I just purchased Venu 2 Plus. I've had it a week and before I return it I thought I'd write about the issues I'm having and see if can get some help. The Venu 2+ is my first Garmin product. I bought it becuse I have would liek to baseline my fitness with metrics and track improvement (hopefully). The fitness metrics rely on the HR accuracy so I comapred the Venu 2+ output to my Scoshe Rythm+ strap (which i had compared at purchase to polar chest strap and they agreed), and found the Venu tracked fairly well with the strap in zone 1 and 2 but lost accuracy zone 3 and higher. I was able to compare the two sensors by runnning the Scoshe on Icardio app and Garmin on GC' that way I could observe the vaules from both in real time. That was the first learning.
I next tried without success to pair the Scosche sensor to the Venu2+. Actually they did pair but the Scosche kept falling off the Venu with the Venu optical sensors seeming to take priotiy. That was the second learning.
I ordered a Garmin HRM Pro chest strap believing the pairing issue ssue would be solved since now the devices were from the same manufacturer. After pairing the GarminPro chest strap with the device and adding it to the app. I believed my problem was solved as s small HITT workout test showed good response displayed both on the Venu device and displayed on Garmin Connect app on my phone. I started an activity and walked my do for about 90 minutes. When I viewed that stats most importantlythe HR data of the activity it dd not agree with the Garmin Connext HR displayed (HR vs Time graph). The two data sets had different numerical values for specifi times and the curve shapes did not agree. This was the third learning.
I spent some time trying to download the activity data to GC to no avail. This is important to em since I want the more accurate data to be the basis of the daily metrics. I'm not sure I learned anything except that I don't know how to download the activity data from the watch to GC so that it is integrated ito the daily report.
Finally I tried to force the HRM Pro strap to have priority over the Venu sensor for HR hoping I'd get the data tranfer issue worted out later, here or somewhere where that knowledge resides. I was able to turn off the wrist sensor with a toggle and select the GarminPro as the HR sensor but it would only stay connected for roughly 10 sec before disconnecting. This was similar behavior to the second learning above but in this case I had turned off the wrist sensors and confirmed they were not competing with the HRM Pro strap by taking the watch off and seeing that the optical snesors were not lit during the test. Manually selecting HRM Pro sensor with the Venu device would result in connection for a10 - 15 sec before disconnecting.
I'm pretty disappointed at this point. I felt like I needed to test drive the Venu 2+ before commiting to a higher end product feeling like, the Venu got good reiews I was hoping the experience would be good. Its all about the heart rate. I'll wear the HRM strap but how do I save the data and how can I get that data synced and integrated into GConnect to get the reports based on accurate measurments.
Please forgive the numerous spelling mistakes. Thanks for any suggestions and solutions.
