Garmin Forerunner 165 vs Garmin Venu 2 Plus
🗓️ Release Year
1️⃣ Garmin Forerunner 165: 2024
2️⃣ Garmin Venu 2 Plus: 2022
🏃 Activity
1️⃣ Garmin Forerunner 165: The Garmin Forerunner 165 is an accessible GPS running watch designed for new and casual runners, offering essential activity tracking. It precisely records steps, distance, calories burned, and active minutes, with a strong focus on core running metrics like pace, distance, and cadence using built-in GPS. It provides valuable data for monitoring and improving running performance.
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 Forerunner 165: This device provides continuous wrist-based heart rate monitoring, stress tracking, and sleep tracking for insights into daily well-being and recovery. It includes Pulse Ox for blood oxygen saturation monitoring, contributing to a more complete picture of overall health alongside its running features.
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 Forerunner 165: The Forerunner 165 offers practical battery life for runners, providing up to 11 days in smartwatch mode and up to 19 hours with continuous GPS tracking. This ensures sufficient power for regular runs and daily wear without constant 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 Forerunner 165: Detailed sleep tracking on the Forerunner 165 monitors sleep stages and provides insights into sleep quality and patterns, helping users understand their recovery for optimal training and daily performance.
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 Forerunner 165: Equipped with built-in GPS, the Forerunner 165 provides accurate outdoor activity tracking for running, walking, and cycling without needing a paired smartphone. It delivers reliable pace, distance, and route data essential for runners.
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 Forerunner 165: While primarily a running watch, the Forerunner 165 supports additional activity profiles including cycling, pool swimming, HIIT, and cardio, providing relevant metrics for these exercises alongside its core running features.
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 Forerunner 165: The device includes automatic exercise detection for common activities such as walking and running through its Move IQ feature, ensuring these basic movements are captured in your activity log seamlessly.
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 Forerunner 165: The Forerunner 165 is compatible with both iOS and Android smartphones, connecting via Bluetooth for seamless data synchronization 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 Forerunner 165: Synchronization with the comprehensive Garmin Connect app is central to the Forerunner 165 experience, providing detailed analysis of running data, activity metrics, health statistics, and sleep insights. The app allows for setting goals, reviewing training history, and connecting with the Garmin community.
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 Forerunner 165: Beyond its running focus, the Forerunner 165 includes essential smart functionalities such as on-wrist notifications for calls, texts, and calendar alerts. It also supports Garmin Pay for contactless payments (on the Music version, if applicable, but the data for 167 is just Forerunner 165, so sticking to basics) and allows for controlling music on a paired smartphone.
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 Forerunner 165: With a water resistance rating of 50 meters (5 ATM), the Forerunner 165 is suitable for swimming and showering, making it a durable companion for triathletes and those who incorporate swimming into their fitness routine.
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 Forerunner 165: The Forerunner 165 features a sunlight-visible, transflective memory-in-pixel (MIP) color display, offering good readability in various lighting conditions, especially bright sunlight, which is ideal for outdoor running. The display technology is also power-efficient.
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 Forerunner 165: The device utilizes a five-button interface, which is reliable and easy to operate during runs or workouts. The user interface is designed for straightforward navigation and quick access to running data and essential features.
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 Forerunner 165: The Forerunner 165 features a lightweight and comfortable design with a soft silicone band, making it ideal for extended wear during training sessions and everyday activities, prioritizing a secure and comfortable fit for runners.
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 Forerunner 165: An integrated Pulse Ox sensor allows for monitoring blood oxygen saturation levels during sleep and spot-checks, providing valuable data related to acclimatization and overall physiological well-being, complementing its health tracking suite.
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 Forerunner 165: It is important to note that the Garmin Forerunner 165 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 Forerunner 165: The Forerunner 165 tracks stress levels throughout the day based on heart rate variability and offers guided breathing exercises to help users manage stress and promote overall well-being.
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 Forerunner 165: 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, contributing to optimized recovery for runners.
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 Forerunner 165: A significant benefit of the Garmin platform is that all core features and data tracked by the Forerunner 165 are accessible through the free Garmin Connect app, requiring no additional subscription fees for essential running metrics, activity tracking, or health insights, providing comprehensive value for an entry-level running watch.
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 Forerunner 165: $349.00
Check Garmin Forerunner 165 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