaces.
- If not needed, you should disable the Pulse Oximeter altogether or disable it during the day.
I know it is overwhelming, but the Venu 2 has a smart alternative for you. The Battery Saver mode. Enabling this feature will limit or disable the use of the abovementioned features automatically.
To Enable Battery Saver:
- Press and hold the bottom button
- Touch the Gear icon
- Touch Battery Manager
- Toggle Battery Saver to On
Enabling this feature, you will certainly get the most out of your Garmin Venu 2/2S. The predecessors like Venu SQ and the original Venu lack it up til now, but hopefully, the company might introduce it in the next firmware update.
Disable Notifications:
Having the convenience of viewing important notifications right on your wrist is a desirable feature, but your watch buzzing with alerts when you are asleep can’t be more annoying.
Unsurprisingly, you can disable notifications on Garmin Venu 2 by following these steps:
1. Go to the Garmin Connect app on your phone
2. Tap the icon for your Venu 2 at the top, then tap ‘User Settings‘.
3. Under ‘Normal Bed Time’ and ‘Normal Wake Time’, you can type your usually snoozing hours.
4. With that done, go back to the main device settings screen and pick Sounds & Alerts
5. Turn on the Do Not Disturb During Sleep option, and you won’t get notifications during the specified timings.
You can customize the data screens
This feature was particularly helpful in old Garmin devices with low resolutions. The users who get annoyed with the limitation of the screen to display the desired data in a single view set the top priority data screens on the top.
Remember Garmin Venu 2 tracks a lot of metrics as you run or swim, or perform any other activity. The key metrics are usually hidden from the view and sooner or later you would become frustrated.
But wait a minute.
Garmin Venu 2, and almost all other Garmins, let you customize your data screens. For that, just follow the steps below.
- Open your connect IQ app on the smartphone and find the Venu 2 in the Gamin Device section
- Find the main Settings panel and select Activities & Apps.
- Choose Data Screens, pick the data screens you want to see on screen, and save.
Health Snapshot:
The Apple Watch lets you send a PDF of your ECG reading to the doctor. Garmin Venu 2/2S offers the same but a twist. With its health Snapshot feature, the watch exports your all health metrics to the Garmin Connect App on your smartphone, from where you can send the detailed report to your doctor in PDF format.
To record a Health Snapshot on Venu 2, follow these steps:
- Access the activity menu by pressing the upper right hand button
- Select Health Snapshot.
- Press the start key to begin the two-minute timer,
- Hold still until the two-minute activity completes.
Conclusion:
In this post, we have discussed 10 tips you can use to get the most out of your Garmin Venu 2. If you have found it lacking something, feel free to add it in the comments.
No doubt, it is a great mid-range fitness watch for those who want Garmin’s signature sports and health tracking in a smaller form factor.