Garmin Descent G1 vs Garmin Venu 2 Plus
🗓️ Release Year
1️⃣ Garmin Descent G1: 2022
2️⃣ Garmin Venu 2 Plus: 2022
🏃 Activity
1️⃣ Garmin Descent G1: The Garmin Descent G1 is a robust dive computer and outdoor GPS smartwatch designed for recreational divers and active individuals, built for durability and reliable tracking. It offers precise tracking for dive-specific metrics, alongside comprehensive tracking for steps, distance, calories burned, and active minutes. Its activity profiles cater to both underwater and topside sports, providing essential data for monitoring performance in various environments.
2️⃣ Garmin Venu 2 Plus: The Garmin Venu 2 Plus offers comprehensive activity tracking, accurately recording steps, distance, calories burned, floors climbed, and active minutes. It supports personalized daily goals and provides advanced fitness insights, building upon the core capabilities of the Venu 2 series with added features.
❤️ Health Monitoring
1️⃣ Garmin Descent G1: This device provides continuous wrist-based heart rate monitoring, stress tracking, and detailed sleep analysis for insights into daily well-being and recovery. The integrated Pulse Ox sensor allows for blood oxygen saturation monitoring, useful for assessing acclimatization at altitude and contributing to dive planning and safety.
2️⃣ Garmin Venu 2 Plus: Equipped with continuous heart rate monitoring, the Venu 2 Plus provides valuable insights into cardiovascular health. It also estimates VO2 max, tracks respiration rate, allows for hydration logging, and offers advanced sleep analysis. A key addition is the ability to take on-demand health snapshots, providing a quick summary of key health stats.
🔋 Battery Life
1️⃣ Garmin Descent G1: The Descent G1 offers strong battery life, providing up to 25 hours in dive mode and up to 14 days in smartwatch mode, ensuring sufficient power for multiple dives and consistent daily tracking without frequent recharging.
2️⃣ Garmin Venu 2 Plus: The Venu 2 Plus provides a strong battery life of up to 9 days in smartwatch mode. When utilizing GPS and music simultaneously, the battery life is up to 8 hours, suitable for typical workout durations. This balance of smartwatch and active use battery life is a key consideration.
😴 Sleep Tracking
1️⃣ Garmin Descent G1: Sleep tracking on the Descent G1 monitors sleep stages and provides valuable insights into sleep quality, contributing to a better understanding of recovery essential for both athletic performance and dive readiness.
2️⃣ Garmin Venu 2 Plus: Advanced sleep monitoring on the Venu 2 Plus meticulously tracks sleep stages (light, deep, and REM) and incorporates a Pulse Ox sensor to measure blood oxygen saturation levels during the night. This comprehensive data provides valuable insights into sleep quality and potential respiratory issues, accessible through the Garmin Connect app.
📍 GPS Tracking
1️⃣ Garmin Descent G1: Equipped with built-in GPS, the Descent G1 provides accurate outdoor activity tracking and basic mapping capabilities on the surface. This GPS functionality is also integrated into dive logging for recording entry and exit points, enhancing the utility for documenting dive locations.
2️⃣ Garmin Venu 2 Plus: With integrated built-in GPS, the Venu 2 Plus accurately tracks outdoor activities such as running, cycling, and hiking independently of a paired smartphone. This ensures precise recording of routes, pace, and distance for detailed workout analysis directly on the device and in the app.
🏋️ Workout Modes
1️⃣ Garmin Descent G1: The Descent G1 supports a variety of multisport and individual workout modes, including dedicated profiles for diving (single-gas, multi-gas, freediving), swimming, running, biking, hiking, and strength training, providing relevant metrics for each activity.
2️⃣ Garmin Venu 2 Plus: The Venu 2 Plus supports over 25 preloaded sports apps, including running, biking, swimming, yoga, Pilates, and HIIT. It provides real-time statistics and offers on-screen animated workouts for strength training, cardio, and yoga, enhancing training guidance and versatility.
💫 Exercise Recognition
1️⃣ Garmin Descent G1: The device includes automatic exercise detection for common activities such as swimming, running, and cycling through its Move IQ feature, ensuring these basic movements are captured in your activity log alongside detailed dive data.
2️⃣ Garmin Venu 2 Plus: Garmin's Move IQ feature automatically detects and records common activities such as walking and running, ensuring these basic movements are captured in your activity log without manual intervention, contributing to a seamless tracking experience.
🍎 Compatibility
1️⃣ Garmin Descent G1: The Descent G1 is compatible with both iOS and Android smartphones, connecting via Bluetooth for seamless data synchronization, dive log management, and smart notifications.
2️⃣ Garmin Venu 2 Plus: The device offers broad compatibility with both iOS and Android smartphones, connecting via Bluetooth for seamless data synchronization and enabling smart notifications directly on the wrist.
📲 App Support
1️⃣ Garmin Descent G1: Synchronization with the comprehensive Garmin Connect app is central for topside activity and health tracking, while the Garmin Dive app is specifically designed for detailed dive log management, analysis, and sharing, providing a complete ecosystem for both fitness and diving data.
2️⃣ Garmin Venu 2 Plus: Synchronization with the comprehensive Garmin Connect app is central to the Venu 2 Plus experience, providing detailed insights into activity data, performance metrics, and health statistics. The app allows for goal setting, progress tracking, and access to Garmin's extensive fitness ecosystem and community.
💡 Smart Features
1️⃣ Garmin Descent G1: Beyond its primary focus on diving and sports, the Descent G1 includes practical smart functionalities such as on-wrist notifications for calls, texts, and calendar alerts. It also features essential utilities like a compass, barometric altimeter, and thermometer, valuable for outdoor navigation and environmental awareness.
2️⃣ Garmin Venu 2 Plus: A key differentiator for the Venu 2 Plus is the inclusion of voice assistant compatibility, allowing users to interact with their paired smartphone's assistant directly from the watch. It also includes on-wrist notifications, Garmin Pay for contactless payments, and music storage for phone-free listening during workouts. Access to the Connect IQ store enables further customization with apps and watch faces.
💦 Water Resistance
1️⃣ Garmin Descent G1: With a robust water resistance rating to 100 meters (10 ATM) and built-in dive computer functionality, the Descent G1 is specifically designed for scuba diving, freediving, and other underwater activities, providing essential dive data and safety features for recreational use.
2️⃣ Garmin Venu 2 Plus: With a water resistance rating of 50 meters (5 ATM), the Venu 2 Plus is engineered to be suitable for swimming, showering, and general water activities, increasing its durability and usability for users with active lifestyles that include water exposure.
⌚ Display Quality
1️⃣ Garmin Descent G1: The Descent G1 features a sunlight-readable, monochrome display with good contrast, optimized for visibility in various lighting conditions, including underwater and bright sunlight. While not a color screen, it provides clear and easy-to-read data.
2️⃣ Garmin Venu 2 Plus: The Venu 2 Plus features a bright AMOLED color touchscreen display. This high-resolution screen provides excellent readability in various lighting conditions, including bright sunlight, ensuring that data and notifications are always clear and easy to see.
👌 Ease of Use
1️⃣ Garmin Descent G1: The device utilizes a user-friendly interface with a combination of buttons, designed for easy navigation and access to features both on land and underwater, prioritizing reliable operation in challenging conditions over touchscreen complexity.
2️⃣ Garmin Venu 2 Plus: The Venu 2 Plus offers an intuitive user interface with a combination of touchscreen navigation and physical buttons, providing easy access to features and statistics. The responsive design and seamless syncing with the Garmin Connect app contribute to a user-friendly experience.
✨ Design and Comfort
1️⃣ Garmin Descent G1: The Descent G1 features a rugged and durable design built for the demands of outdoor activities and diving. It maintains a comfortable fit for all-day wear and dives, balancing robust construction with practical wearability.
2️⃣ Garmin Venu 2 Plus: The Venu 2 Plus features a stylish and comfortable design with an interchangeable band, allowing for personalization. Its construction is suitable for all-day wear, balancing aesthetic appeal with practical functionality for fitness tracking, and is available in various finishes.
🩸 SpO2 Monitoring
1️⃣ Garmin Descent G1: An integrated Pulse Ox sensor is a key feature, allowing for monitoring blood oxygen saturation levels during sleep and at altitude, providing crucial data for assessing physiological status and contributing to dive safety considerations.
2️⃣ Garmin Venu 2 Plus: An integrated Pulse Ox sensor allows for on-demand spot checks and continuous monitoring of blood oxygen saturation levels, particularly valuable for acclimatization at altitude and for gaining insights into sleep quality and respiratory function during the night, providing essential health data.
💖 ECG Functionality
1️⃣ Garmin Descent G1: It is important to note that the Garmin Descent G1 does not support ECG (Electrocardiogram) functionality.
2️⃣ Garmin Venu 2 Plus: It is important to note that the Garmin Venu 2 Plus does not support ECG (Electrocardiogram) functionality.
🧘 Stress Tracking
1️⃣ Garmin Descent G1: The Descent G1 tracks stress levels throughout the day based on heart rate variability and offers guided breathing exercises to help users manage stress, contributing to overall well-being and focus, important for both athletic and diving performance.
2️⃣ Garmin Venu 2 Plus: The Venu 2 Plus tracks stress levels throughout the day based on heart rate variability. It also offers guided breathing exercises directly on the watch, providing tools to help users manage stress and promote relaxation throughout the day.
🩹 Recovery Tracking
1️⃣ Garmin Descent G1: The Body Battery energy monitoring feature provides insights into the body's energy reserves based on activity, stress, and sleep data, helping users understand their physiological readiness for training or the need for rest. This is a key feature for optimizing recovery, essential for demanding sports and diving activities.
2️⃣ Garmin Venu 2 Plus: The Body Battery energy monitoring feature is a key recovery tool, providing insights into the body's energy reserves based on activity, stress, and sleep data. This helps users understand their physiological readiness for training or the need for rest, aiding in optimizing recovery strategies.
💳 Subscription
1️⃣ Garmin Descent G1: A significant benefit of the Garmin platform is that all core features and data tracked by the Descent G1, including its dive computer functionalities and access to the Garmin Connect and Garmin Dive apps, are available without an additional subscription fee, providing comprehensive value for a capable and rugged dive-focused smartwatch.
2️⃣ Garmin Venu 2 Plus: A significant benefit of the Garmin platform is that all features and data tracked by the Venu 2 Plus are accessible through the free Garmin Connect app, requiring no additional subscription fees for core functionality, providing excellent value to the user.
🏷️️ Price
1️⃣ Garmin Descent G1: $799.99
Check Garmin Descent G1 Price *2️⃣ Garmin Venu 2 Plus: $449.99
Check Garmin Venu 2 Plus Price ** If you buy through these links, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you