The Hike Below is a hike (one of several) I planned for this summer. As you can see, it is a 12.2 km hike with 730 meters of elevation gain: Then I actually did the hike. I followed the route as planned, with no noticeable deviations from the plan, and tracked it with my Garmin…
A Shift in Philosophy? When Garmin announced the Forerunner 70 and 170, I watched the reviews and the Garmin promo videos on YouTube. I’m actually not a runner, and if I needed to replace my Venu 3 right now, I would prefer the Fenix for its features and style (though the price would, most probably,…
The Galaxy Watch BP feature is finally enabled in the US Let’s start with Samsung. Samsung announced the Blood Pressure (BP) feature back in 2019 alongside the Galaxy Watch Active 2. In most countries, the feature required regulatory approval, which Samsung didn’t have at the time. The real problem, however, was that the situation didn’t…
In the end of 2024 I wrote my first post about apps and watch faces I do use – “The Garmin Apps and Watchfaces I Actually Use“. From a hardware point of view, nothing has changed – I still use my Garmin Venu 3 (and am going to use it for a few more years,…
Recently, Garmin has published its regular “A year in review“, with different data showing how people use Garmin devices. I like this type of information and appreciate that Garmin shares it. According to the report, polarity of strength training has increased again. I assume this happens because more and more Garmin watches support it. Probably…
People often ask how accurate smartwatches are with this or that metric. There are health tech reviewers who do such tests for a living, but they usually test watches on themselves only. This makes their results very individual and questionable – many individual parameters are involved, starting from skin tone, wrist size, subcutaneous fat, and…
Google Maps on Garmin Watches Some time ago, Google finally released Google Maps for Garmin watches. Not all models are supported, but lucky for me, my Venu 3 is on the list. Another limitation, at least at the time I write this article, is that only Android phones are supported. Again, I’m in the target…
Recent models of the Pixel Watch, Apple Watch Ultra, and Garmin support satellite emergency calls, often referred to as “Satellite SOS.” However, they implement this feature in different ways. Let’s imagine you are trapped in a rock crevice without your phone in the middle of nowhere—much like the situation shown in the image below, or…
With software update 14.15, Garmin added “detection of breathing variations during sleep” support to my Venu 3. Some other models have this feature out of the box, and others received it via update too. Unlike HRV and many other features, there’s no article about breathing variation detection on Garmin’s website – at least I haven’t…
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”…
