I walked 65,000 steps with the Garmin Venu 4 — 5 things I learned

The Garmin Venu 4 is one of my favorite fitness-tracking smartwatches. Packed with tools to help you log your daily efforts, train, recovery, and improve your overall well-being, it also supports a decent number of non-fitness apps, like Google Maps and Garmin Pay, while offering solid battery performance, a bright screen, and all-around stylish looks.

For all of these reasons, I opted to wear the Garmin Venu 4 on a recent trip to Las Vegas, Nevada, to cover CES 2026 for Tom’s Guide. Over the course of four action-packed days, the Venu 4 kept tabs on my efforts from the moment I left my room until the second I returned for the night.

After 65,000 steps, here are seven things I learned about the Garmin Venu 4 (and myself).

I walked 65,000 steps with the Garmin Venu 4

Check out my core metrics, recorded by the Garmin Venu 4 over the course of four days in Las Vegas covering CES 2026, above.

1. GPS battery life lasted a full day without issue

Each day, I fired up a walking workout on the Garmin Venu 4 and allowed it to track my efforts uninterrupted, while navigating cavernous convention center hallways, never-ending rows of tech products, smoke-filled casino floors, intriguing liminal spaces, ornate stucco exteriors, and lots of one-on-one meetings.

In terms of hours spent recording, day one was my longest, with the Garmin Venu 4 running the GPS for ten hours and eight minutes straight. When all was said and done, and I returned to my room, I had just shy of 25% battery remaining.

Garmin says that the larger, 45mm Venu 4 (the one I wore) should get between 17 and 19 hours of usage when using multi-GPS to track a workout. However, my experience suggests that GPS battery life is slightly less than that in real-world use.

Fortunately, day one at CES was my longest day out and about, and the Venu 4 had more than enough battery power to easily cruise through each of the remaining days with ease.

2. The Venu 4 is surprisingly comfy, even on the right wrist

While I almost always opt to wear my watches, smart or dumb, on my left wrist, for this trip, I wore the Garmin Venu 4 on my right wrist to allow for a traditional mechanical watch on my left. When I first set out rocking double watches, I was a little concerned that the Venu 4 would become bothersome. That, surprisingly, wasn’t the case.

With a manageable weight of 56 g with the silicone strap attached, the 45mm Garmin Venu 4 has enough heft to let you know it’s there without actually feeling hefty. The standard silicone strap is soft, stretchy, and doesn’t get itchy when I start to sweat (an issue I’ve had with other silicone straps).

3. Riding a taxi and monorail messed up my distance data

I did encounter several hiccups with my tracking data from the Garmin Venu 4. While the step counts, calories burned, and accent data are all sound, my distance covered seems off, given the step counts, for days two, three, and four.

Upon further inspection, it appears that a short Lyft ride from the Venetian Expo Hall to the Las Vegas Convention Center was included in my day two total, plus a bus ride back, while that same journey to and from also got added on day three distance total, except that the Las Vegas monorail was my non-walking means of transportation.

For day three, my several-mile taxi ride to the airport also got logged as distance covered.

4. I burned a lot of calories and did a ton of sweating

Over the course of four days, walking 65,000 steps with the Garmin Venu 4, I burned a total of 8,500 calories or roughly 2,125 calories a day. I also sweated out nearly 26 liters of water, or roughly 6.4 liters a day. Good thing I was hell-bent on staying hydrated! The desert dryness is no joke.

Garmin Venu 4: $549 at Best Buy

The Garmin Venu 4 is a stylish and lightweight smartwatch with plenty of health and fitness tracking tools, and just enough smart features to get by, including support for Google Maps, NFC payments, and offline music. It also boasts a bright AMOLED screen and a handy onboard LED flashlight.

View Deal

5. I climbed nearly the height of One World Trade Center

I generally tend to think of Las Vegas as a flat city, being in a desert and all, but over my four days at CES with the Garmin Venu 4, I ascended roughly 1,702 feet, or nearly the height of One World Trade Center in New York.

For what it’s worth, I purposely opted to take the stairs versus escalators every chance I had. This was both for the added calorie burn and to navigate the show with speed (folks don’t leave room for walkers on escalators in Vegas).

Aside from the distance-related hiccups, all of the rest of the data captured by the Garmin Venu 4 over the four days I recorded my trials and tribulations as a modern tech journalist appears sound. So much so that I wouldn’t hesitate to wear the Venu 4 during the next major event I cover, assuming the total time spent out and about doesn’t exceed 12-ish hours.

If it does, I'll just grab the impossibly-long-lasting Garmin Instinct 3 instead.

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