Tag: Garmin

Take calls and send texts from the Venu 2 Plus health and fitness GPS smartwatch by Garmin

Dania
Take calls and send texts from the Venu 2 Plus health and fitness GPS smartwatch by Garmin

OLATHE, Kan.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Garmin® International, Inc., a unit of Garmin Ltd. (NYSE: GRMN), today announced the Venu® 2 Plus GPS smartwatch that lets users take calls and use their compatible smartphone’s voice assistant to send texts, ask questions, and so much more. These connected capabilities join the robust suite of health, wellness and fitness features of Garmin’s Venu 2 Series, including: sleep score with insights, stress tracking, energy monitoring, Pulse Ox1, women’s health features and a wide variety of fitness and workout options. With a bright AMOLED display and a battery life of up to 9 days, the Venu 2 Plus is a direct line to wellbeing. Check out the video here.

“Garmin has quite literally answered the call for adding on-device voice capabilities to the latest Venu smartwatch,” said Dan Bartel, Garmin vice president of global consumer sales. “For the active lifestyle customer, multi-tasking is crucial, and now Garmin customers have the ability to answer a call or send a text without digging through their pocket or bag.”

Here’s what’s new for the Venu 2 Plus:

  • Phone calls from the wrist: Make and take phone calls with the press of a button.
  • Voice assistant control: Compatible with Siri, Google Assistant or Bixby, users can use their smartphone’s voice assistant to send texts, ask questions, control compatible smart home devices and more.

All-day health monitoring

The Venu 2 Plus dials into wellbeing with the broadest range of 24/7 health monitoring features available, including: heart rate (with user-configurable alerts for high or low readings2), advanced sleep with sleep score and insights by Firstbeat AnalyticsTM, breathwork activities, fitness age, respiration, Pulse Ox, all-day stress, hydration, and women’s health (menstrual cycle tracking and pregnancy tracking). Body BatteryTM energy monitoring shows users how “charged” their body is as well as the draining effects of stress and exercise. Health SnapshotTM logs a two-minute window of key health stats and generates a report users can share with a health care provider; a great tool for capturing physiological data anytime you’re feeling off your baseline.

Customized fitness

The Venu 2 Plus pulls in all of the latest fitness features recently introduced on the Venu 2 series including 25+ built-in indoor and GPS sports apps with favorites that include walking, running, HIIT, cycling, pool swimming, Pilates, yoga, indoor climbing, hiking, advanced strength training with muscle map graphics and more.

Keep fitness feeling fresh with preloaded workouts on the watch, preset workouts available to download from Garmin ConnectTM app on your smartphone, and create your own customizable workouts by choosing from over 1,400 exercises. The Venu 2 Plus has 75+ preset animated workouts for cardio, yoga, strength, HIIT and Pilates that demonstrate proper form and technique in Garmin Connect and on the wrist. Whether training for a 5K or something longer, the Venu 2 Plus is compatible with Garmin Coach free adaptive training plans.

Safety and tracking

In addition to being

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Which Fitness Tracker Is Best For You? Apple Watch vs. Fitbit vs. Oura vs. Garmin vs. Whoop

Dania
Which Fitness Tracker Is Best For You? Apple Watch vs. Fitbit vs. Oura vs. Garmin vs. Whoop

I have two watches on my left wrist, another on my right arm, a ring on my finger and a sensor embedded in my bra. No one should ever wear this many fitness trackers simultaneously. But in this moment, I am letting the latest heart-rate-sensing, sleep-capturing, workout-recording wearables from Apple, Fitbit,

Garmin,

GRMN 0.55%

Whoop and Oura capture all my data, to see which ones do the best job.

Whether you are training for a race or trying to lose the Quarantine 15, a fitness tracker can provide a helpful motivational nudge. But choosing the right one depends on your preferred activities and health goals—and requires an understanding of what data is most useful to you.

New trackers are much more than pedometers and heart-rate monitors. They also measure blood-oxygen levels, a sign of overall health and altitude acclimation. And they capture heart-rate variability, the difference in time between each heartbeat, which can provide feedback about your body’s ability to recover from exercise. But how accurate are the metrics?

The Right Metrics

Studies have shown that wrist-based wearables’ optical sensors—which beam light onto the skin to detect pulse—are generally accurate during rest, but less so during workouts with unpredictable movement, such as strength training.

The data can still be valuable. Zakkoyya Lewis-Trammell, an assistant professor of kinesiology at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, said that while wrist-based trackers aren’t clinical devices, she considers them a reliable tool for comparing day-to-day changes.

One helpful approach: Pick metrics that are as close to the sensor’s data as possible—such as resting heart rate over time, said Seth Martin, a cardiologist at Johns Hopkins Medicine. Avoid obsessing over things like calories burned, which is just a calculated guess, he added.

A new metric popping up in wearables looks at whether your body is primed to work out. Fitbit and Oura call it “Readiness.” On Garmin, it’s “Body Battery.” Whoop assigns you a “Strain” score. Several Apple Watch apps, including Training Today, offer similar measurements. A high score means you’re ready for intense exercise; a low score indicates your body needs rest.

A new metric uses heart-rate variability to assign a score: High means ready for exercise, low means get some rest; from left, Garmin, Oura, Whoop and Fitbit.



Photo:

Nicole Nguyen/The Wall Street Journal

It isn’t as valid for people who have diabetes, heart disease or who are pregnant, Dr. Lewis-Trammell said. In those cases, she said, the data should be brought to a physician for evaluation.

For people who do outdoor workouts, GPS accuracy is important for logging distance. Dr. Lewis-Trammell found Garmin devices have a better GPS than others. I confirmed this in my own testing.

On one ride testing the wearables’ GPS-tracking capabilities, the Apple Watch and Garmin tracks were very close to my actual route. The Fitbit didn’t lock a GPS signal until about half a mile into my workout, so it displayed less total mileage. It also cut corners (literally) and showed me riding through neighbors’

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