I bought a Garmin Venu & HRM-Dual recently. Given my experience with these products, I am shocked that Garmin is as popular as they are. How have they made it this far?
How have reviewers like DC Rainmaker given their products such praise? How have Garmin products become so popular in critical industries like aviation? Why is Garmin wasting their time trying to develop features for things like e-Gaming, but ignoring basic features in their products and ecosystem?
With MSRP prices of $399.99 and $69.99 - you would expect more. You would hope that your first thought about the product isn't; it's junk. But..it is...
My experience;
- Venu supports bluetooth audio and bluetooth phone communication, but does not support broadcasting heart rate information over bluetooth. This is why I had to get an HRM-Dual..
- ConnectIQ app store looks like a high school project. Do I need to elaborate more?
- ConnectIQ has no support for in-app payments. If you want to develop apps for Garmin watches, you are responsible for setting up your own payment processing, license activation, billing, etc.
- If you want to develop apps for Garmin watches, you have to write in Monkey C. This language isn't exactly difficult, but it isn't common. Because it is used for (as best I can tell) only Garmin devices, the community behind it is exponentially smaller. Practically invisible in the grand scheme of things
- The Venus smartwatch capabilities are limited, and sets customers up for a disappointing experience. There is support for just simple API Notifications essentially
- No applications. You would expect there to be apps from products/companies like Strava, Swift, Fulgaz, Belkin Wemo, Philips Hue, and so on. But this fitness watch has zero support from major companies you would expect to be on the ConnectIQ store. The ConnectIQ store is basically a bunch of crappy watchfaces (no offense developers, you don't have much to work with)
- HRM-Dual doesn't work. You can't power cycle it. It loses its bluetooth connection to devices constantly. The only way to get it to work, in my experience, is to remove the battery and reinsert it. It still won't immediately work, but after wearing the device for 20 minutes, it will randomly perform an initial connection, and start broadcasting.
- On the HRM-Dual, If you try and use ANT+Bluetooth after your initial bluetooth connection is established; the device will drop it's connections. To restore the bluetooth connectivity, you have to power cycle the device, disable all the ANT electronics around it. Say a prayer, and hire a witch doctor. There is simply nothing dual about the device. It should be called Dual-Failure
- Reiterating this, as the HRM-Dual has one purpose, to consistently broadcast your heart rate; the heart rate information stops broadcasting, or infrequently broadcasts. You never can have confidence in the data being displayed. How can you, when you will find it broadcasting your heart rate at 82 BPM for a 90 minute workout? The speed at which the heart rate data updates on training apps isn't frequent enough to have confidence that it is working. Including that data in your workout is misleading, and not something I would ever recommend
- Venu won't connect over ANT to Wahoo Kickr trainers. This makes it impossible to get heart rate, cadence, power/watt data
- Connectivity performance. The watch and phone communicate over bluetooth. The volume of data being transferred (payload size) is minimal. Yet the speed at which data transfers between the two reminds me of the days of 28.8 dialup modems. They might as well play a dial-up modem sound when they communicate. I would at least find that funny.
- Unrefined user experience. I know I'm not alone here. The watch broadcasts "Phone Disconnected" probably 50 times throughout the day. Garmins suggestion to fix this? Don't use this feature, disable the notification. Why even include it in the product? Are they trying to create a poor experience?
- Lack of accessories. You can't find decent screen protectors. There aren't many watchbands, except a bunch of questionable-quality cheapo bands from overseas.
- Poor finishing touches. I know I'm not alone here; how many of you had rashes form on your wrist from the cheap stock watchband? A $400 watch with 10 cent watchbands made from what looks to be the cheapest material they could find....not the best user experience again
- The AMOLED display; what is the point? It is used for nothing. It's a feature that is advertised everywhere, yet nothing on the watch but a few stock watch faces uses it
- Poor user experience on the operating system. I have actually never found the animated yoga workouts. This was supposed to be a feature in the watch that uses the AMOLED display, but good luck finding it
- Lack of options to set. To try and improve the stability of the HRM-Dual, I tried to look for a way to disable ANT communication on the watch. I can't find it. I just don't wear the fitness watch while I do fitness activities anymore. "Problem solved"
I thought I made a great purchase. I debated; Apple Watch, Oppo Watch, other Wear OS watches, Samsung watches, Fitbit Sense...
I thought I was getting the most reliable, accurate fitness watch - with great battery life and smartwatch-lite features. Instead I spent $500 on what seems like a high school project. All this, from a company worth nearly 23 billion dollars, and with over 1 billion dollars in revenue a year.
Do they not hire product managers, developers, or software/hardware testers? Do they have issues with staff retention or turnover? Do they just outsource everything to 3rd parties? Does anyone at Garmin actually care about the products they bring to market? Because it sure doesn't seem like it...
For anyone on the fence about their products, or thinking the $249 discounted Venu/Venu SQ models.....just get a Apple/Fitbit watch. If you have an Android device; get a WearOS/Samsung/Fitbit watch. I have no idea how or why Garmin is still competing in these categories.
If I ever get a plane, or take up flying lessons, and have a choice in avionics; you won't see me using Garmin.
