Venu 4 again frozen and inaccurate heart rate

Happened twice today. When connecting headphones and while running. Never happened on my Venu 3. 
Seems like the change to unified code base for several watches has not gone well. 

I have the same issue with my new Venu 4.

I got my Venu 4 on Friday. It was intended to replace my Apple Watch Ultra 1. My main reason for switching from the AWU to Garmin was the broader range of metrics and KPIs Garmin provides compared to Apple Health. I also expected better accuracy.

I’m not an athlete by any means, but I’m really into health and fitness — and also into tech and science. So I was genuinely excited about the Venu and all the insights it would give me.

But today I did my first workout — and I was honestly shocked.

It started with the watch completely freezing just 10 seconds into the workout. The only way to recover was to hold the power button for about 30 seconds to force a reboot.

Then things got even worse during the run. It was a very easy recovery run, not a hard training session. However, the Venu kept showing a heart rate above 150 bpm for most of the workout. I can’t prove my exact heart rate, but I’ve done plenty of runs like this, and this definitely felt like my regular Zone 2 pace. At one point, the heart rate suddenly dropped to around 80 bpm, stayed there for a few minutes, and then jumped back up to 150 bpm again. My guess is that the watch was tracking my cadence instead of my heart rate.

On top of that, the step counter also seemed completely off. I started the run with roughly 2,500 steps, and afterward it only showed around 3,900 — far too low for the distance covered.

Considering all this, I’m really worried now that key metrics like training load, training effect, recovery time, body battery, and so on become meaningless if the underlying data from the Venu is this inaccurate.

So now I’m wondering what’s going on here. Is this a known issue with the Venu 4? Did I just get a defective unit? Or are there settings I should tweak before judging the watch too harshly?

I would really appreciate any help, advice, or shared experiences. I want to love this watch - I’m just trying to figure out whether something went wrong on my side… or on Garmin’s side.

C'est un bug général sur la venu 4. Envoi un message a Garmin . C'est ce que j'ai fait. Ils te demanderont ensuite de leur envoyer plusieurs informations. Je pense que ça sera patcher sur une prochaine mise a jour. 

I experienced the same issues a few times. Today again. It restarts but it measures wrong during the run. Many seem to have these issues. Issue is on Garmin’s side but they ignore it. Very disappointed.

I switched from the Apple Watch Ultra to Garmin because I was excited about the additional training and health metrics. But those metrics are only valuable if the underlying heart rate data is reliable.

Of course, I know that a chest strap is the best option for maximum accuracy - and I fully agree that for high-intensity training it can be the recommended setup. But a fitness watch in this price range should at least produce heart rate data that is close to the real values in both shape and magnitude. Relying on a chest strap just to ensure basic functionality is not acceptable for a device positioned like this.

I have already contacted Garmin Support by email in parallel. If this behavior appears again during my next run and there is no solution in sight, then my trip into the Garmin universe will likely be very short and I will stay with my Apple Watch Ultra - where I never experienced issues like this during similar workouts.

I can absolutely live with a bit of inaccuracy. As long as the trend is correct and I can rely on the zones, that’s perfectly fine. But in my case, the HR readings were essentially unusable. And if the HR is wrong, then all derived metrics like training load, training zones, recovery time, Body Battery, etc. become meaningless. Training based on heart rate zones is simply not possible like this.

Considering Garmin’s positioning in the fitness market - and the price of the Venu 4 - the core functionality should work reliably right from the start. That’s a reasonable expectation for a device in this category.

I have the same problem with beta 15.10. and also before. 

Not during an activity thankfully, still annoying. Happened several times that the watch didn't react anymore. Blank screen. Had to do a soft reset via buttons, otherwise unusable. Very annoying. 

Also sometimes asking for a PIN while tight on my wrist, guess there was a restart before because of a crash I haven't noticed (or a PIN code bug). 

D'après Garmin Leur ingénieur sont au courant du problème de Freez pendant les activités..j'espère que ça sera régler rapidement sinon ils risquent d'avoir un problème de SAV 

Garmin is offering me to exchange the watch but it seems from what I am reading here this will not solve the issue. Was Garmin more honest with anybody here on the way forward with this? Some users were apparently told that Garmin engineers are aware.

Oui j'ai déjà rapporté ma montre venu 4 41mm et pris la montre venu 4 en 45mm en pensant que cela règlerai le problème mais non. Pour ma part cela arrive constamment quand j'écoute Spotify sur ma montre pendant les cardio et le probleme concerne je pense 100% des montres