A Year with Garmin Venu 3: The Good, The Bad, and the Badges
Wrap-up of the Year
Time flies fast—very fast, actually. This week marks one year since I switched from the Galaxy Watch to the Garmin Venu 3.
Since then, I’ve been using my Venu 3 24/7, taking it off only for showers and charging. Over the year, I walked a bit more than 3,900,000 steps and “climbed” more than 7,600 floors.
I really like Garmin’s badges, challenges, and expeditions. However, the monthly challenges lack variety and become boring over time.
In my first year, I reached level 5. But since the complexity increases exponentially, I don’t expect to achieve more than level 6 next year.
So far, I’ve collected 137 badges, including two pretty rare ones: Mythical Sleep (100 sleep score) and Zombie.
I’ve also completed virtual expeditions like Everest and Camino de Santiago (it would be fantastic to complete Camino de Santiago in real life!). Currently, I’m in the middle of the Appalachian Trail expedition, which will take about a year to complete.
The Venu 3 is still the newest model in the Venu line, and Garmin releases regular updates for it. Some updates bring new features, though rarely. I can only recall a few: ECG support for the EU and Australia, strength coach, and Garmin Messages—a very strange feature, as I can’t find a use case for it, not even hypothetically.
I use my Venu 3 without a screen protector, and despite its questionable shape and my usage in the Alps, the glass and the watch are still scratch-free (as far as I can see with a naked eye).
How I Use My Venu 3 Daily
- Reading time and date (and enjoying different watch faces)
- Checking the weather
- Timers and personalized alarms
- Checking my morning report
- Answering calls from my watch (a few times)
- Checking notifications
- Marking my to-dos as completed (or postponing them)
- Checking daily events with the calendar
- Checking the UV index (especially in summer)
- Sleep tracking (often inaccurate for me, but still useful)
- Monitoring body battery—great for double-checking how I feel
- Stress monitoring and proactive stress notifications
- Keeping an eye on HRV status and VO2 Max
- Following strength workout routines at the gym and home
- Tracking pool swimming (not a swimmer, though)
- Tracking steps, walks, and hikes (mostly with Komoot)
- Trying out yoga workouts from Garmin Connect (though I’m unsure I’d create my own)
- Using the flashlight
- Occasionally controlling my music player
What Still Annoys Me
- Charging Port: Hard to use. I’m fine with contact charging, but a solution where you simply place the watch on a charger—like Fossil rings or Pixel Watch contacts—would be much better.
- Missing Timer Presets: I use a few timers and have to set them manually every time. Just 3–5 presets (or recent times) would simplify my life.
- Watch Face Configuration: Simply awful. I find the stock watch faces unusable.
- Missing Google Maps Integration: Third-party apps didn’t work well for me.
- Activity Pausing: It’s frustrating that I can’t pause an activity for longer than five minutes, especially during hikes. While I don’t expect Enduro-like multi-day trail support, pausing a hike for a lunch break is a must.
- Bugs: Garmin releases updates almost monthly, and every update breaks something.
- Notification Grouping: The watch fails to group notifications correctly and shows proper icons only for a few hardcoded apps.
- Missing Voice Recorder: A voice memo or recorder would be a great addition.
This list is shorter – and this is good.
What’s next?
So far, not bad at all. I hope that my venu3 will continue to serve me well for at least 2 more years.
