Garmin Instinct 2S Solar Rugged GPS Smartwatch, Graphite

Product Information

The 40mm Instinct 2 S we tested is leaner still at 13.3mm, and when placed on the scales it weighed 43g including the silicone band. Garmin’s quoted weight is 42g, but there’s always a little variability between devices.

Garmin Instinct® 2 Solar | Rugged GPS Smartwatch Garmin Instinct® 2 Solar | Rugged GPS Smartwatch

Battery life: Varies based on model and enabled functions. “Unlimited” on 45mm Instinct 2 Solar models, in smartwatch mode with at least three hours per day of moderate sunlight (50,000 lux) As I’ve noted in recent posts though, one of the challenges here is you can’t trend just the Health Snapshot values alone. Meaning, the point of doing a Health Snapshot is having control over when these values are gathered (to minimize outside factor variations), such as always doing them 10 minutes after waking up. This is especially true of HRV values, which Garmin doesn’t display any other place in their app/platform. Hopefully we’ll see Garmin add this though via the GCM app, as it’d be pretty trivial for them to do it there (given the probably hundreds of other metrics they allow you to trend over time). Increased the onboard storage from 8MB to a whopping 18MB (just used for tiny course/activity/fitness files, usually less than 100KB per GPS-hour).Why is the HR value being underestimated? Because if the watch monitors this parameter throughout the day it treats changes in its value as a trend change?

Instinct 2 review | TechRadar Garmin Instinct 2 review | TechRadar

Unless I missed an update, these are always left off of the 2xx watches forcing one to a 7xx, 9xx or Fenix (or Instinct 2, now).GPS accuracy can be looked at in a number of different ways, but I prefer to look at it using a number of devices in real-world scenarios across a vast number of activities. I use 2-6 other devices at once, trying to get a clear picture of how a given set of devices handles conditions on a certain day. Conditions include everything from tree/building cover to weather. Overall, the Instinct 2S is a tough sports watch that will cover your needs if you are an adventurous sort who loves being outdoors (as it'll charge while you are out in the sun!) – as long as you don't tend to rely on maps for adventuring, unless you're prepared for a more wild experience, as you roughly follow a breadcrumb trail. They increased the efficiency of the panels themselves (just like we saw with the Fenix 7 Solar units) Lastly, when you press pause during an activity does it consume a data field? Right now I like my heart rate in the circle, but if I pause my workout, I can’t read my heart rate anymore…I know I can move my heart rate to a different field, but that’s not what I want to do? As with the GPS data sets, I’ve got plenty of data sets from these watches – but rather than repeat the same things over and over again, they all look basically like this.

Instinct 2S Solar | road.cc Review: Garmin Instinct 2S Solar | road.cc

Then from there you’ll be able to pay for things by going into the controls menu and choosing Garmin Pay. It’ll ask you for a PIN, but as long as you leave it on your wrist, you’ll only have to do it once per 24hrs: Now, if we get a bit more complicated – we’ve got this 5-hour hike. Essentially this can be divided up into going up, and going down. I’ve highlighted the going-up sections in yellow. And what we see there is that it’s basically spot on (ignore the one green blip in that last section, I was trying to take a photo off-wrist). The sections going down weren’t ‘bad’, they were just fuzzier because the HR is lower (only 100bpm or so). Thus, we tend to see more variations there – from both optical HR sensors and straps alike. But point being, any time I was exerting effort, it was spot on.

A steadfast fitness tracker, packed with features, solar charging, and a rugged design

Speaking of sensors, the Instinct 2 series has significantly expanded the slate of supported connected sensor types. These can be accessed within the Sensors & Accessories menu, and include the following types (both ANT+ & Bluetooth Smart supported, depending on the exact sensor type): It also has specific profiles for each of the different cycling disciplines: choose between road, gravel, commuting, indoor, cyclocross, bike touring, triathlon, mountain biking, e-biking and e-mountain biking, and you can customise each with the data fields you need. Garmin says: "This rugged, solar charging GPS smartwatch is tough enough to keep up with you and unique enough to fit your style. Now it comes in two sizes to fit every wrist. I know you may not need the LTE aspect for most of your uses (if any) but otherwise it’s a super-set in every way while being the same size? Maybe just a few built-in watch faces?

Garmin Instinct® 2S Solar | Smaller-Sized Rugged GPS Smartwatch

This is all in addition to the internal compass, barometer, altimeter, and optical HR/PulseOx sensor. You can pair and configure sensors, such as tweaking the crank length on power meters. Further, you can save multiple sensors of any given type, as well as enable/disable as you see fit. This is a bit on the shorter side for where battery estimates work well in the DCR Analyzer (definitely don’t try and make judgments for workouts under an hour because there just might not be enough data points written to the file), but by 2hrs things have largely stabilized. You’ll also find the same handy widgets like sunrise and sunset times, moon phase, weather, barometer, and more, although accessing some of these is slightly different on the 2S as many have moved from the top left “Control” button to the bottom left “ABC” button (which is short for “Altimeter, Barometer, Compass”). More Customization an average of the other scores: it reflects both a product's function and value – with value determined by how a product Well essentially, it’s got pretty good GPS performance, on par with most other watches in the market. There are virtually no major errors, and only a handful of minor errors lasting mere seconds and with minimal impact to overall GPS accuracy. In some of those situations, multi-band GPS would outperform it slightly, though, not all. There are far more cases where the differences were negligible one way or the other between them. That might change down the road with improvements on those higher-end units, whereas the GPS accuracy you see today for Instinct will likely remain the same, since I suspect Garmin will shift to the other multi-band GPS chipset for more watches in the future.How does the price compare to that of similar products in the market, including ones recently tested on road.cc? Released in 2022, the Garmin Instinct 2 and Garmin Instinct 2s is a major update to the popular Instinct line of watches. Featuring a sleek design and new features, the Instinct 2/2S is perfect for athletes and especially outdoor enthusiasts.