Garmin Venu 2 Smartwatch Review – A Great Watch For Kids Starting Senior School

If you’re looking for a watch for your child starting senior school, the Garmin Venu 2 smartwatch could be the one for you.

We won’t go into whether kids need a smartwatch or not. There are arguments for and against them but that is a decision only you can make.

We weighed up the pros and cons of a smartwatch over a traditional watch and we personally felt that a smartwatch was the right choice for our child starting senior school.

We’re not saying that this watch is designed specifically for kids (see the information at the end of the post about this).

What we are saying is that when we started looking at suitable watches, we found that there weren’t many options for kids around 11 years old. Kids’ watches were babyish but the adult watches were too big.

After much searching we came across the Garmin Venu 2. Our son has been testing out his new watch for a week now and he couldn’t be more pleased with it. He hasn’t taken it off.

Below are the reasons we think the Garmin Venu 2 GPS smartwatch is a great watch for kids starting senior school.

AD: This content has been sponsored by Very.co.uk. We were offered a selection of smartwatches to choose from and chose the Garmin Venu 2 watch to test out and report on our findings. This is our Garmin Venu 2 Smartwatch review including only own opinions.

Why choose the Garmin Venu 2 Smartwatch For Kids?

We looked at a number of different smartwatches but there were certain criteria on our list such as:

• We wanted a watch that our son could grow into not out of.
• He wanted something discreet and not flashy that could track all of his sporting stats and be water resistant.
• We wanted something that could track his movements (ie track his whereabouts).

Garmin launched the world’s first running smartwatch with GPS in 2003 with the Forerunner 201. I owned one myself for many years and so we knew that it was a good brand.  We finally settled on the Garmin Venu 2.

It’s the perfect size smartwatch for an older child

The Garmin Venu 2 has a very sleek design and with its 40mm diameter face, it can sit comfortably on our 11 year old son’s slim wrist.

Most similar smartwatches had much larger faces and were just too big for him. My own current one is 45mm in diameter and is just far too big. Those 5mm make a big difference.

It seems that there are very few watches that sit in the middle ground. By this I mean that there are smartwatches for kids (think character themed) and there are smartwatches for adults but there aren’t many that are suitable for tweens or young teens.

My husband tried on the watch and it doesn’t look small on his wrist so we’re not worried that he will grow out of it any time soon.

It is sleek and can track all the sports he loves and is water resistant

It comes in four colours (Slate, Silver, Gold and Rose Gold). He chose Slate which is pretty much black. We think it looks very sleek.

There are loads of features on this Garmin smartwatch but the average 11 year old is not going to use them. This is another reason he will grow into this watch. Over time, he will find more ways to use the watch.

For the time being he is enjoying tracking the sports he loves. He has tried running, cycling, walking/hiking.

As a keen swimmer, we also needed the watch to be water resistant. The technical spec is 5ATM which means it withstands pressures equivalent to a depth of 50 metres. You would be covered for splashes, rain or snow, showering, swimming, diving into water and snorkelling.

There are 30 sports in total that he can track. This is more than enough really and again, something he can explore over time along with fitness workouts on the Garmin app.

It has GPS tracking

We were keen to have the GPS feature. Not all smartwatches have GPS. A smartwatch is a watch that can track your stats. A smartwatch with GPS can track your stats more accurately.

More importantly for us is the feature that sends an automated message, LiveTrack link, and GPS location (if available) to your emergency contacts.

This feature helps me feel comfortable about his walking to school on his own. If he ever were to feel the need to contact us in an emergency, he can just touch a button on his phone and a message will be sent to all emergency contacts stored in the phone.

This just feels a lot easier than trying to locate his phone in his bag.

Other Garmin Venu 2 features we like

Some other useful features are:

• he can listen up to 650 songs via wireless headphones
• he can get notifications of texts and calls (but you can disable this feature).
• it has a long battery life (up to 11 days). This will decrease if you use the GPS feature and listen to music.

The only Garmin Venu 2 GPS smartwatch feature we don’t like? We don’t like that it has its own unique charger. It would just be so much easier if it could use a standard USB C charger like every other appliance in our house but this isn’t really a big deal!

There is an argument that a smartwatch can be distracting to kids. I can see how this would have been an issue when our son was younger but at this age, the novelty will wear off quickly and it just becomes an all round great watch.

Something that is worth knowing when considering a Garmin Venu 2 GPS smartwatch for kids is the age requirement to use the app.

Due to global privacy laws and regulations, Garmin requires the following age requirements in order to use any of our apps or programs that process personal information including your Garmin Connect™ account: United States: 13 years of age or older. Outside the United States: 16 years of age or older.

Obviously kids can still use the watch but when you set up your child’s profile, you won’t be able to put their actual age in if they are under 16 (in the UK). This means that their stats will be slightly off.

I haven’t looked into other companies but I presume they have a similar issue, unless you can create a child account under an adult account (maybe?).

For us it isn’t an issue. He’s not an elite athlete. He is just encouraged to be more active with this watch.

He is an active kid but he also loves his screen. We’ve seen a notable improvement in his screen time, particularly as the watch reminds him to get up and move!

He wants to walk to the shops instead of drive. He has also got other kids moving by leading step challenges with them. We’re looking forward to doing more family walks with him tracking our progress. All of this can only be a good thing in our eyes.

In case you haven’t considered them before, Very.co.uk is a great place to look for electricals – often offering good discounts. They have a good selection of smartwatches.