Garmin Venu 2S vs Apple Watch Ultra
🗓️ Release Year
1️⃣ Garmin Venu 2S: 2021
2️⃣ Apple Watch Ultra: 2022
🏃 Activity
1️⃣ Garmin Venu 2S: The Garmin Venu 2S provides comprehensive activity tracking, accurately logging steps, distance, calories burned, floors climbed, and active minutes. It supports personalized daily goals to motivate users and offers a detailed overview of daily movement and activity intensity, tailored for users with smaller wrists.
2️⃣ Apple Watch Ultra: The Apple Watch Ultra is a rugged and capable multisport smartwatch built for exploration and endurance, offering comprehensive activity tracking for extreme environments. It precisely tracks steps, distance, calories burned, and active minutes, with specialized metrics for running, hiking, and other demanding activities. The customizable Action button provides quick access to workout controls or other functions, enhancing usability during intense efforts.
❤️ Health Monitoring
1️⃣ Garmin Venu 2S: Equipped with continuous heart rate monitoring, the Venu 2S delivers valuable insights into cardiovascular health. It also estimates VO2 max, tracks respiration rate, allows for hydration logging, and offers advanced sleep analysis for a holistic view of well-being, all within a more compact form factor.
2️⃣ Apple Watch Ultra: This device provides robust health monitoring, including continuous heart rate tracking, ECG functionality for detecting signs of irregular heart rhythms, and SpO2 monitoring for blood oxygen levels. The body temperature sensor offers insights into overall wellness and cycle tracking. Its health features are designed to provide critical data during demanding physical challenges and daily life.
🔋 Battery Life
1️⃣ Garmin Venu 2S: The Venu 2S provides a strong battery life of up to 10 days in smartwatch mode, minimizing the need for frequent charging. Even with continuous GPS use, it offers up to 19 hours of tracking, suitable for a variety of outdoor activities.
2️⃣ Apple Watch Ultra: The Apple Watch Ultra delivers significantly extended battery life compared to standard Apple Watch models, offering up to 36 hours on a single charge under normal usage and up to 60 hours in Low Power Mode. This extended duration is crucial for multi-day adventures and ultra-endurance events, providing reliable power when you need it most.
😴 Sleep Tracking
1️⃣ Garmin Venu 2S: Advanced sleep monitoring on the Venu 2S meticulously tracks sleep stages (light, deep, and REM) and incorporates a Pulse Ox sensor to measure blood oxygen saturation levels during the night. This data provides valuable insights into sleep quality and potential respiratory issues, presented clearly in the Garmin Connect app.
2️⃣ Apple Watch Ultra: Advanced sleep tracking on the Apple Watch Ultra monitors sleep stages (light, deep, and REM), sleep duration, and provides detailed sleep analysis within the Health app. It also tracks blood oxygen levels and wrist temperature during sleep, offering valuable insights into sleep quality and recovery, essential for optimizing performance.
📍 GPS Tracking
1️⃣ Garmin Venu 2S: With integrated built-in GPS, the Venu 2S 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.
2️⃣ Apple Watch Ultra: Equipped with dual-frequency GPS (L1 + L5 bands), the Apple Watch Ultra provides exceptionally accurate location tracking for outdoor activities, even in dense urban environments or challenging terrains. It provides precise route mapping, pace, and distance data, vital for navigation and performance analysis during expeditions and training.
🏋️ Workout Modes
1️⃣ Garmin Venu 2S: The Venu 2S 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.
2️⃣ Apple Watch Ultra: The Apple Watch Ultra supports an extensive range of workout modes, including specialized profiles for trail running, hiking, and triathlon, in addition to standard activities like running, cycling, and swimming. The customizable Action button allows for quick access to workout controls, enhancing functionality during activities.
💫 Exercise Recognition
1️⃣ Garmin Venu 2S: 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.
2️⃣ Apple Watch Ultra: The smartwatch features automatic exercise recognition for common activities such as walking, running, and cycling, ensuring that workouts are logged even if the user forgets to manually start tracking, providing a more complete record of physical activity during varied training or adventure.
🍎 Compatibility
1️⃣ Garmin Venu 2S: 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.
2️⃣ Apple Watch Ultra: Seamlessly integrating with the Apple ecosystem, the Apple Watch Ultra requires an iPhone 8 or later running the latest iOS version for full functionality. It connects via Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, offering tight integration with Apple Health and other Apple services, optimized for outdoor use.
📲 App Support
1️⃣ Garmin Venu 2S: Synchronization with the comprehensive Garmin Connect app is central to the Venu 2S 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.
2️⃣ Apple Watch Ultra: Leveraging the App Store, the Apple Watch Ultra provides access to a vast ecosystem of third-party apps, with many optimized for outdoor activities, navigation, and sports performance. The Apple Health app serves as a central repository for all health and fitness data collected by the device.
💡 Smart Features
1️⃣ Garmin Venu 2S: Beyond its fitness capabilities, the Venu 2S offers practical smart features, including on-wrist notifications for calls, texts, and calendar alerts. It supports Garmin Pay for contactless payments and allows for music storage directly on the watch for phone-free listening during workouts. Access to the Connect IQ store enables further customization with apps and watch faces.
2️⃣ Apple Watch Ultra: As a full-featured smartwatch, the Apple Watch Ultra provides comprehensive smart capabilities, including on-wrist notifications, Siri voice commands, Apple Pay for contactless payments, and cellular connectivity for calls and messages without an iPhone. Advanced safety features like Fall Detection, Crash Detection, and an 86-decibel Siren for emergencies are also included.
💦 Water Resistance
1️⃣ Garmin Venu 2S: With a water resistance rating of 50 meters (5 ATM), the Venu 2S 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.
2️⃣ Apple Watch Ultra: With a WR100 water resistance rating, the Apple Watch Ultra is designed for serious water sports and is suitable for recreational diving up to 40 meters (with a compatible third-party app). It is built to withstand harsh marine environments and track various aquatic activities.
⌚ Display Quality
1️⃣ Garmin Venu 2S: The Venu 2S 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 on a more compact screen size.
2️⃣ Apple Watch Ultra: The Apple Watch Ultra features a large and exceptionally bright Always-On Retina display, offering stunning clarity and readability even in direct sunlight, crucial for outdoor use. The robust sapphire crystal front enhances durability.
👌 Ease of Use
1️⃣ Garmin Venu 2S: The Venu 2S 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 tailored for smaller wrists.
2️⃣ Apple Watch Ultra: The device offers an intuitive user interface with a responsive touchscreen, larger Digital Crown designed for use with gloves, a prominent side button, and a customizable Action button. watchOS is optimized for easy navigation and quick access to features during activities.
✨ Design and Comfort
1️⃣ Garmin Venu 2S: The Venu 2S features a compact and lightweight design, making it ideal for users with smaller wrists. It maintains a stylish aesthetic with an interchangeable band, allowing for personalization while ensuring comfortable all-day wear and suitability for workouts.
2️⃣ Apple Watch Ultra: The Apple Watch Ultra features a rugged and durable design with a titanium case, built to withstand challenging conditions. It offers a comfortable fit for all-day wear and comes with specialized bands (Trail Loop, Alpine Loop, Ocean Band) designed for different outdoor activities, balancing robust construction with wearability.
🩸 SpO2 Monitoring
1️⃣ Garmin Venu 2S: 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.
2️⃣ Apple Watch Ultra: Equipped with an SpO2 sensor, the Apple Watch Ultra allows for on-demand spot checks and background monitoring of blood oxygen saturation levels. This feature provides valuable data for assessing respiratory health and overall well-being, particularly relevant during altitude and strenuous activities.
💖 ECG Functionality
1️⃣ Garmin Venu 2S: It is important to note that the Garmin Venu 2S does not support ECG (Electrocardiogram) functionality.
2️⃣ Apple Watch Ultra: The Apple Watch Ultra supports ECG (Electrocardiogram) functionality through the ECG app, allowing users to record a 30-second ECG to detect signs of atrial fibrillation (AFib). This feature provides valuable heart health data for monitoring during training and daily life.
🧘 Stress Tracking
1️⃣ Garmin Venu 2S: The Venu 2S 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.
2️⃣ Apple Watch Ultra: While not a single dedicated stress metric, the Apple Watch Ultra contributes to stress insights through features like Mindfulness and Breathe apps, heart rate variability (HRV) data, and sleep analysis, helping users understand their body's response to stress and promote mental well-being during demanding challenges.
🩹 Recovery Tracking
1️⃣ Garmin Venu 2S: 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.
2️⃣ Apple Watch Ultra: Recovery is primarily tracked through detailed sleep analysis, heart rate variability (HRV), and insights provided within the Apple Health and Fitness apps based on workout data. While not a single "recovery score" like some dedicated sports watches, the collected data helps users understand their body's state and inform rest and training decisions for optimal performance.
💳 Subscription
1️⃣ Garmin Venu 2S: A significant benefit of the Garmin platform is that all features and data tracked by the Venu 2S are accessible through the free Garmin Connect app, requiring no additional subscription fees for core functionality, providing excellent value to the user.
2️⃣ Apple Watch Ultra: No subscription is required to access the core features and data tracked by the Apple Watch Ultra through the Apple Health and Fitness apps. Optional services like Apple Fitness+ require a separate subscription.
🏷️️ Price
1️⃣ Garmin Venu 2S: $399.99
Check Garmin Venu 2S Price *2️⃣ Apple Watch Ultra: $799.00
Check Apple Watch Ultra Price ** If you buy through these links, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you