Today I wrote an editorial about my watch failing and getting a new one. I likened this to the changes in tools, which many of us deal with in technology. Certainly Visual Studio has changed a lot if you’re a developer, and you might even be using VS Code. For database people in the SQL Server world, we’ve gone from isql to Enterprise Manager to Management Studio to ADS to no-ADS.

In any case, I’m still not sure that I like the Garmin Venu2SQ. If you’ve never had a smartwatch, or a Garmin, this might not mean much to you, but I’ll write a little about things I noticed with tech changing. These are things that stood out to me, which aren’t necessarily good or bad, but just are.

The Look

There’s two things here: the shape and the display. The shape is square, and my wife noticed the difference right away. My old one was round and looked like a watch. It had an always on display, so during the daytime I could see it.

It looked like a watch.

This one is square, the display turns off, and it seems like a device. Similar to an Apple watch or Galaxy watch.

I have to admit I hadn’t thought about it, but after years of various Timex’s and the old Garmin Forerunner, it does look different and I notice now that my wife pointed this out.

The other thing is the display. On one hand, it’s colorful and bright. That’s new. On the other, I haven’t found a watch face that I like. The old one I had selected and used for 7+ years isn’t available anymore, or I can’t find it. The Garmin store is crowded with watch faces, and I’m a little overwhelmed. I’m trying a few, but so far nothing is amazing.

Ergonomics

One of the reasons I liked my old watch is that it had a number of physical buttons, which make it easy to pick things. At the same time, sometimes there were too many things to pick from (a long list or a circular display of options) and it was a lot of presses to pick something.

This new watch has a touch screen and only two buttons. One button will show me my fitness activities (press) or various controls (long press). The other is a “back” button (press) or a settings button (long press). I thought that would be non-intuitive, but once I’ve learned this, it’s only slightly distracting.

The screen is a touch screen, and scrolling through things works well, which I was surprised to see. There is often a virtual button at the top or bottom of a display that lets me easily open a menu of options. I was surprised how well this works, as well as how little I mess up the actions. I change alarms often as I travel and setting a new alarm on the watch works well.

I thought I would miss more buttons, but I don’t.

The one part of the touch screen I don’t like is at times I lift my wrist to check some notification, usually a text, and my coat sleeve catches the screen and dismisses the notification before I can read it. Or before I can press the menu to respond. That’s a minor issue, though one thing I don’t like about touch screens.

Battery Life

This is amazing to me. I loved my old Forerunner which lasted 4-5 days between charges, which was useful as I traveled. I had a lot of trips where I didn’t need to charge, though I carried a second charger as sometimes I’d forget to charge before I left.

This new watch has been running for 6 days and I have 50% charge. To be fair, life now is a little busy and I’m doing less gym time and no GPS, but the battery is rated close to two weeks, with a color touch screen. That’s amazing.

Features

I picked the Forerunner as it had a NFC payment and music capabilities. At the time I thought I’d connect Bluetooth headphones at the gym and not need my phone. I’ve learned that I really don’t do that, especially as my phone is my car key, so I am rarely without it.

This new watch doesn’t have music downloaded, but it does have a wallet, and a few of the apps I’ve used on the old watch. At 1/3 of the price. It’s somewhat amazing that this much tech is packed into a watch, with better battery life.

The way I manage apps and watch faces has changed, depending less on the app and more on a link through my phone to the store, but I get that probably saves them some software engineering of the app.

What I learned most of all is that I really just need to track my sleep, stress, heart rate, and exercise, all of which are available.

Learning Curve

As I wrote in the editorial, I’m not sure I’m using a lot of the watch, but I do slowly figure things out as I need them. This week I was looking to get music controls on the watch, so that when I’m doing chores and my phone is buried in a coat, I can change tracks. It took me about 5-10 minutes of searching to find out how, but once I enabled this, it worked great.

Slowly I’m coming to accept this watch, and will just keep changing watch faces every week or so until I find one I like.

Finding The Tech Fit

I see people doing other things on their watches, but I don’t find myself jealous. My wife can answer a phone call on her watch and talk through it, but I don’t have that need. I’m rarely on a horse, and need hands free access. I don’t constantly look for information other than the time or my health.

What’s amazing to me is how much cheaper the tech is and how long my battery life is, and how little I do on the watch. After making a snap decision, this has turned out to meet most of my needs across the last month.

It’s not perfect, but it’s good enough and that’s OK with me.