Garmin Venu, vivoactive & Forerunner Beta 18.23

Overview

Garmin Public Beta 18.23 is available for the Venu 4/4S, Venu X1, vivoactive 6, Forerunner 570, and Forerunner 970. Most of the changelog is shared: missing pace or speed during intervals, resets while saving activities, Incident Detection crashes, sporadic reboots, and problems with Morning or Evening Report.

The details split after that. Venu 4/4S, Venu X1, Forerunner 570, and Forerunner 970 get a group of voice, spectator-message, and music fixes. vivoactive 6 gets a Silent Mode correction instead. Check the model table below before assuming every fix applies to your watch.

Version 18.23 remains beta software. Garmin has since published stable 17.38 for Venu 4/4S, Venu X1, vivoactive 6, Forerunner 570, and Forerunner 970. Those stable notes contain only general security improvements, so 17.38 and Beta 18.23 are separate branches rather than competing versions of the same release.

Garmin Beta 18.23 at a Glance

Garmin published a separate announcement for each watch:

• Venu 4/4S Beta 18.23
• Venu X1 Beta 18.23
• vivoactive 6 Beta 18.23
• Forerunner 570 Public Beta 18.23
• Forerunner 970 Public Beta 18.23

Garmin marks the Forerunner 570 and 970 releases as 100% rollout. The Venu and vivoactive announcements say the update is available to enrolled beta members but do not give that percentage. Availability can therefore differ even though all five watches use version 18.23.

Fixes Shared by All Five Device Families

The five Beta 18.23 announcements share the same core fixes:

• Addresses pace or speed values dropping out, particularly during interval training.
• Fixes a case where the watch could reset while saving an activity.
• Fixes a crash tied to Incident Detection.
• Addresses sporadic device reboots.
• Fixes a reset while opening Morning Report.
• Fixes Morning and Evening Reports failing to time out.
• Includes other minor fixes.
• Refreshes translations.

There are no new features in the official lists. This is a reliability release, with translations and minor fixes included alongside the named bugs.

Model-Specific Differences in Beta 18.23

The official lists diverge after the shared fixes:

Garmin also lists GCM Translations 4.30 for Venu 4/4S, Venu X1, and vivoactive 6. It is absent from the two Forerunner announcements.

What Changes During Workouts

The most visible workout fix concerns pace or speed values dropping out during interval training. A missing number during a short work or recovery step makes the session hard to pace. Version 18.23 addresses that dropout. Garmin's notes do not tie it to recorded distance or broader GPS accuracy.

The same release also fixes a reset while saving an activity, a crash during Incident Detection, and sporadic reboots across all five families. The notes do not say what happened to an activity file after the save reset, so sync recent data before installing and check that the first few post-update activities save normally.

For additional context, the preceding beta branch is covered in our Venu 4 Beta 18.19 changelog and Forerunner 970 Beta 18.19 changelog.

Voice, Music, Reports, and Silent Mode

The Venu 4/4S, Venu X1, Forerunner 570, and Forerunner 970 share six audio-related fixes. Spectator messages could reset the watch, fail while music was paused, or leave later voice output silent. The music volume slider could also bounce around and stop responding.

Two more fixes deal with Garmin Wake Word. In one case the watch failed to detect it; in another it heard the Wake Word but did not respond to the command. These fixes are useful for people who already use voice controls, though supported commands and languages still depend on the watch configuration.

None of those six lines appears in the vivoactive 6 announcement. Its model-specific change fixes Silent Mode being ignored during an Activity Focus Mode.

All five families receive the same two daily-report fixes. Beta 18.23 fixes a reset when opening Morning Report and makes Morning and Evening Reports time out as expected. There are no new report metrics or layouts in the changelog.

Should You Install Beta 18.23?

Beta 18.23 is worth considering if one of its named bugs is already getting in the way, especially interval pace dropouts, save-time resets, or the voice and music problems on supported models. It is still pre-release software. For a race, long trip, or any period when an activity record matters more than early access, stable 17.38 is the safer choice.

Venu 4 and Venu 4S owners have an extra tradeoff: Garmin warns that the ECG App is disabled during most of the Public Beta cycle. Garmin says it returns on beta versions expected to become live updates and remains available on compatible stable software. That warning comes from the Venu 4/4S announcement and does not apply automatically to every watch covered here.

How to Install Garmin Beta 18.23

The watch must first be enrolled in Garmin's Public Beta Program. All five announcements give the same manual path:

1. Open the Main menu.
2. Select Settings.
3. Open System.
4. Select Software Update.
5. Choose Check For Updates.

Sync recent activities before installing. If the update does not appear, check that the correct watch is enrolled and can complete a normal Garmin Connect sync. For download, storage, or installation failures, see our Garmin software update troubleshooting guide.

Report beta problems through the section linked from the official announcement for your model. Include the exact watch, host version, and steps that reproduce the issue.

Does Beta 18.23 Change Connect IQ or GameraSnap?

Garmin's five announcements are silent on Connect IQ, app permissions, and camera remotes. Treat Beta 18.23 as a watch-firmware update, not a GameraSnap release.

Use our supported Garmin watches list for documented GameraSnap compatibility and the Garmin camera remote page for setup information.