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.
While the Venu 4 is arguably Garmin's smartest smartwatch under $1,000, it can't match the smarts of the Apple Watch Ultra 3. However, Garmin offers a more comprehensive set of fitness training and recovery tools. That said, when it comes to fitness tracking chops, these two devices are evenly matched.
The Venu 4 already has a walk test win over the Apple Watch 11. Will it keep the streak going against the pricier Ultra 3? Read on.
I walked 7,500 steps with the Apple Watch Ultra 3 vs Garmin Venu 4
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
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...
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.
More from Tom's Guide
- I pitted a $169 smartwatch against my favorite Garmin — here’s what happened
- 5 Apple Watch settings to change right now to improve battery life
- I love to snowboard and these are my 3 favorite free apps for tracking a day on the mountain
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