I have a venu2. I cannot seem to find the option on my watch to record open water swim. It only has a pool swim option. How can I load data when swim outdoors. Thank

I don't think there is that option.

Edit:  Just checked DCRainmakers review and it says no Open Water Swim.

As gogoglets stated, not an option. You can always check on Garmin's compare site.

Open Water Swimming as a native activity is only available on specific devices. I've seen others on the forum suggest using the "other" activity. GPS reception will be poor, if not non-existent. Some put the watch in their swim caps. 

Alternatively, you can try using a Connect IQ app, such as Swimming App Professional,although it does have mixed reviews. There might be some others.

I have a Venu 2 and had the same issue because I began swimming to a buoy in the ocean (live on an island) and back. What I was able to do was copy the Pool Swim Activity and then add a specific data field (Dozen Swim) which would show me my metrics (distance, pace, swolf, laps based on what is a lap for you as well as time) I downloaded Dozen Swim from Garmin IQ. At the end of my swim it shows my distance calories etc. It does not track your path with GPS though. 

Update: So I tried an app (Swimming App Professional by RH Sports) this morning and I'm happy to report that this one works as well. With this one it actually got a GPS signal which I am happy about. Previously with the data field I would have to edit the name of the activity but since using this app (probably because it picked up a signal) it logged my activity automatically with the correct name of the area I was swimming in. I will test it out again in a couple days and let you know...it has a lot of customization but the only thing I'm missing is SWOLF which I personally think is a great way of measuring how well I'm swimming given it's open water. But I can live without it. 

I guess people want to know WHY is this functionality not available. The Venu, Venu 2 and Venu 2+ all have the hardware and software capabilities to allow this functionality, but it seems to be excluded by Garmin intentionally. I expect that this is so that the product fits nicely in the product mix or doesn't canabalise sales from the Pheonix range... 

How about an honest answer here, not just "Its not available on this device"

Yes, we want to know WHY Garmin? There is all the hardware on this watch to support it

matus said:

Yes, we want to know WHY Garmin? There is all the hardware on this watch to support it

This question was pretty much answered by the previous comment:

5513849 said:

I guess people want to know WHY is this functionality not available. The Venu, Venu 2 and Venu 2+ all have the hardware and software capabilities to allow this functionality, but it seems to be excluded by Garmin intentionally. I expect that this is so that the product fits nicely in the product mix or doesn't canabalise sales from the Pheonix range... 

How about an honest answer here, not just "Its not available on this device"

Like it or not, Garmin loves product segmentation, because they obviously feel that it makes more money for them. Why do you think Garmin has dozens of models of watches, all with slightly different hardware and software, instead of going the Apple route and having a handful of models? Apple has done similar stuff in the past, like only bringing Stage Manager to the newer M1 iPads, then reversing that decision (perhaps due to backlash).

You could also ask:

- Why don't the Venu watches support navigation with saved courses, all the hardware is present (and you can navigate to saved locations and back to start)

- Why doesn't any watch other than Venu 2 Plus have a mic, speaker (which can do more than beep) and voice assistant support? A whole bunch of running / multisport / outdoor watches have been released since then which lack that stuff

- Why don't Vivoactive watches have speakers that can beep (every other Garmin watch can beep)

etc.

The answer is that Garmin designed them that way so that if you're considering watch X with a certain feature set, if there's some feature that you feel you're missing out on, you just might pay more for watch Y.

Venu watches are marketed as "lifestyle watches" and historically Garmin has positioned open water swim as a feature that's only present in multi-sport watches (like Fenix, 9x5, 255 and 265).

We see this kind of thing all the time from Garmin, but people usually only get upset when it happens with a feature they happen to care strongly about (which is understandable). For the longest time, it was the case that if you bought a cheaper "fitness" watch (e.g. Vivoactive 3), you'd get a barometer, but if you "upgraded" to a mid-range running watch (Forerunner 245), you'd lose the barometer. You'd have to pay even more for a 9xx or Fenix to get a barometer. That strategy doesn't make sense unless you recognize that Garmin felt they could make more money that way.

What I don't understand is why people always make a distinction between segmentation via hardware changes as opposed to segmentation via software changes. The argument always goes that it's "fair" to have different hardware in different models, but as soon as there's different software, all of a sudden that's unfair. The decision to exclude open water swim from the Venu is no less artifical than the decision to exclude a barometer from the Forerunner 245 (especially when cheaper watches of the same generation had a baro).

Just because they *can* add a software feature to a watch doesn't mean they will. Same goes for hardware. You don't have to agree with their decisions (I think the baro thing was annoying), but the argument that every software feature (that's supported by the hardware) should be available on every watch isn't valid to me. That argument basically implies that only high end watches should exist in the Forerunner line, for example.

I will also say that I've worked for a company which also sold hardware with dozens of models/products. (We sold to businesses, not individuals, and we were a niche player in an industry dominated by well-known giants)

Whenever marketing defined variants of a given product, they always started with the most expensive models that had all the software and hardware features. Then they defined less expensive models by removing software and hardware. The cheapest "basic" model could absolutely run the software from the "advanced" model, but that wasn't allowed because this stuff isn't based on what the hardware can do, it's based on what people are willing to pay for a given set of features.

I absolutely recognize there are cases where this kind of thing goes too far, like heated seat subscriptions, but I don't have a problem in principle with software features being "artificially" excluded from various models. There was also a time where only the most expensive Garmin watches had basic timer and stopwatch features. Was it annoying? Yes, but Garmin never promised me a stopwatch when I bought one of their older running watches.

Record open water swimming as "other", then, in the app, "edit activity" to open water swimming.

I entered the Garmin "world" through bike computers. As far as I know, there are four lines (1xx, 5xx, 8xx and 1xxx), where the only difference is the screen size and touch screen (1xx are small, 5xx medium without touchscreen, 8xx medium with ts and 1xxx bigger with ts) and all funcionalities are available to all units, not that a bike computer have a lot of different business to do, but all of them can navigate, pair sensors, gps, download apps (mostly data fields), etc. So I chose a 530 some years ago and I'm still very happy about it, never had a single frustration with it. Then I decided to buy a watch primarily to replace my garmin HRM (I'm on a mission against non rechargeable batteries), decided to keep in the Garmin environment to keep all my fitness data in the same place, so I bought a secondhand Venu 2. Frustration 1: navigation only shows an arrow pointing to the end, no matter the distance, route, etc. Frustation 2: Discovered its AOD doesn't do 1sec updates, not a big deal, but why Garmin? Frustation 3: Yesterday I was swimming in a lake (just for fun) and figured it would be nice to record it, scrolled through sports to find only "Pool swim", clicked and it forced me to chose pool size. No open water sim. Maybe a GPS limitation underwater? Anyway, I chose Rowing and life that goes on. But serious, Garmin watches are defined by frustrations as they are handicapped on purpose.

Bruno Bragança