IFA 2022: Garmin beefs up display & battery on Venu Sq 2
Venu Sq 2 is Garmin’s next watch. Following on from a couple of regulatory registrations a few weeks ago, the device has been made official ahead of IFA 2022.
The original Venu Sq was released in September 2020. Unlike most of the rest of Garmin’s smartwatch range, it adopts a square design. You might say a bit like Apple Watch or the old Pebble watches.
Now we are getting the second generation device. Once again it comes in a vanilla variant, with the other one having built-in storage for music.
Garmin Venu Sq 2: what’s new?
As far as looks, there is very little difference between the new and previous generation. Both adopt a fairly similar look with a fibre-reinforced polymer body and two physical buttons on the right. The operation of these buttons on the original is a bit clumsy. Let’s hope Garmin has done some work on improving this on Venu Sq 2.
The screen has received an upgrade. The original has a 1.3 inch LCD display with a rather low-res, 240 x 240 pixel resolution. Generation 2, on the other hand, has an AMOLED with an always-on mode. The bezel around the edges is smaller, hence the display has grown to 1.41 inches. The resolution comes in at a respectable 360 x 360 pixels.
Under the hood is the typical gamut of Garmin sensors along with built-in satellite connectivity. The latter has received an improvement in that it is Multi-GNSS. Most Garmin watches these days come with this type of technology. It allows for quicker and more accurate satellite positioning. No doubt, it will come with SatIQ out of the box. This helps preserve battery life by choosing the most appropriate sattelite connectivity mode automatically.
Continuing on that topic, an area of improvement is to do with battery life. The original can last for 6 days between charges in smartwatch mode and 14 hours with GPS switched on. Divide all these numbers by a half if you’re playing music.
Venu Sq 2, on the other hand, can keep going for 11 days in smartwatch mode. That’s particularly impressive when you take into consideration the new and improved display. GPS mode is 26 hours and All-systems GNSS mode 7 hours.
As far as features, the additions on Venu Sq 2 come in the form of Sleep Score & Insights and Health Snapshot. Users also get HIIT workouts and a few additional sports profiles, along with real-time settings sync with Garmin Connect.
Essential reading: Top fitness trackers and health gadgets
Other than that, it’s much of the same. This includes an NFC chip for contactless payments, storage for music, 5 ATM water-resistance, a bunch of apps for tracking sports activities, along with the usual fitness tracking functions
Garmin Venu Sq 2: price, release date
The wearable is available to purchase now on Garmin and Amazon. The price is $250 on Garmin’s website for the vanilla variant. The one with Music slaps on $50 extra. Interestingly, this is about $50 more than the original editions.
The colors that are listed for the standard edition include: Slate / Shadow Grey, Creme Gold / White and Metallic Mint / Cool Mint for the standard edition. The Music edition comes in Slate / Shadow Grey, Peach Gold / Ivory and Creme Gold / French Gray.
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