Garmin Instinct 2S Solar, Smaller-Sized Rugged Outdoor Watch with GPS, with Solar Charging Capabilities, Built for All Elements, Multi-GNSS Support, Tracback Routing and More, Graphite

I don't write a lot of reviews, but I thought I'd chime in about this. (Just a regular old customer here--no connection to Garmin or Amazon.) My point of view might be uncommon for Garmin owners: I actually don't think of myself as a Smartwatch guy and have actually turned down free Apple Watches (as holiday gifts) on two occasions. No interest in texting on my wrist. I'm a "watch guy" in the more traditional sense--a big fan of mid-tier to high-end mechanical watches. But I wanted one techy watch for when I bike and work out and for a long backcountry hike where GPS was going to be necessary. I've owned this watch for a couple months now and have put it through its paces: swimming (it's highly water-resistant), biking, lifting, and (as mentioned) in the wilderness. It hasn't disappointed. Set up is easy and intuitive: if you can handle using an iPhone, you should have no problem making your way through the process. Downloading the smartphone app on your device and syncing it is worth the trouble, in my opinion. Among other things, it will allow you to keep on top of software updates, control your music while working out (without having to touch your phone), and get whatever alerts (like texts or Ring notifications) you might want to opt into. I have it set up so that the Garmin app only seeks out my watch when I open the app---don't want this thing constantly searching and draining my phone battery when I'm not even wearing the watch. I do still fumble through the different buttons trying to remember what does what, but it is getting better. I usually only wear this for a few hours at a time a few days a week; if I wore it more regularly, I'm sure I would be far more fluent by now. And the good news is, you really can't mess anything up by pressing the wrong button. There's tons of customization that you can do (during setup or just whenever) to rearrange the main screen, add or remove activities and options, etc. For an entry-level smartwatch, it's impressively featured! Battery life is utterly insane. I charged it before a 10-hour hike where the GPS was going the entire time--that was in early May. Since then I've worn it several times for many collective hours, sometimes in GPS mode, sometimes not, and I only had to charge it again today--in mid June. Granted, I power it down whenever I'm not using it, but still, you get a lot of time out of a single charge. I have the solar version, and I suppose that extends the battery life in a limited way---can't say I've tested that or noticed strong evidence of it, but I'll take Garmin's word for it. The GPS tracking feature works very well once you get it dialed in to your preferences, which isn't tricky to do. If you get lost, you can flip to the screen where your track is: it's just a squiggly line on the screen---there's no map background on this plain-Jane, smaller, black and white display---but with pretty minimal brainpower, you can use it to retrace your steps, no problem. No chance of getting lost with this thing on, as long as you've got a signal---and I've never had any trouble acquiring one. Beyond that, just having it on your wrist as a trip computer, tracking how long you've been at it, how many miles you've covered, your elevation, etc, is really nice. It allowed me to provide very specific answers every time my kid asked "how many more miles do we have to go?" Note, though, that you'll need to activate the GPS mode when you start your hike (or ride or whatever). And you'll want to shut if off when you're done in order to extend the battery life. Nice to have the heart-rate and pulse oximeter features. Also reassuring to have the "incident reporting" feature, or whatever it's called. Thankfully haven't had to use it, but I've read positive customer reviews from folks who have. It's a comfort to know that my wife will get an instant alert on her phone if I crash my bike, for example. And I believe the alert will include my exact location. As for the watchy-watch stuff: this thing is very well built. It feels robust, but is as light as a feather. I mean, you can really forget you have it on, especially if you're accustomed to wearing a luxury sports watch that weighs more than 100g. I haven't tried swapping out the rubber strap, but I see no reason why you couldn't put it on a NATO or something if you wanted to. The integrated strap itself feels like it's good quality, though I imagine it will eventually need to be replaced after a few years of putting it on and taking it off. The overall look is very rugged and "tactical." At least with the black model, there's nothing refined or luxurious about it at all. The main thing I want to say about it as a watch per se is that the size is perfect, at least for me. A lot of these smartwatches nowadays are enormous: 45mm and super-thick. To me they look absurd. This one is about 40mm, which is by no means small, but it's sensible and while definitely "sized" for a man, could work well as an oversized unisex option. Point is, when I'm wearing it, it just feels like a normal watch, proportioned like several of my other, mechanical watches---not like a giant wrist computer. It calls no attention to itself. The screen isn't tiny or anything: the display is plenty readable. It's not touchscreen, it's not full color, you can't watch videos on it---if you want all of that, look at a different model. This is one of those "everything you need, nothing you don't" items. (Though, again, it has a pretty surprising array and number of features---most of which I've never used.) Big fan.

I've bought the same Timex Expedition model watch for at least 20 years. Simple, rugged, with just the features I wanted and little more. I did try a wearable monitor (very early Fitbit) years ago and found it a curiosity but not worth the charging hassle or having to wear something along with my watch. Recently though, now that I'm over 65, I've thought more about tracking health elements, especially as I would like to stay active as long as possible. I did lots of research on the new technology options. Soooo many out there. I narrowed it by some criteria: needs to be as much like my old Expedition as possible, meaning - can be worn all the time (in shower, hot tub, swimming, sleeping, exercising, doing yard work); has long battery life; is easily readable; rugged; easy to use push buttons to see various screens (not swiping on screen). I am more than happy with the Instinct 2S! I got the 40mm as I don't like a big watch face on my wrist. The band fit my 180mm wrist (but near the last hole). Everything about using it has been easier than I feared. Garmin's software connects easily to my watch and I can track all the things I care about. Battery life is sensational! It says 21 days possible, and maybe so with sun and less use for special purposes, but I've still gotten 17-18 days out of a single charge. I don't use GPS except rarely (for outdoor tennis tracking). I don't want a watch to be a phone (this isn't), and appreciate I can tailor and limit what kinds of messaging it notifies me of. I customized my screen to be simple, showing just a few things I care to see. Easy to read. I've learned a great deal about my sleep patterns and heart rates I didn't know. Can't say how accurate it is but feels reflective of what I thought anyway. So for me, two months in, this appears a great compromise between a regular sports watch and a very smart one. Hope it keeps me this happy for years to come! (Thanks to other reviewers who helped guide my decision.)

First of all, know what you are getting with this watch. I have had several Garmins, most recently a Forerunner 965, an Apple watch, and a Coros Pace. Here’s what you get with the Instinct 2S: 1. Always-on, MIP display. Not colorful or even bright, but always accessible at a glance without having to flip your wrist. 2. Small size. It is small and lightweight. Will only fit smaller wrists and the display size means only basic metrics can be displayed at all times. I don’t need to see my heart rate, my miles run this week, or my Garmin vo2 max at any given moment. 3. Long battery life. The solar charging works ok, but you’ll get 2 weeks or more if you’re using it regularly. 4. No touchscreen. I don’t want one, I know the Garmin buttons and how to drive one. I bought the watch to track my road and trail running and so I can simply see the time on my wrist when I look. Tired of huge AMOLED displays with a bunch of metrics I can’t read in time before the display shuts off. I don’t even want that much data available at once, I can look on the Connect app and see all I need. Always-on mode for an AMOLED always seems to come with the cost of a rapidly dead battery. You might be different from me. If you want a bright colorful display, touchscreen, and AI training metrics, get a 65 or 70 series Forerunner. If you want an always-on MIP display but also a big watch face with a lot of metrics AND insane battery life, Enduro 3 is the one. If you want a smaller (and cheaper) Enduro 3 with less metrics on the watch face, Coros Apex is worth a look. I think that’s it. The worst this thing will see is a 50k trail run, and it isn’t even getting started when that is complete.

I’ve had to drop it to one star as it has become unstable for workouts where the watch constantly pauses when I am running. Note Auto Pause function is OFF and watch is on tight. Garmin support has no solution and I am back to using Apple Watch for workouts. *********** I bought the Garmin Instinct after years of using Fitbit and Apple Watches because Google has mostly wrecked Fitbit, and I wanted some native integration with Apple Health. This is my first Garmin and so far: - Battery life is insanely good, better even than any Fitbit device I have owned. - Build quality feels GREAT, better than Fitbits I have owned, and close to Apple - Heart Rate is on all the time, like Fitbit, and not sampled intermittently like Apple. This is a huge plus if you like to track Heart Rate. Heart Rate numbers seem similar to Apple and Fitbit, though my Garmin Instinct seems to calculate a somewhat lower resting heart rate than either Apple or a Fitbit. - The screen is clear and a bright, though I bought the smallest model so somewhat hard for me to read at arms length - I have found sleep tracking similar in duration and phases to that was tracked with Fitbit which is a plus. Apple watches have such terrible battery life I generally charge while sleeping, so sleep tracking was never useful for me on Apple. - The integration with Apple Health is just OK, far better than the zero integration with Fitbit, but only some data is shared and does not include full heart rate for activities or things like VO2 Max calculation. Apps like RunGap can close some - but not all gaps - and add subscription cost. - Heart rate transit while working out is awesome - I totally forgot about the feature until I saw my heart rate appear on my treadmill - great! - Unfortunately, by far the BIGGEST NEGATIVE, and the only reason I deducted 2 stars, is the really awful interface and software. Compared to intuitive button navigation on many Fitbits, and touch on Apple, the multi-button Garmin interface is real work that is not intuitive at all. The Garmin interface really needs to be learned, and despite 5(!) buttons on the instinct there is a lot of button context switching that does not seem well thought out which makes the Instinct much more difficult to start/end workouts versus either Fitbit or Apple. (Really this is something Fitbit did better than anyone I have seen so far.) Also, the Instinct cannot auto detect workouts like Fitbit or Apple - at least that I have found. Finally, despite auto pause being off I constantly run into the Instinct pausing my workouts - just very frustrating. Overall, the interface is so bad that I have found myself using Apple Watch for some workouts. So, while somewhat lukewarm on the Instinct due to the interface, I mostly love the hardware, and will stay with Garmin for now hoping my next Garmin device improves the interface.

Nice watch: great features and fairly easy to understand on how to operate. The size is perfect for my small wrist. Granted because of its smaller dial, the more information you want shown on the watch face, the smaller the font and you’d have to squint to read. But, comes with the territory. The strap seems a bit flimsy: it’s comfortably soft, but scared it could tear easily if caught on something, especially with the work I do. I’d still recommend it though. Watch is packed full of features and the app is great too. Update: So far, so good. It’s much easier using the app to check out the chock full of features the watch is able to measure. One of the main reason I bought the 2S is the solar charging ability. It’s an important feature I look for in timepieces simply as it’s a pain going around to replace watch batteries. I understand certain features drains the battery, and I minimized certain features it has to conserve power. Anyway, under ~5 hrs of direct sunlight, it yielded ~20% charge. Window charge on a sunny day didn’t yield anywhere close, but I really like the app’s ability to measure the charging intensity. Because of the watch’s solar limitations, I have not gotten a full 100% charge when I left it out in direct sunlight all day on weekends.

Exactly want I wanted. This is more of an exercise watch than a smart watch. I have turned off most notifications but still get calls/texts. Heart rate monitor seems to work fine. Love the gps and hiking functions. While the display is black and white, it is easy to see. Back light for night use. I get about 18 days battery with the sensory turned on, around 40 days with them off. Solar charging helps extend some, but not a ton. I did get the smaller version, instinct 2S. I have about a 15 inch wrist. Little small, but the normal would’ve been too big. The band for the Instinct S is smaller than my old vivoactove 3 band. If you have larger wrist (I would say larger than 16.5-17) it may be a tight fit. Lots of different exercise options to choose from and ways to track activities. Update: 7/19 Still love this watch. Have tried out several features/different workouts such as run, walk, hike, kayak,etc and it seems to track everything well. Heart rate monitor seems to be accurate. I have been exploring the suggested running workouts and have been enjoying those. Only complaint is that the smaller watch size cannot accurately use the track back feature when hiking. The screen seems too small to load the whole map when retracing steps. Because of the small screen size, it is hard to see everything on the track back feature. Every other screen is easy to use/read. Save money and don’t get the solar option. I have not noticed a very big difference even when leaving the watch in the sun all day as an experiment.

I really wanted to love this watch. I have had a garmin forerunner 45 for years and am only replacing it because the band attachment failed and for what garmin charges to repair it, I may as well get a new watch. Feature wise, the instinct is packed. The solar aspect is amazing and it offers tons of data about every aspect of your workout. Unfortunately that also contributes to its fatal flaw - the text is too small and there isn't a way to make it bigger!!! The contrast is also very poor on the monochrome screen. I had to turn the backlight way up to even be able to read the time on some of the default watch faces. My midrange and distance vision are fine, so I don't generally wear glasses unless I am reading, and never when I am running/hiking/etc.... which is when I want to see the info! All the cool stats are useless if I can't actually read them. :( Unless your vision is perfect, I would not recommend this watch.

I've been using this watch for a few weeks. I go to the gym often and can track all of my workouts, including a lot of cardio. One issue is that it doesn't work well for treadmill work. I'll walk 3.5 miles but Garmin shows I only walked .01 miles! This makes no sense at all since my steps are counted correctly. Same issue with my older Vivoactiv 4. I just don't understand how this happens. Overall I like this watch very much and it fits me well. I seem to be having some problems with installing custom watch faces and I'm working with Garmin support on this. My big negative is with the "solar" charging. It doesn't seem to work at all. I understand that the watch can't be covered by a sleeve, etc and the exposure to the sun can be iffy but yesterday I took the watch off and put it down in the direct sunlight. It was a clear sky and I left it there for over an hour. What happened? My charge dropped from 20% to 19%. I don't know if this is normal or if I have a defective watch but I intend to take this up with Garmin also, but right now I'm not happy about this and it defeats the whole purpose behind paying extra for the solar functionality.