Garmin Venu 4

The Garmin Venu 4 was announced on 17 September 2025 as the latest smartwatch in Garmin's Venu lineup. The pitch in Garmin's press release is a personal on-wrist fitness and wellness coach: a watch that tracks health trends, lets you log lifestyle choices and shows how they affect your body. It also has a metal design, a built-in speaker and microphone, a bright LED flashlight and up to 12 days of battery in smartwatch mode. This page relies on that release. We flag manufacturer claims, and at the end we list what the announcement does not answer.

Health status and lifestyle logging

The first new feature is health status. It looks at heart rate, heart rate variability, respiration, skin temperature and Pulse Ox while you sleep and tells you whether they are trending away from their usual range. Garmin says such changes could indicate added stress to the body and could be related to physical activity, potential illness and more. The feature is described as currently in beta on the watch and in Garmin Connect, and the footnote says it is under beta testing and subject to future enhancements. Alongside it comes lifestyle logging: you can log custom or preset behaviours, with caffeine and alcohol as examples, and see reports in the Garmin Connect app on how those choices affect sleep, stress and HRV. Together these features aim to connect habits with numbers, which is a more interesting promise than just displaying a heart rate.

Sleep

Two sleep metrics are new. Sleep alignment offers more personalised sleep guidance by tracking how aligned your body is with its inner sleep cycle, using circadian rhythm. Sleep consistency shows your average bedtime over the past seven days. Combined with the existing tracking of sleep, HRV, Body Battery energy monitoring and heart rate, Garmin says the 12-day battery makes it easier to wear the watch at night and monitor health metrics around the clock without charging every evening.

Garmin Fitness Coach

On the fitness side, the new Garmin Fitness Coach provides personalised workouts for over 25 different fitness activities, from walking and indoor cycling to rowing and HIIT. Garmin describes these as heart rate and duration based workouts that adjust daily according to activity history, sleep and recovery. Users can set up a plan in the Garmin Connect app to receive tailored workouts and track progress; those who do not set up a plan still get daily suggested workouts for different activities. There is also a mixed session activity profile that tracks several activities in one session rather than saving separate activities, which suits circuit-style gym visits.

Accessibility

Garmin highlights two accessibility features. A spoken watch face reads out the time of day, health data and more directly from the watch and gives alerts at the top of every hour. A colour filter offers different colour display options for people with various forms of colour blindness: grey scale, red/green, green/red and blue/yellow.

Design and calls

The Venu 4 has a metal design and comes in two sizes, 41 mm and 45 mm, in colourways such as lunar gold with light sand and silver with citron. Leather or silicone bands can be swapped easily. Both sizes have a built-in LED flashlight for visibility in the dark, plus a speaker and microphone so you can make and take calls from the watch when it is paired with a compatible iPhone or Android smartphone, and use the phone's voice assistant to reply to text messages. Some voice commands, such as starting a running activity or setting a timer for five minutes, work without a phone connection.

The wider feature set

Garmin lists a suite of features: HRV status, Body Battery, women's health tracking including skin temperature for past ovulation estimates and improved period predictions, the Garmin ECG app, workout benefit and recovery time, training readiness, wrist-based running dynamics, smart notifications, onboard music storage, Garmin Pay, and safety and tracking features. The footnotes contain the usual cautions. Pulse Ox is not a medical device and is not available in all countries. The menstrual cycle tracking feature should not be used for conception, contraception or birth control. The ECG app is available only on select Garmin smartwatches with the latest Garmin Connect app and watch software, is not available in all regions, is intended for adults aged 22 and over and can record an ECG similar to a Lead I ECG and detect atrial fibrillation or normal sinus rhythm.

Next to the Forerunner 570

Garmin's May 2025 running-watch release gives a useful yardstick. The Forerunner 570 was announced at the same suggested price of 549.99 dollars, in 42 and 47 mm, with up to 11 days of battery in smartwatch mode, a speaker and microphone, an evening report and skin temperature tracking. The Venu 4 quotes 12 days and is built around health trends, lifestyle logging and the Fitness Coach, while the Forerunner 570 leads with training readiness, running power and race tools. At the same price, the choice is really between a wellness-first and a running-first feature set.

Price and availability

The Venu 4 became available to purchase on 22 September 2025 with a suggested retail price starting at 549.99 US dollars. Garmin's release quotes that starting price without splitting it by size or band, so expect the exact figure to vary with the version.

What is missing

The release does not specify display size, resolution or brightness, weight, water rating, memory capacity, or exactly which health status metrics are available in which regions. Battery life is given as a single maximum for smartwatch mode and does not say which size it applies to, nor how it changes with GPS use or with calls. Because health status is a beta feature, its behaviour may change. If those details matter to you, compare the two sizes in a shop and confirm regional availability of features such as the ECG app.

Who should look at it

The Venu 4 suits people who want an elegant, all-day health watch with a coaching layer more than a rugged expedition tool. If you would rather have a running-focused Garmin, look at the Garmin Forerunner 570 or the Garmin Forerunner 970. For an outdoor watch, see the Garmin Instinct 3. If you use an iPhone, the Apple Watch Series 11 is the ecosystem alternative and the Venu 4 versus Apple Watch Series 11 page compares them. All watches are listed in smartwatches.