Garmin Instinct Solar, Solar-powered Rugged Outdoor
Garmin Instinct Solar, Solar-powered Rugged Outdoor Smartwatch, Built-in Sports Apps and Health Monitoring, Flame Red
Instinct is a GPS smartwatch built to break convention, conquer the elements and endure longer.
It’s taking battery life to a new level by harnessing the power of the sun.
A non-traditional smartwatch that turns heads at every glance
Solar Power Glass LensExperience unprecedented battery life with solar charging.
” data-position=”triggerHorizontal” />Replaceable Watch BandsReplace your band with stylish colours. Simply remove your current watch band and add a new band for a comfortable and enhanced fit. Bands, keepers and pins included. Sold separately.
” data-position=”triggerHorizontal” />DESIGNED TO BE DARINGBold colours, high contrast displays and purpose-built design bring to life a non-traditional smartwatch that turns heads at every glance.
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Compare the Instinct Range of GPS Smartwatches
 Instinct Solar |  Instinct |  Instinct Solar – Surf |  Instinct Solar – Tactical | |
| Solar Charging | ✔ | ✘ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Power Manager | ✔ | ✘ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Built to Military Standard 810 | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| GPS, GLONASS and Galileo | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| ABC SENSORS | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| TracBack Routing | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Sports Apps | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Smart Notifications | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Body Battery | ✔ | ✘ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Stress Tracking | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ | ✔ |
| Tide Data and Surf Activity | ✘ | ✘ | ✔ | ✘ |
| Tactical Features | ✘ | ✘ | ✘ | ✔ |
| Dimensions: | 14 x 0.5 x 3.47 cm; 53 Grams |
| Model: | 010-02293-20 |
| Batteries Included: | 1 Lithium Polymer batteries required. (included) |
| Manufacture: | Garmin |
| Dimensions: | 14 x 0.5 x 3.47 cm; 53 Grams |
| Origin: | Spain |
Brilliant watch all the information I wanted was on the watch
I bought this watch in Dec 2020, so it’s had 2 years and 4 months of everyday use! I’ve wated a good length of time to review it to hopefully give you a good idea of how robust the watch is etc. Not after a weeks use!!
I use the watch everyday without fail and pretty much wear it 24/7 unless I’m charging it! Mainly I’ll record hikes, including mountain hikes and the odd bike ride, so this is when I’ll record the activity via the built in GPS, then download the activity to the Garmin app and Komoot.
I used the watch to record hiking activities extensively last year whilst travelling in our campervan, spending 3 months in France, 3 months back in the UK, then 3 months in Spain. So what I’m saying is that the watch is used a lot.
The battery life is fantastic, not using the GPS, I’ve had a couple of weeks out of it with battery power left over, I think I’d get up to 3 weeks. When the GPS is activated it will last all day, I believe up to 16 hours. I’ve spent all day on mountains in the UK, Spain and France and there’s always been plenty of life left in the battery once the activity has ended.
The watch is not bad to look at and is very clear and simple to use, it also sits nice on the wrist and is very light.
The only gripe I have is the fact you can’t see the steps on the face during a recorded activity, it just means you have to wait until you’ve finished.
Overall I love the watch, it’s been totally reliable and the best Garmin I’ve had by far. I would definitely buy another.
No frills – easy use – easy read and accurate – quite simply the best hiking outdoor watch you can get!
For a week I added hydration etc but got bored. It’s ideal smart watch for those who don’t want to charge it up all the time. We don’t need to know our heart rate all the time
I like the watch, though it has far too many features that I never use – either because I don’t wild swim, or because I just can’t figure out how to access/use them when I need to (right then, rather than by searching for an instruction manual online). It’s not intuitive but it looks good and tracks the right things. However my biggest complaint is the failure to charge – it seems that the charging cables just stop working after a couple of months. I have literally had to replace the charging cable over and over and over again. About to order another one… sneaky way of setting up subscription fees, maybe?
UPDATE: One thing that is really annoying if you are a regular user of a heavy backpack: the watch buttons seem to always, always snag when you put the backpack on or take it off – leaving the watch set in random biking or swimming modes or trying to find the weather or GPS or whatever, sometimes for hours if you don’t remember to check. Bit of a usability/design flaw for a sport watch I think.
The app slows down the whole phone.I had to delete.I am satisfied with the watch.Very light to wea
This is the type of watch that you can wear everyday and forget that you have it on you. In a nutshell, this watch is very accomplished as it has so many features that will satisfy the climber, the runner , the explorer
What I really love about this watch is it’s looks, and great readability in any light, and not to mention how amazing the battery life!
The ABC is flawless, Storm alarm is on point and for any of you out there wondering what setting to use for early change in weather pattern, I experimented with many settings and the 3hPa drop per 3 hours works the best as it warms you that a L front is making land in the next 6h to 12h. Heart rate is by the far the best I have found to match my S6 during swimming!! During running and cross fit is also accurate. I am very impressed with this watch despite my wife’s comment on how ugly it looks
The Garmin once fully charged will run 21 days if you’re not doing many tracked exercises (so, notifications and the likes) and it’s winter. In summer, if you’re in the sun for any time at all you’ll get well over a month from a charge.
Accuracy is excellent, better than the two Android watches I mentioned, and marginally better than the Apple Watch. The Garmin app is very good too, all information is presented clearly and accurately, and it’ll sync with Google Fit if that’s your thing too.
It’s quite a big watch, like a Casio G-Shock, but it’s very light to the point where you forget you’re wearing it, even when compared to a 40mm Apple Watch. I’ve not been kind to the Garmin either, and there are no marks or scratches on it, despite me wearing it through months of DIY home renovations. The strap (a very dark greeny-grey) is starting to discolour a little, but only noticable if you really look hard at it.
Very highly recommended. Anyone want to buy an Apple Watch or a Galaxy Watch 4? 😀
The Instinct does everything the Vivo does with the exception of VO2 Max, which is rarely mentioned. It’s slightly ridiculous that it doesn’t generate VO2 Max in app, but it doesn’t. It also can’t use the Garmin ConnectIQ app store, although in my experience that’s of limited use anyway and the Instinct comes with the most useful ‘widgets’ ready to go anyway.
However, it does offer a bunch of additional features including turn-by-turn navigation (although no maps) and the important one for me; body battery.
Garmin has had the body battery feature around for a while now on some devices and its useful to have it on the Instinct. If you wear the watch 24/7 and allow it to monitor your HR and Sleep etc, then it produces some really interesting data on your overall energy levels which are genuinely proving quite useful for planning training and rest.
The watch is a good size and doesn’t look too chunky even on a small wrist and the screen is VERY readable in all conditions. I really prefer the buttons to the touch screen display of the Vivoactive which was forever changing screens accidentily. I’m not a big fan of standard holed straps and quickly switched it out for a simple velcro one (most 22mm straps will fit).
I will admit to initially feeling a bit underwhelmed by the Instinct Solar. It looks fairly unexciting, it has a black and white screen, it’s missing V02 Max and it almost felt like a step back from the Vivoactive. However, having used it for few weeks, especially due to the body battery feature, the watch has become a really useful tool that i now wear 24/7 and am really pleased I switched to it.
If you want a rugged GPS watch for general road and trail running plus something with a larger battery that will work well for longer events and hikes etc then this seems an ideal choice. Just be aware that you are missing some specialist running metrics and the screen is not as big as some other watches.
After several false starts the original watch was faulty and I had to return it
I have to say Garmin customer service was very helpful . I actually was able to speak directly on the phone to a real person and I sent the watch back to them not Amazon and they sent me a replacement which I now wear
I have reservations about the use of the buttons and menus which never seem to show you what you want but if you press the set button relentlessly eventually you arrive at the point that you want
It does everything that I need and I particularly like the notifications functio
– hr – it’s not a chest strap, but 95% of the time is 5 bpm within a manual reading during exercise so I can’t fault it. Use it during HITT, weights and general cardio, as well as football 5 a side.
– build – seems super durable which was essential given how clumsy i am. Banged it, dropped it, kids claw at it, not so much as a scratch. Built like one of those old army nokia phones that were indestructible. Couple of people have iphone watches and the screens on them are always breaking at the slightest of knocks or drops!
– features – loads. I don’t use them all but its nice knowing they’re there if needed
– smart watch? – if your priority is exercise then this is the one for you. If you want to use it to ring, view texts etc don’t even bother.
– app – seems ok, gets the info i want. Can it do more? I’ve no idea, does what i need it to (show hr over a session, on a graph etc, keeps track of days trained on a calander).
– Battery – took this on holiday with me, went to the beach etc and all was fine. It had 16 days on it (battery saver mode on), a week later it still had 16 days as it had been charging via the solar panels. Probably had 2/3 hours of sun on it maximum a day but probably didn’t even need that. I only use the hr and features when training, otherwise i just use it as a everyday sturdy watch.
There’s probably loads more you can do on this watch that I’ve not even looked at, i wanted a watch for training and something that wasn’t going to break when I’m out with the family etc. Love the watch and it hasn’t disappointed. I did look at another model that was double the price, glad i bought this one instead!
Charging point is odd though, why not usb c? Only flaw i can think of really
Update : i now use the gps for cycling which seems accurate and useful.
Hr can give inaccurate results if the strap is too loose, something to be mindful of. Tighten it up slightly and it’s good to go
What it does do, firstly the surf version i bought in the white/marine blue looks awesome. I wanted something other than the generic black watch, got one of those. This ticks that box perfectly. Garmin has as much clout as samsung and apple in this badge snobbery universe. But i think it has a little extra here and above all, its still a watch. Not a phone extension, a genuine use on the wrist tell the time watch.
Other reviewers bemoan the apps you have to download to use it. Maybe im different but it makes sense to me, connect to use the watch with your phone, connect iq (effectively garmins wearable app store) for the tide app i needed finishing with the navigation app. I dont see issues with any of them. Seems logical to me, they are nicely self contained, easy to use (basic to some i suppose) but does what it says on the tin.
Actually using the watch, like i said its a watch, just has more functions. None of that silly swipe business that used to send my old huwawei into palpitations when it rained. Its all button based and a good thing too. The buttons are logical and only needs a day or 2 to be very comfortable with what does what. Anybody who has used one of the function loaded casio G shocks will be very comfortable. Its not as butch as a g shock but is still not a shy flower. Doesent catch on your cufs and the strap is really comfortable. Things like weather, position, compass, mapping, storm warning, blood gas, pulse, exercise it just never ends. How they got it all in i don’t know.
All the functions do take a bit of figuring out and to be honest the manual is, no other word for it crap, it is very much a quick start guide. If you buy one, set yourself down in front of the lap top with a coffee and use the online manual on the garmin website to go through everything. The vibrating alert seems a bit too much at first, especially if you get several alerts at once but when you think on it, if your diving/surfing/biking it prob needs to be a little heavy handed to get your attention and you can turn it off.
The icing on the cake, the simply ridiculous battery life. Mine is a solar and it would appear if you spend a reasonable time outside without pushing the watch too hard you might charge it once or twice a MONTH. I have had mine 3 days now and obviously have been like a kid with a new toy. Worn it 24hrs a day and its just dropped off of full on the battery indicator. The others need to listen to this.
The screen looks blocky compared to an apple watch but it has a no business look i feel. The screen is a black and white pixel screen. Like the kindle screens, prob why the battery lasts so long. Perfectly suits the needs of the watch.
Ultimately i love it, i was not intending to use even half the functions, thinking most to be gimmicks like the huwawei. For the most part i bought it for its looks and the little boy inside loves the gadgets. Now i have it, those gadgets are actually real useable functions not remotely gimmicks and i will be using them.
10/10
(Just to add)
After owning the watch for several months now the only negative is you need to wash the watch regularly as its white.
On holiday in kos, I left the UK with 28 days charge. 5 days into the holiday I had 41 days. Love this watch.
The sleep tracking is terrible. Body battery and stress also seem way out of whack as the only time your actually resting is while sleeping unless you reset the watch which solves this problem for 2-3 days and then it starts to do it again. I have left it for weeks without resetting as it says it requires 9 + days for this to be accurate, it makes no difference. That said it does almost everything else better than fitbit except heart rate tracking which is pretty much the same. Fitbits RHR is always 10 bpm higher even tho the actual instantaneous measurements mirror garmins, so that’s just down to how each brand calculates it. If Garmin sorted out their sleep tracking and the stress/body battery it would be the full package.
I have had this watch for about a month and so far Pleased with it.
The size of it is quite chunky but it does a lot.
Watch display shows time, date, battery remaining power and sunrise and sunset times.
Most of the features of the App appear on the watch and this is customisable. The App has a few additional features such as hydration which is helpful to allow you to record your intake and importantly not forget how much you have had.
Heart rate monitoring is good and accurate from what I have seen.
Body battery I am not so sure about, just had 7.5hrs sleep but my body battery only went up +4.
Stress levels is a nice feature which could help to determine what you do that causes stress throughout the day.
Intensity minutes records your activity and gives you a goal each day / week. I find this useful and motivating.
Step counter is good and I have found it to be pretty reliable.
Sleep monitor gives you a view of your sleep pattern light, deep, REM and awake.
You also get detailed views of today, yesterday and the last 7 days. You can then select an option to view up to 4 weeks of detail.
Overall I think this watch / tracker / monitor is very good for the price. The fact it has GPS and will track your routes on a map is probably the best feature for me.
This watch was amazing, did everything I wanted, bought it to replace a Rip Curl Surf watch. Disappointed with a non colour screen but I think that may be to help the battery life.
I cycle a lot and go to the Gym and found it easy to use with accurate readings and lots of useful data including heart, sleep and stress data.
The only issue for me was it gave me a skin rash where I wore it. I got quite a bad flare up so was unable to wear it any more. Very disappointed. Not sure the reason, but I had no issues with the Rip Curl, after a year of wearing non-stop. I guess I am either allergic to one of the components or maybe the constant LED light caused an issue, but I doubt this as i would think it unlikely to be anywhere near powerful enough to cause an issue. I do get eczema so it has probably inflamed my skin.
If you don’t have sensitive skin and want a good value smart watch with good app and lots of data I would not hesitate to recommend this watch.
If you are prone to skin flare ups, don’t write this watch off, you don’t know until you try (and there are things you can do to reduce the risk) but buy with your eyes open.
I still give it 5 stars as its not the watches fault my skin is sensitive. Also 5 stars for Amazon customer service. Despite having worn it for 3 weeks I contacted them and explained the issue and despite it being ‘used’ they accepted the return and gave me a full refund. Very impressed.
Just gutted I couldn’t keep it to be honest.
I like this a lot more than I expected I would. Not having to charge the battery for many days at a time makes the whole smartwatch experience much more enjoyable. There is nothing worse than using the Garmin golf watches and immediately having to take them off and charge them after a round. Mind you I haven’t been using the GPS heavily for hiking just yet, so that might change my opinion on some things later.
On a day to day basis, the App is also surprisingly addictive. I am sure many elements of the data it measures are really only rough guesses but it is nevertheless very useful to notice which days I am roughly walking more, exercising more, sleeping better. It is certainly a good laugh when arguing with the family over who got the worst nights sleep 🙂
I am most sceptical about the heart rate monitor. I haven’t done much running yet but when I am doing mixed workouts in the gym my heart rate seems to jump around a lot. One minute it is in the 90s and the next it is sitting above 130. The next it is much lower again. Maybe this is normal? I have no idea.
As for the aesthetics, I like the fact that the watch itself is very light, the strap is soft and comfortable with two loops for the strap, and that the face is very easy to read. I defintely prefer it to the oled type faces. It of course tha face itself is endlessly customisable. This really is a kind of Casio for grown-ups if that’s your thing.
So I had been contemplating the Solar version for a while, mainly for the improved heart rate sensor, and Amazon knocked over 100 off the price! Decision made!
I wear it 24/7 and work as a lorry driver and the only problem was that having bought the yellow version the wristband was getting a little grubby through the week, nothing a quick going over with a kitchen wipe wouldn’t cure. ( Just the band, not the actual watch.) So I purchased the standard silicon strap in military black direct from Garmin. Problem solved.
As for everything else, it just works brilliantly. From tracking my walks to timing my coffee brewing, it’s all on my wrist, perfect.
If I have a complaint, it’s Garmin general not Instinct specific. The sleep tracker is comprehensive as far as sleep states is concerned but they really need to include multi phase sleep and napping. My only niggle.
I initially bought a black version, but the button labels were pretty much unreadable (dark grey on black!) — although this could just be my eyesight! Having swapped to the “Flame Red” (aka orange) the label colour is a far better contrast with the case colour (black on orange).
While I like the small inset window, the face does seem to waste a lot of potential display space by having a large border round it which would be better used to enable the text/digits to be larger – this would help not only for people with failing eyesight, but for reading when on the move, it also does not seem as easy to read as the 920xt!
I have owned several Garmin devices (310xt, 920xt, 520), I find the Instinct interface less intuitive and the owner’s manual (which has to be downloaded as a pdf) is not great, so resorted to YouTube to really start getting to grips with customising the screens etc. – this is still a work in progress though!
I have not measured the battery life in the real world against the claimed spec, but also with the wrist based HRM I must wear it further up my arm than my old 920xt, so it is also harder to ensure it is not covered by my sleeve which will impair the solar charging…
4 stars for the mobile app just because that is standard and unrelated to the Instinct Solar and while pairing it to the Instinct Solar was pretty pain free, I find it a bit clunky.
5 stars for accuracy — I am comparing this with my other Garmin devices and especially the wrist-based HRM compared with a chest-strap, I was pleasantly surprised.
4 stars for battery life only because I have not had the device long enough to make a judgement although with what I have done so far it seems to be good.
Overall, I am happy and it does most of what I want, although it does not appear to work with the foot pod that I use when training or playing sport indoors, that is paired fine with the 920xt.
I was in two minds about whether I wanted to splash out on a new watch. I had a Fitbit Ionic, but I wanted something a bit more feature rich and the Garmin Instinct Solar fit the bill. I do not regret my purchase. While the Solar feature doesn’t get much use in the UK due to our dismal weather, I’m confident it will be really useful to top up my battery when I can travel again to sunnier places. The watch itself is packed with features, such as stress tracking, body battery (eg how much energy the watch estimates you have left to spent), and sleep and sleep SpO2 are some of the features I love. I am also very keen on the fact that the watch can automatically detect exercise and number repetitions during resistance training, which isn’t perfect but it’s very good. The GPS is quick to connect, unlike my Ionic which could sometimes take minutes to get signal, and it’s very accurate. It’s comfortable to wear, well built, and seems ready to take on outdoor challenges. Pairs well with the HRM Pro chest strap. Glad I purchased!
To be fair, I don’t leave the night sleep monitor on nor do I use the blood oxygen analysis – I mainly just use it to record distance, effort and heart-rate on cycle rides and walks. The GPS function is only active when I’m cycling or doing a new walk. I’m therefore only using about 20% of the watch’s facilities but I also use it for telling the time! (There is a guy on YouTube who makes dozens of very concise and instructive videos on this specific watch so if you want to explore all the bells and whistles please check him out).
This watch looks and feels cool and stylish without verging into Startrek transponder territory. I’m very pleased with this purchase.
If you are looking for all the useful features a typical smart-watch/fitness tracker has – but you don’t want to think twice about where you take it or what you do with it – this is the watch for you.
Granted the user interface can take a little while to get familiar with, but once you’ve become accustomed it’s really straightforward.
The only cons are as follows – the strength training feature only tracks your reps on the arm that the watch is on. I’m not sure if that’s the same for all watches, but I end up using the cardio feature for all my training as it’s not vital I know all my reps in each session.
Also, the storm alert feature doesn’t really seem to work on a day to day basis in the situations I’m in. It will alert in a warm shower, when the heating is on in the car, or just in a warm car, anywhere where there is a change of temperature/air pressure, but in those cases that doesn’t mean there’s a storm coming.
The app works really well with the watch. Occasionally have minor issues with the Garmin app connecting to “myfitnesspal”, but I have a feeling that’s “myfitnesspal”‘s issue rather than Garmin.
Would absolutely recommend.
Having wanting to treat myself to a smart watch with great features and battery life the Instinct Solar ticked all the boxes. It looks great, is rugged has great functionality and the extended battery life is a plus for me as I often work away all week so need to worry about an extra charging cable.
I moved from a Fitbit as I was having issues with the GPS functionality and this seems to be up to the grade however I have had some issues from day 1 with it not synching my activities saying ‘FileTransferError Timeout’. I raised this with Garmin and they suggested to try all the usual steps such as restarting watch, phone, disabling and re-enabling blue-tooth which after a while makes it synch but has recently gone for nearly 1 week before synching then all my activities came flooding in all at once also populating Strava! Restarting things all the time is not something I will put up with for long so hopefully this issue will resolve ASAP as I do really like all other aspects of this watch and would be sad to have to return it as a failure.
Button functionality follows the same principles of the Edge520, so easy for me to adjust to. I wera it 24×7 and hardly know it’s there.
The big change from the Vivo is the screen type. It is not a touch screen and not colour, so initially feels a bit retro.
Now I am used to it what I do like is the amount of data on tap, linked with the Connect app. – it seems to work better with the app, better than the Vivo (3).
Battery life is a big win – at least a week, depending on activity, up to two without use of GPS etc. There is none of the unwanted ‘light’ at night – the Vivi lights up when you move. The instinct has a light button and clarity is great for that mid night check of the time
So a great functional watch – not flash but defo worth the money and the solar is a benefi