Hot off the heels of its recent unveiling of the Fenix 8 Pro, Garmin has just announced the arrival of four new smartwatches to its range, including the Apple Watch Series 11 competitor, the Garmin Venu 4.
With its sleek frame that strikes a more fashionable look than Garmin’s usual wearables, the Venu range has long been the company’s answer to mainline smartwatches from Apple, Samsung Galaxy and Google Pixel, but now it boasts a ton of new health features to give it a step up on the competition.
The big new addition is Health Status, which like Apple’s Vitals app, can show you at a glance whether or not any of your key body metrics, including heart rate variability, skin temperature and respiration rate, have moved away from their usual range. Any deviation from the norm can indicate an underlying health issue.
Garmin
The watch is also taking a leaf out of Whoop’s playbook with Lifestyle Logging, which lets you input behavioural trends such as the amount of caffeine or alcohol that you consume in a day, giving you an idea of the impact that these substances and others are having on your workout and sleep performance.
Sleep tracking and Garmin Coach have also been given a boost, with the former looking to provide more detailed metrics concerning your inner sleep cycle, while the latter can offer detailed guidance for more than 25 workout types, alongside daily suggested workouts, not too dissimilar to what fans of Polar smartwatches have enjoyed for quite some time.
Previously held as an exclusive feature for Garmin’s flagship watches, the Venu 4 now has a built-in flashlight much like the square-shaped Garmin Venu X1. All of these added features could prove vital in luring buyers away from the Apple Watch Series 11, but there is a notable price increase to contend with here.
Garmin
Unlike the Garmin Venu 3 which had a starting price of £449, the new Garmin Venu 4 now rings in at £469.99/$549.99.
For long-time Garmin fans, the added features may be worth the uptick in price when the Venu 4 launches 22 September, but stay tuned for our full review in due course to see how the watch performs in day-to-day use.
Three more new Garmins to boot
Alongside the Garmin Venu 4, the company announced three other smartwatches: the child-friendly Garmin Bounce 2 (starting at £259.99/$299.99), the Garmin Instinct Crossover AMOLED (£519.99/$649.99) and the Crossover AMOLED Tactical Edition (£599.99/$749.99).
This is the first time that the Garmin Bounce range has been available in the UK, and could end up being a more tempting option for some parents against similarly affordable wearables like the Apple Watch SE 3 or the Galaxy Watch FE.
The Garmin Crossover AMOLED (and its Tactical Edition alternative) might be a trickier sell as you can still buy the previous Garmin Instinct 3, which also has an AMOLED display, for just £389.99.
To see the Instinct range move beyond the £500 mark means that it’s not too far off the Garmin Fenix E (£599.99) which provides a lot more smart features for the price.
