I walked 7,500 steps with the Apple Watch Ultra 3 vs Garmin Venu 4

Close-up of the Garmin Venu 4 and Apple Watch Ultra 3 against a weathered orange background — (Image credit: Dan Bracaglia/Tom's Guide)

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The Apple Watch Ultra 3 and Garmin Venu 4 are two of the best smartwatches in 2026, but which is the more accurate fitness tracker? To find out, I walked 7,500 steps with the Apple Watch Ultra 3 on my left wrist and the Garmin Venu 4 on my right wrist.

The Apple Watch Ultra 3 is Cupertino's premium, tough-built smartwatch with a heavy price tag of $799 to match its impressive specs. The Garmin Venu 4, meanwhile, is the Kansas-based gadget-maker's answer to the popular Apple Watch Series 11, with a starting price of $549.

Close-up of the Apple Watch Ultra 3 showing the AllTrails hiking app — (Image credit: Dan Bracaglia/Tom's Guide)

To keep this head-to-head between the Apple Watch Ultra 3 and Garmin Venu 4 fair, I synchronized their tracking modes before departing on my one-hour and four-minute walk. Meanwhile, as a control for distance, elevation, and pace data, I turned to the trusty Strava app, running on my iPhone 16 Plus.

To ensure as accurate a step count total as possible, I manually counted, noting every hundred steps taken with a click of my old-timey tally counter. Find out how the fitness-tracking accuracy of the Apple Watch Ultra 3 and Garmin Venu 4 compares below.

Apple Watch Ultra 3 vs Garmin Venu 4: Walk test results

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Apple Watch 11 vs Garmin Venu 4: results
Header Cell - Column 0	Apple Watch Ultra 3	Garmin Venu 4	Control
Step count	7,411 steps	7,534 steps	7,500 steps (manual count)
Distance	3.98 miles	3.94 miles	4.04 miles (Strava)
Elevation gain	287 feet	220 feet	229 feet (Strava)
Average moving pace	17 mins 34 secs per mile	16 mins 29 secs per mile	16 mins 12 secs per mile (Strava)
Average heart rate	129 bpm	126 bpm	n/a
Max heart rate	159 bpm	165 bpm	n/a
Total calories burned	523 calories	447 calories	n/a
Device battery usage	1%	5%	n/a

I walked 7,500 steps (manual count) during my roughly one-hour and four-minute walk around Seattle, Washington. Confirming the accuracy of my manual count, Strava noted a similar step count total of 7,520.

I've done dozens of these tests, and as a general rule of thumb, a smartwatch step-count tally that's within 100 of the control is a very impressive feat. So, before jumping into the result of the Apple Watch Ultra 3 vs. the Garmin Venu 4, it's worth giving props to both smartwatches for their precision when it comes to the primary metric of comparison.

That said, the Garmin Venu 4 is closer to the control data, not just when it comes to steps taken, but also elevation gain — the Ultra 3 was quite generous here — and average moving pace.

It's worth noting that both Strava and Garmin provide moving and elapsed averages, while Apple has just one pace metric, which I'm guessing reflects an elapsed pace (given that it's slower).

Heart rate data between the two smartwatches is similar enough to not keep me up at night, with Apple noting a slightly higher average and Garmin measuring a tiny bit higher maximum.

When it comes to GPS battery life, the Apple Watch Ultra 3 smoked the Garmin Venu 4, using just 1% during the walk compared to 5% for the Venu 4.

Apple Watch Ultra 3 vs Garmin Venu 4: And the winner is...

the Garmin Venu 4 in lunar gold on the wrist — (Image credit: Future)

In this head-to-head fitness tracking accuracy test between the Apple Watch Ultra 3 and Garmin Venu 4, the Garmin comes out on top as the (slightly) more accurate wearable (for this one walk, at least).

Keep in mind, both devices calculated step count totals that are within 100 steps of my actual count, which is extremely impressive. The Venu 4 was just a tad closer. Overall, though, the Apple Watch Ultra 3 and Garmin Venu 4 each performed with enough accuracy for me to confidently recommend either.

Need some help choosing between the two brands? Read my explainer on Garmin vs. Apple Watch.

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Dan Bracaglia is the Tom’s Guide editorial lead for all things smartwatches, fitness trackers and outdoor gear. With 15 years of experience as a consumer technology journalist testing everything from Oura Rings to instant cameras, Dan is deeply passionate about helping readers save money and make informed purchasing decisions. In the past year alone, Dan has assessed major product releases from the likes of Apple, Garmin, Google, Samsung, Polar and many others.

An avid outdoor adventurer, Dan is based in the U.S. Pacific Northwest where he takes advantage of the beautiful surroundings every chance he gets. A lover of kayaking, hiking, swimming, biking, snowboarding and exploring, he also makes every effort to combine his day job with his passions. When not assessing the sleep tracking and heart rate accuracy of the latest tach gadgets, you can find him photographing Seattle’s vibrant underground music community.

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