Garmin Venu 3S review: A premium smartwatch experience with a smaller smartwatch design

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With the release of the Venu 3S, Garmin fans looking for a smaller wearable now have a more attractive option compared to the brand's other watches like the Venu 2, Epix Pro, or Fenix 7 Pro. While those comprise some of the best Garmin watches you can buy, the Venu 3S slots in as a similarly quality smartwatch with a more compact design.

Like the standard Venu 3, the 3S offers a variety of advanced features, such as a built-in speaker and microphone to take calls, the ability to download and store music, and plenty of health and fitness tools. It's a solid combination of an effective activity tracker and a multi-featured smartwatch.

I've tested a variety of the best smartwatches, including the Apple Watch Series 9, the Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 Classic, and the Fitbit Sense 2. While the Venu 3S has a steeper learning curve than those, it's a quality smartwatch that offers some of the best health and fitness tracking capabilities among anything I've reviewed.

The Venu 3S is smaller and lighter than the standard Venu 3 and is perfect for folks with narrow wrists

When comparing the Venu 3S to the standard Venu 3, the size difference is obvious. While the Venu 3 measures 1.8 inches in diameter, the 3S sits at 1.6 inches. The 3S also weighs less than the 3, which is a small but welcome change for those with narrow wrists who prefer wearing lighter accessories.

The smaller Venu 3S watch face is a considerable improvement from the bulky, uncomfortable Venu 2 model. The Venu 3S is 0.3 oz lighter than both the Venu 2 and the Venu 3, which may sound insignificant but I did find it to make a noticeable difference, especially during workouts or when I wore it to sleep.

The Venu 3S also has a thinner silicone strap than the Venu 3 and it comes in five color options: French Gray, Pebble Gray, Sage Gray, Dust Rose, and Ivory. Like Garmin's other Venu models, wearers can further customize their watch with add-ons from a pool of over 15 strap colors.

Another benefit of the Venu 3S design is that it complements and enhances outfits rather than drawing attention away from styling. That's not true for many of the wide, techy-looking smartwatches currently on the market.

Garmin's advanced fitness tracking ecosystem is great for beginners and advanced athletes alike

The Venu 3S stays true to the classic fitness tracking features you'd expect from Garmin. Like the Venu 2, it has a focus on rest and recovery, which helped identify when I needed to either take it easy one day or when I could up the intensity of my workouts. I also enjoyed its easy workout customization, the animated on-screen workout functionality, and the running-specific features that tracked my running power, stride length, cadence, etc.

The Venu 3S syncs with the Garmin Connect app which centralizes all tracked health and fitness data. This provided an easy way for me to access all my tracking metrics, and its calendar function is a fun way to track progress from week to week.

Garmin updated the Venu 3S with a microphone and speaker, both of which were missing from the Venu 2 and 2S, and this feature is a particular standout. This allows for audio prompts and coaching techniques that did a good job of keeping me accountable in the first few weeks of wearing the watch. I enjoyed using these features on days when I had trouble getting going on my own. It also helps out during activities as you can set tracking alerts during, say, cycling or swimming that can incentivize you to adjust your goals or extend your exercise time in future workouts.

Garmin watches tend to lean more toward advanced users but the 3S does a good job of catering to first-time wearers and beginners, too. The watch offers beginner tracking features for those who just want to monitor basics like steps taken, calories burned, and sleep time.

One of the Venu's biggest selling points is helping you better understand certain health markers

Garmin's Venu 3S allows you to glean detailed insights into your health. This includes unique information regarding sleep patterns, nervous system regulation, menstruation, and pregnancy.

For the sleep tracking, the watch monitors movement during normal sleeping hours. It can then report back on the total hours of sleep, sleep movement, and sleep stages I encountered throughout the night.

The stress tracking feature is also a helpful function that offers useful info about how my body handles stress each day. This works by monitoring my heart rate data and comparing it to my normal levels throughout the day over time, including while sleeping. I could then see at what time throughout the day my stress levels were the highest and could choose to take a walk during those times, or simply sit and meditate.

The menstruation tracking feature needs a bit more manual operation than sleep or stress tracking as it requires me to personally track things like my physical and emotional symptoms, the dates my cycle started and ended, and any supplemental health and nutrition information. Over time, however, the watch uses that data to predict period and fertility timing.

A minor annoyance of the Venu 3S was the inconvenience of having to wait for the watch to learn the "real me." It took a few days of logging my health and fitness data for the watch to truly start adapting to my body's rhythms. This is ultimately fine since the watch needs to go through these processes but I couldn't help being a bit impatient.

Solid smartwatch functionality and downloadable music are a huge plus

The Venu 3S is comparable to other Venu models in that I was able to download music to the watch without having to whip out my phone when I wanted to skip a song. All it takes is a simple tap on the watch's screen and I can navigate through my playlists easily.

Being able to simultaneously take phone calls and check emails while tracking my steps and hydration levels helped take some of the pressure off my hands, wrists, and fingers—a beacon when you're on the computer for hours in the day typing, leaning forward, and sitting still. These are the hallmarks of modern smartwatches, and the Venu 3S nails this aspect.

One slight annoyance I had with the Venu 3S is not being able to view photos or respond to texts on the watch. I use an iPhone and these features are only available to Android users (similar to other Garmin watches).

The Venu 3S offers up to 10 days of battery life and charges to 100% in an hour

The Venu 3S's 10-day battery life (in smartwatch mode) is shorter than Venu 3's 14-day lifespan, but this was a tradeoff I was happy to accommodate once I started fiddling with my Venu 3S and gave it time to learn my habits. That battery life does take a bit of a hit with the Always On Display, as I got roughly five days with it. The watch charges relatively quickly, too, needing around an hour before being at 100%.

I did find that constantly checking notifications, playing music, using the GPS, and tracking activities drain the battery quite quickly. However, there is a battery-saver mode that strips back most of these features but does give the watch 20 days of usage. As a camper and hiker, this came in handy on several multi-day trips I went on while wearing the watch.

Should you buy it?

The Venu 3S is a worthy investment if you're eager to find a premium smartwatch that's fashionable and lightweight with a deep well of health and fitness tracking tools. It's capable of suiting a wide range of users, from beginners to advanced athletes, and is a great bridge between Garmin's entry-level watches and its high-end outdoor wearables.

But what makes the Venu 3S even more attractive is its smaller size. Folks with narrower wrists will likely be drawn to the wearable's compact design — I know I was.