Garmin is rolling out a fresh beta update for three of its popular smartwatches: the Venu X1, Venu 4, and vivoactive 6. The new beta software, version 16.37, lands about a month after beta version 16.28, which introduced a notification delay option for users who wanted a little more control over how alerts appear on the wrist.
The headline change in beta v16.37 is a set of improvements to Garmin’s course planner feature. Garmin says the tool should now perform better, which could be especially welcome for runners, cyclists, and walkers who regularly build routes and rely on their watch for turn-by-turn guidance and planning. While the company hasn’t shared detailed specifics on what was optimized, the update is clearly aimed at making route planning feel smoother and more reliable.
Alongside the course planner tweaks, Garmin has also updated translation functionality on these wearables, suggesting broader refinement of language support and related on-device text handling.
Bug fixes are another major part of this beta release. Garmin addressed two separate issues that could cause unexpected crashes on the vivoactive 6 and related models: one linked to headphone use and another tied to the HIIT activity profile. If you’ve experienced random lockups during workouts or while listening to audio, this update is designed to reduce those disruptions. There’s also a fix for a daily goals issue where users were only seeing one goal alert per day, which should help ensure activity reminders and progress notifications behave as intended.
If you’re enrolled in Garmin’s beta program and own a Venu X1, Venu 4, or vivoactive 6, you can check for the beta update directly on your watch by navigating to Main menu, then Settings, then System, then Software Update, and finally Check For Updates.
