However, the price tag is also higher with a release price of 450 dollars, which is even more than what you pay for the baseline model of the latest apple watch. The release price is also 50 more than a very similar garmin venue too. However, in practice, the actual price difference between the two is actually closer to 100. So is the venue 2 plus worth that kind of money? Well, to help you answer that question ill scientifically test the accuracy of the different features of the garmin venue, 2 plus ill start by looking at the sleep tracking accuracy, then move on to the heart rate, measurements, oxygen, saturation, measurements and gps accuracy ill. Also compare to the normal garmin venue 2 and to the apple watch, 7 and finally ill briefly. Compare to the new and much cheaper garmin vivomove sport spoiler, alert the vivo move, sport actually vastly outperforms the garmin venue, 2 plus in one specific area. Lets start by looking at the sleep tracking of the garmin venue, 2 plus now for those of you that are new to the channel, my name is rob and im a postdoctoral scientist specializing in biological data analysis. The reason ill start with this sleep tracking test is because im uniquely positioned to test that feature here, i show an overview of the sleep tracking accuracy on top are the sleep stages, as recorded by an eeg device, called the dream? 2, that can actually measure my brain waves and on the vertical axis are the sleep stages.
According to the garmin venue, 2 plus, i wore both the eeg device and the garmin venue 2, plus the bat for 6 nights and ill see how close the predictions of the venue 2 plus are to those of the eeg device. Now each column here sums to 100, meaning that we can see what percentage of each of the actual sleep stages was predicted as each sleep stage by the venue 2 plus. If they were to perfectly agree, all values along the diagonal should be 100. But as you can see, this is far from true. First of all, we see that only nineteen percent of what was deep sleep in reality was also predicted as deep sleep by the venue, two plus, in fact, almost all of what was deep. Sleep was detected as light sleep by the garmin venue. Two plus we can see that even better by looking at the individual knights like in this example knight right here. On top, we have the sleep stage according to the dream: 2 eeg headband, with the clock time along the horizontal axis and the sleep stages along the vertical axis on the bottom. We have a similar plot, but now for the venue, 2 plus ive, highlighted it all real, deep sleep in purple here and, as you can see, i had some deep sleep in the beginning of the night and almost none of that was detected by the venue. 2, plus now out of all 6 nights, i tested the device.
This second knight represents the best night in terms of deep sleep tracking, where all my deep sleep was indeed detected, though some extra deep sleep was detected by the venue 2 plus. However, most nights are more like this, where no or almost none of my deep sleep was detected, as you can also see in this example night right here, all my deep sleep is missed. Light sleep detection was okay with about 60 of the light sleep correctly detected. However, about 30 percent of the light sleep was detected as either deep sleep or rem sleep. The remaining 10 was detected by the garmin venue, 2 plus, as me being awake now, rem, sleep detection was pretty bad as well. With only about 1 4 of the rem sleep correctly detected, most rem, sleep was actually detected as being light sleep by the venue 2 plus. That is also what we see. Looking at the individual knights, the real rem, sleep marked in red was not correctly detected by the venue, 2 plus, and actually most of it is totally missed. This also means we cannot really see the sleep cycles. You go through roughly four to six sleep cycles. Each night, each one, starting with light sleep and deep sleep which is marked in blue and each one ending in rem, sleep marked here in red. As you can see, i had one two three four complete sleep cycles this night, but based on the data from just the venue.
Two plus, you would not be able to see this at all, and we see the same thing in this second example knight right here. The ram sleep does not match at all between the watch and the eeg device, making sleep cycle detection impossible. Awake detection was quite okay, with about two thirds of the awake moments correctly detected about a quarter of my awake moments was detected as light sleep. However, this is not a major issue since light sleep was the closest sleep stage to being awake. If we look at the individual nights, we indeed see that the longer awake moments appear to be detected, but many of the shorter ones are missed and we basically see the same pattern for this second night. The longer awake moment is detected, the shorter ones are missed and it even detects an extra awake moment now, at the same time that the venue 2 plus was released, garmin also released the vivo moves port. This hybrid smartwatch is much cheaper. Coming in at 180, ive been testing the vivo moves sport at the same time as the venue, 2 plus and looking at the results, the vivo move. Sport outperforms the venue 2 plus by miles when it comes to sleep tracking, ill release. A complete review of the vivo move sport in about 2 weeks, but ill briefly, show you the difference with the venue 2 plus in this video here are the results we were just looking at for the venue 2 plus on the left, and now the results for The vivo moves port on the right on top, for both devices are the results according to the eeg headband and on the bottom, the results according to each of the devices.
Now this is the same night, for both devices and in purple is the deep sleep and, as you can see, the vivomove sport picked up almost perfectly on my deep sleep, whereas the venue 2 detected none of the deep sleep and we see something similar for rem, Sleep now in red, i marked a real ram sleep with again on the bottom left, the venue 2 plus and on the bottom right of even move sport. As you can see, the vivo move. Sport nicely detected all the 4 ram sleep segments, which also would allow us to see the sleep cycles, whereas the venue 2 plus basically detected none of it. I have no real explanation for why the v2 move sport is so much better at tracking my sleep. Looking at all the other nights, i ran these tests, the much cheaper vivomove sport consistently outperforms, the venue 2 plus in sleep tracking. I would expect both these watches to have the same algorithm, but maybe garmin indeed uses different releases of the sleep tracking algorithm for both watches. If this is the case, then they should really port over the one used in the viva move sport to the venue 2 plus now i did wear the venue 2 plus on my dominant hand, and if you move sport on my non dominant one. However, i cannot imagine this causes such a big inconsistency. Now, if you have any experience with the sleep tracking of different garment watches, id be really interested to hear about it.
In the comments below. We can also compare the accuracy of the venue 2 plus to other devices which is displayed in this graph along the horizontal axis. We have the average accuracy over the four individual sleep stages and on the vertical axis we have the accuracy of the worst sleep stage. The better device, the more to the top right it is, and, as you can see, the best devices include different fitbits. In this case the vivid sense, inspire 2 and charge 5 which all perform about equally well. These are joined by the boobstrap 3.0 4.0 and within sleep analyzer, as you can see, the garmin venue 2 plus, is really on the bottom left right here. The garmin venue 2 performed a bit better, though its still roughly in the same area. Now, honestly, i would have expected both to perform about the same unless garmin released firmware updates in the meantime now next, if we also include the garmin vivomove sport, we indeed see that this performs significantly better than the venue, 2 plus and the venue 2 by a Comfortable margin, one thing i noticed is that the venue 2 plus consistently detected me as falling asleep about 15 minutes too late, each and every night that is displayed here on the vertical axis. We have the dates of the nights i tested. The venue 2 plus and on the horizontal axis is the time difference between the eeg device and the venue 2 plus for waking up in yellow and falling asleep in blue.
So a positive number means that the venue 2 plus detected me as falling asleep or waking up later than in reality, and a negative number means its detecting me as waking up or falling asleep earlier. As you can see, since all the blue dots are positive and roughly in the same range, this indicates that watch consistently detected me as falling asleep about 10 to 18 minutes too late, though the sleep tracking is not great for the venue, 2 plus theres. One thing that the previous venue 2 really impressed me with, namely the heart rate tracking the venue 2 plus, should perform about the same. But lets see if this is the case in the next test. Ill. Compare the heart rate of the venue, 2, plus against the polar h10 ecg chest strap, which can record my heart rate very accurately, but before i show you those results if youre finding this video helpful, a sub to the channel would definitely make my heartbeat faster. My goal is to reach 100 000 subscribers by the end of next month, and your support would, of course, be greatly appreciated, but its totally up to you, we will start by looking at the easiest type of exercise for a watch to track cycling indoors. Now. This involves very little movement and will therefore produce less noise. Here we see an overview of that accuracy. Each dot is a single heart rate measurement, with along the horizontal axis, the value according to the polar h, 10 ecg chest strap and on the vertical axis.
The value according to the venue, 2 plus the blue line, indicates perfect agreement, so any measurements along this line at roughly the same value for the polar h 10 and the venue 2 plus the more measurements there are in a certain area, the darker blacked, the color. As you can see, theres a pretty good agreement between the ecg chest strap and the venue 2 plus, as most points, are along the blue line. However, interestingly, we also see that there are some points right here above the blue line. This indicates that, while my heart rate was low in reality, the venue 2 plus detected the 2 low heart rate in these moments. Now we can see why that is by looking at the individual rights along the horizontal axis. We have the time, and my heart rate is along the vertical axis in blue. I plotted my heart rate. According to the polar h10 ecg chest, strap and in red is my heart rate. According to the venue, 2 plus, as you can see for most of the rides, the two lines overlap more or less perfectly, and you can basically not see the red line of the venue 2 plus at all because of the perfect overlap. However, here in the beginning, it does not fully detect a dip in my heart rate, when i took a break and sat down and we basically see the same thing for this second session during my first break, the watch had trouble, detecting my lowest heart rate, and This is a more or less consistent pattern during this third ride.
It even detected double the heart rate that it should have all in all. This is still pretty good, though the artifacts it shows are kinda, weird next, looking at cycling outside, for which the overuse is played here, we also see a reasonably good agreement between the chest, strap and the venue 2 plus now cycling outside is much more difficult to Watch since it involves much more movement and therefore much more noise, the watch also tends to shift more on my wrist, making it harder for it to accurately detect my heart rate. However, as we can see in this plot, compared to many other watches, the venue 2 plus does quite well which we can confirm by looking at the individual bike rides of which this is the first example. As you can see, theres quite a good overlap between both of the devices. We see mostly the same thing for this second ride, though it is not quite as good with slightly more deviations, for instance here, but also here again. This third right right here is very good and most rides are either that good or pretty good, like this right right here. The only exercise where the venue 2 plus struggles is weight, lifting that is displayed here and, as you can see, most points are indeed close to the blue line. However, in the higher heart rate ranges, there are quite a few points below the blue line, and that is because it cannot always detect the peaks in my heart rate that go with each of the sets of exercises.
I do, as you can see. In this example. Weightlifting session right here, it cannot pick up on these peaks, but weve basically seen this for almost all of the watches, ive tested. So far with just a few exceptions. Now the venue 2 plus is still amongst the better watches out there, but i would still say it lags behind the apple watch and the huawei watch gt3 when it comes to weightlifting, so the garmin venue 2 plus performed quite well. However, for some reason it did not perform quite as well as the original venue 2 performed for me now to visualize. That here are the results for the garmin venue, 2 plus for spinning we were just looking at and if we now switch to the garmin venue. 2, we get much better results, even though both are good. The results for the venue 2 are definitely better than those for the venue 2 plus now i did have much more data for the venue 2 than for the venue 2 plus, which is why i made the points more transparent in this plot. So you could more clearly see where most of the points are now here are the results for cycling outside for the venue 2 plus, and here are the results for the venue 2 and for this activity i would say that the venue 2 plus and the venue 2 appear to perform about the same. Finally, this is weightlifting for the venue 2 plus, and here the venue 2 does appear to perform a bit better.
Now i did have a lot more data for the original venue, 2 and the way i exported the data from the garmin databases was also different ill. Keep exploring why this is not update you once i find out more now. Finally, i do want to highlight the performance of the apple watch series 7, when it comes to heart rate tracking, since this might be an alternative, smartwatch youre, considering heres the accuracy of the apple watch series 7 during spinning and as you can see its almost perfect, We see something similar for cycling outside the deviations are slightly larger, but all in all its spot on, and we see the same thing for weightlifting right here, which is again amazing for a restaurant wearable. Now i should note that during weight, lifting the apple watch sometimes loses the heart rate signal briefly when doing a set, so it sometimes misses part of the peak. However, overall, its still the number one wrist horn, heart rate tracker now, the garmin venue 2 plus, is definitely amongst the top heart rate trackers. However, its still not quite as good as the apple watch, what about the spo2 or oxygen saturation measurements over the last week? I measured my oxygen saturation and ground level in the morning and in the evening, at the same time, i also recorded my oxygen saturation with a dedicated finger pulse exhibitor at ground level. My saturation should be within my normal range, which is generally between 97 and 100 percent.
The venue 2 plus, should not detect any low values during this test on the left are the 16 measurements taken with the venue 2 plus and on the right, the measurements taken with the fingerprint exhibitor. As you can see, the venue 2 plus quite often detects it too low spo2 value. Most of its values are quite a bit lower than those measured with the fingerpills exhibitor. The results for the spo2 measurements of the venue, 2 plus, are still somewhat inconclusive in a future test, ill see if it can detect a low oxygen saturation in a low oxygen environment. What about gps tracking? I tested that, while cycling to and from work – and i wanted to test two things one: how long does it take for the watch to get a gps signal and two, how well gps signals overlap when cycling the same route, multiple times that is displayed here for Four times i cycle to work, i started the activity the moment i was ready to leave and i did not provide the watch with any extra time to acquire the signal. The green marker indicates the moment it connected to the gps signal and, as you can see, it almost always required a signal almost instantly, which is good when we zoom in we see it needs a few seconds to get an accurate location. But after that, the paths appear to overlap quite well, as you can see here, for instance – and this indicates a good consistency also right here, we see a pretty good overlap and during this section right here the overlap is almost perfect.
There are some moments with a bit more deviation, but overall this is not bad at all. We can look at the same thing when i cycled back from work again. It acquired a signal really quickly, but it needed a few seconds to get an accurate position once the signal is acquired. The consistency between the pass is pretty good, though there were a few moments with a bit more deviation overall, its quite good, as we can also see here, for instance, overall, the gps tracking of the garmin venue, 2 plus, is quite good, and i would even say Its amongst the best trackers out there, however, taking into account all features. I have really mixed feelings about the garmin venue, 2 plus. For some reason i cannot explain the original venue 2 performed better at heart rate tracking when i tested a few months back, even though the sentences are the same as those on the venue, 2 plus im, not sure if anything changed internally in the watch. That could cause some interference or, if something changed in the processing of the signal. Alternatively, it could just be a fluke and, with some more testing it could perform better. Still. The venue 2 plus, is amongst some of the better wristband heart rate trackers out there. On the other hand, the sleep tracking is pretty bad and weirdly the much cheaper, garmin vivomove sport performs consistently better at that. Nevertheless, if youre a runner or a cyclist – and you want to track your heart rate and your gps position – i think the garmin venue 2 plus, is a good choice.
However, since i personally do not really use the voice assistant, integration and im, also not a fan of taking calls from my wrist or playing music on a watch. Id rather opt for the original venue 2, which you can probably find for 100 less than the venue. 2 plus now, if youre an android user, you might actually also want to take a look at the huawei watch, gt3, which has great hardware tracking and that video is linked here. If you want the best smartwatch experience and great heart rate tracking the apple watch, series 7 is an even better choice. However, the apple watch has much poorer battery life and also requires an iphone now. I hope that this video provided some value. Thank you.ny6yH4ACxV8
