Garmin Venu Sq 2 vs Apple Watch Ultra 2
🗓️ Release Year
1️⃣ Garmin Venu Sq 2: 2022
2️⃣ Apple Watch Ultra 2: 2023
🏃 Activity
1️⃣ Garmin Venu Sq 2: The Garmin Venu Sq 2 delivers essential activity tracking, comprehensively logging steps, distance, calories burned, floors climbed, and active minutes. It supports personalized daily goals, offering a structured approach to monitoring and improving overall physical activity levels.
2️⃣ Apple Watch Ultra 2: The Apple Watch Ultra 2 is the pinnacle of Apple's rugged smartwatch line, designed for extreme sports and exploration with advanced activity tracking capabilities. It precisely tracks steps, distance, calories burned, and active minutes, offering specialized metrics and workout views optimized for endurance and adventure sports. The customizable Action button provides instant access to key functions, enhancing usability during demanding physical efforts.
❤️ Health Monitoring
1️⃣ Garmin Venu Sq 2: This smartwatch provides continuous heart rate monitoring and estimates VO2 max, a key indicator of cardiovascular fitness. It includes respiration tracking, hydration logging, and in-depth sleep insights, offering a holistic view of the user's health status.
2️⃣ Apple Watch Ultra 2: This device provides comprehensive 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 deeper insights into overall wellness and cycle tracking. Enhanced health algorithms leverage the powerful S9 SiP for more accurate and insightful health data analysis, crucial for understanding physiological responses during intense activities.
🔋 Battery Life
1️⃣ Garmin Venu Sq 2: The Venu Sq 2 offers impressive battery longevity, providing up to 11 days in smartwatch mode and up to 26 hours with continuous GPS activation, minimizing the need for frequent recharging.
2️⃣ Apple Watch Ultra 2: The Apple Watch Ultra 2 delivers exceptional battery life, providing up to 36 hours on a single charge under normal usage and an impressive 72 hours in Low Power Mode. This extended duration is essential for multi-day expeditions and ultra-endurance events, offering reliable power when access to charging is limited.
😴 Sleep Tracking
1️⃣ Garmin Venu Sq 2: Advanced sleep monitoring is a core feature, tracking detailed sleep stages (light, deep, and REM) and incorporating a Pulse Ox sensor to monitor blood oxygen levels during sleep. This provides users with valuable data to assess and improve their sleep quality.
2️⃣ Apple Watch Ultra 2: Advanced sleep tracking on the Apple Watch Ultra 2 meticulously 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, vital for optimizing performance and readiness for the next challenge.
📍 GPS Tracking
1️⃣ Garmin Venu Sq 2: Equipped with built-in GPS, the Venu Sq 2 offers accurate tracking of outdoor activities such as running, cycling, and walking without requiring a connected smartphone, providing independence for data collection during these workouts.
2️⃣ Apple Watch Ultra 2: Equipped with precision dual-frequency GPS (L1 + L5 bands), the Apple Watch Ultra 2 provides exceptionally accurate location tracking for outdoor activities, even in the most challenging environments like dense canyons or urban jungles. It provides precise route mapping, pace, and distance data, vital for navigation, training analysis, and exploring remote areas.
🏋️ Workout Modes
1️⃣ Garmin Venu Sq 2: With support for over 25 preloaded exercise modes, including running, biking, swimming, yoga, Pilates, and strength training, the Venu Sq 2 offers versatility for tracking various fitness pursuits. It displays real-time statistics during workouts to help users monitor performance.
2️⃣ Apple Watch Ultra 2: The Apple Watch Ultra 2 supports an extensive range of workout modes, including specialized profiles and views for trail running, hiking, triathlon, and diving, in addition to standard activities like running, cycling, and swimming. The customizable Action button allows for quick access to workout controls, enhancing functionality and ease of use during activities.
💫 Exercise Recognition
1️⃣ Garmin Venu Sq 2: The Venu Sq 2 includes automatic exercise detection for common activities like walking and running, ensuring that these basic movements are recorded even if the user forgets to initiate a workout manually.
2️⃣ Apple Watch Ultra 2: 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 Sq 2: The device is compatible with both iOS and Android smartphones, facilitating seamless synchronization of activity data and enabling smart notifications for calls, texts, and calendar alerts.
2️⃣ Apple Watch Ultra 2: Seamlessly integrating with the Apple ecosystem, the Apple Watch Ultra 2 requires an iPhone XS 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 reliable performance in challenging conditions.
📲 App Support
1️⃣ Garmin Venu Sq 2: Synchronization with the robust Garmin Connect app provides users with a comprehensive platform for reviewing detailed activity data, tracking progress towards goals, and accessing personalized health and fitness insights.
2️⃣ Apple Watch Ultra 2: Leveraging the App Store, the Apple Watch Ultra 2 provides access to a vast ecosystem of third-party apps, with many specifically optimized for outdoor activities, navigation, sports performance, and diving. The Apple Health app serves as a central repository for all comprehensive health and fitness data collected by the device.
💡 Smart Features
1️⃣ Garmin Venu Sq 2: Beyond health and fitness tracking, the Venu Sq 2 offers practical smart features, including on-wrist notifications, Garmin Pay for contactless payments, music storage, and access to additional applications via the Connect IQ store.
2️⃣ Apple Watch Ultra 2: As a full-featured smartwatch, the Apple Watch Ultra 2 provides comprehensive smart capabilities, including on-wrist notifications, enhanced Siri with on-device processing, Apple Pay for contactless payments, and cellular connectivity for calls and messages without an iPhone. Advanced safety features like Fall Detection, Crash Detection, an 86-decibel Siren for emergencies, and a built-in compass with backtracking are also included.
💦 Water Resistance
1️⃣ Garmin Venu Sq 2: With a water resistance rating of 50 meters (5 ATM), the Venu Sq 2 is suitable for swimming, showering, and general water exposure, enhancing its durability and usability for various activities.
2️⃣ Apple Watch Ultra 2: With a WR100 water resistance rating, the Apple Watch Ultra 2 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 with confidence.
⌚ Display Quality
1️⃣ Garmin Venu Sq 2: The device features a bright AMOLED color touchscreen display, offering excellent readability in various lighting conditions, including direct sunlight, for clear visibility of stats and notifications.
2️⃣ Apple Watch Ultra 2: The Apple Watch Ultra 2 features the brightest Always-On Retina display Apple has ever produced, offering a peak brightness of 3000 nits for unparalleled clarity and readability even in the most direct sunlight. The large display and robust sapphire crystal front enhance durability and visual experience for mapping and data.
👌 Ease of Use
1️⃣ Garmin Venu Sq 2: The Venu Sq 2 is designed for intuitive interaction with a combination of swipe and tap navigation on its touchscreen interface. This provides easy access to features, statistics, and settings.
2️⃣ Apple Watch Ultra 2: 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 highly customizable Action button. watchOS is optimized for easy navigation and quick access to features during activities, even in challenging conditions, enhanced by the new Double Tap gesture.
✨ Design and Comfort
1️⃣ Garmin Venu Sq 2: Featuring a slim and lightweight design, the Venu Sq 2 is engineered for comfortable all-day wear. The bands are interchangeable, allowing users to personalize the look and feel of the device.
2️⃣ Apple Watch Ultra 2: The Apple Watch Ultra 2 features a rugged and exceptionally durable design with a titanium case, built to withstand challenging and extreme 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 during prolonged efforts.
🩸 SpO2 Monitoring
1️⃣ Garmin Venu Sq 2: An integrated Pulse Ox sensor allows for monitoring blood oxygen saturation levels during both sleep and altitude, providing valuable data related to acclimatization and overall respiratory well-being.
2️⃣ Apple Watch Ultra 2: Equipped with an SpO2 sensor, the Apple Watch Ultra 2 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, contributing to acclimatization and performance monitoring.
💖 ECG Functionality
1️⃣ Garmin Venu Sq 2: It is important to note that the Garmin Venu Sq 2 does not support ECG (Electrocardiogram) functionality.
2️⃣ Apple Watch Ultra 2: The Apple Watch Ultra 2 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 Sq 2: The Venu Sq 2 includes stress tracking capabilities, utilizing heart rate variability to assess daily stress levels. It also provides guided breathing exercises as a tool for stress management.
2️⃣ Apple Watch Ultra 2: While not a single dedicated stress metric, the Apple Watch Ultra 2 contributes to stress insights through features like Mindfulness and Breathe apps, heart rate variability (HRV) data, and detailed sleep analysis, leveraging the S9 SiP for enhanced data processing to help users understand their body's response to stress and find moments of calm during demanding periods.
🩹 Recovery Tracking
1️⃣ Garmin Venu Sq 2: The Body Battery energy monitoring feature provides insights into current energy levels based on activity, stress, and sleep data, helping users understand their readiness for activity and optimize recovery periods.
2️⃣ Apple Watch Ultra 2: 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, processed by the S9 SiP, helps users understand their body's state and inform rest and training decisions for optimal performance during prolonged efforts and challenging activities.
💳 Subscription
1️⃣ Garmin Venu Sq 2: A significant advantage of the Garmin ecosystem is that no additional subscription is required to access the full range of features and data provided by the Venu Sq 2 through the Garmin Connect app.
2️⃣ Apple Watch Ultra 2: No subscription is required to access the core features and data tracked by the Apple Watch Ultra 2 through the Apple Health and Fitness apps. Optional services like Apple Fitness+ require a separate subscription.
🏷️️ Price
1️⃣ Garmin Venu Sq 2: $249.99
Check Garmin Venu Sq 2 Price *2️⃣ Apple Watch Ultra 2: $799.00
Check Apple Watch Ultra 2 Price ** If you buy through these links, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you