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Where can I find the steps for a Walk Activity?

I'm on day three of using my new Venu 2 Plus after years of using Fitbit watches.

Mixed feelings about the change at the moment and I'm struggling with the lack of an intuitive interface, both on my mobile and on the watch. Hopefully, this will come with time.

So, I was out walking the dog this lunch time, like I have for the last 3 days, and for the first time my watch started a walking activity automatically. No idea why it has decided to do it today, when I've walked the same route every day this week! (possibly the same reason the watch didn't record ANY sleep information two nights ago, but did for the previous night and last night!).

Still, it is something new, so was interesting and when I got back to the car, I manually stopped the activity (because I wanted to view the time, which isn't shown on the activity display).

I now have a walking activity recorded and when I got home I had a look at the details, but try as I might, I cannot find anywhere that tells me how many steps the walk took. I can see time, distance, calories, pace, total ascent and LOTS of other (useless?) stats, but NOTHING about steps, which in my opinion, is one of the most important pieces of information.

Please tell me that steps are recorded against an activity and how I can view it, otherwise this will be another cross against the usability of this watch. After all, it's a walk, and to perform a walk, you take steps. It is basic stuff and shouldn't be an issue for the Venu 2 Plus, or any other Garmin watch.

0 Jim R over 2 years ago

I too came to Garmin and the Venu 2/Venu 2+ after years of Fitbiting. It’s jarring to come from a world where steps are probably the central focus to one where they are third class citizens, at least in activities.

Everything I say here is *as far as I know*, I am not an expert, so for what it’s worth.

I turned off activity auto detection. I assume the walk activity you get automatically is the same as the one I get starting it manually. At the end of a walk activity I press the upper right button, hit the check box at the bottom of the screen and am taken to a summary of my walk. Among the stats presented is the number of steps I took. I used to think that was the only time/place I could get that information so I’d memorize it. It does not seem to get synced to Garmin Connect on the web (astonishing I know).

Btw, I do not use the Hike activity ever because to does not show steps ever. I use Walk for my hikes. The Hike activity was added with the Venu 2+, I do not believe it was available on the plain Venu 2. I speculate that the design team started with the existing Walk activity and, among the few changes that were made, removed steps! Genius!

Okay, as I said, I used to think the activity summary screen was gone forever once I cleared it, but it’s not. You can recall it on the watch. When you’re on the main time screen and swipe downward to get a bunch of “glances”. As I recall there was a Last Run glance included by default. There is no Last Walk but you can edit the glances list and add Last Activity, which includes walks, runs and likely many other things (I then deleted Last Run as it was then redundant). When you click on Last Activity you get a top level summary of that activity and one more touch takes you to the same more detailed screen you got at the end of the activity originally. Plus, it’s not just the _last_ activity, if you touch the 3 dots at the bottom of the top level summary screen you can go back through what looks like many weeks of activities. It pretty cool actually.

Now, I could not help but be a little sarcastic above but the truth is I think the Venu 2+ is far superior to anything Fitbit has released.

0 milleniumaire over 2 years ago in reply to Jim R

Hi Jim,

Thanks for the very helpful post.

Following your guidance, I found "LAST 7D" when swiping down and this shows my recent walks etc. indicating the steps used.

However, I'm still shocked that neither the mobile Connect app or online Connect web pages don't show the steps for walks when this is such a standard piece of information collected by the watch and so pertinent to a "walk"!

I first started using Fitbits to monitor steps 5 years ago and have done at least 10,000 steps per day, every day, so steps to me are a necessity, not an afterthought. The lack of step information in the Garmin apps for certain activities may therefore be a deal breaker, I just don't understand the logic of them not being included!

It just doesn't make sense that I can view Estimated Sweat Loss, Fluid Consumed and Fluid Net for a WALK, but I can't see the number of steps covered by that walk. What on earth is the Garmin development team thinking?

I found out today that the Connect app also doesn't show the current battery level of the device. Why not? It is useful information and should be readily available to the app.

This is my first week with the Garmin Venu 2 Plus, so it is early days, but if Garmin want to win over Fitbit users they need to consider that Fitbit users are used to seeing certain useful information in the apps and not having it available, when it could be, is not helping them!

0 Jim R over 2 years ago in reply to milleniumaire

Yes design decisions can occasionally seem inscrutable to us outsiders. I was a beta tester for quite a few years for a very famous program from a very famous company. Some of the decisions they came up with left me and my fellows thinking what a shame it was that the designers didn’t seem to actually use the product.

When I was using Fitbits I lamented that they didn’t treat elevation gain as a first class statistic. I do a lot of hiking in hilly terrain and I love that I can see elevation gain real time with the Venu.

Back to Venu steps.. Although they are not well treated in an activity report, those steps are counted and treated properly in your daily totals. And you do get a nice celebration when you hit 10K, just like on a Fitbit.