If you are an avid hiker or spend any time exploring the off-grid wilderness, at one point or another, you can find yourself in the market for a watch. new smart.
Wouldn’t it be great to have a smartwatch that was GPS enabled and capable of tracking not only your fitness stats but also your location every time you explored the trails? If so, the Garmin Instinct Solar could be the perfect smartwatch for you.
In this article, we will take a close look at one of the top-rated GPS smartwatches on the market. The Garmin Instinct Solar receives almost 5 star reviews from customers in every online marketplace where it is sold. You will find out in this article why it deserves that rating.
Table of Contents
Garmin Instinct Solar: What You Get
When you unbox the Garmin Instinct Solar, you’ll receive the watch, USB charging cable, quick start guide, and instruction manual.
It should be clear that this is not your typical smartwatch. Don’t expect flashy screens or the ability to add all the apps you want from an online store. What you get, however, is one of the most rugged, durable GPS watches that has everything you need to track your location anywhere on earth and keep track of important health stats. important.
Garmin Instinct Solar Key Features:
- Housing made of fiber-reinforced polymer
- Scratch-resistant Corning Gorilla Glass
- Comes in a variety of colors
- High-contrast display for easy outdoor viewing
- Rechargeable lithium-ion battery uses solar charging to prolong battery life
According to Garmin, the watch is built to US military standard 810 for heat resistance, shock resistance, and water resistance. This is especially important if you plan to carry your watch hiking, camping, or hunting in places where the likelihood of extreme usage conditions is much higher.
Garmin Instinct Solar: Health Sensor
If you flip the watch upside down and look at the back, you’ll see a bunch of sensors in the middle of the back, next to the charging port.
These sensors monitor key biomarks that help Garmin Instinct Solar calculate your stress levels and provide accurate feedback on your body’s response to activities like working out at the gym. gymnastics or mountain climbing. And all that biofeedback is delivered in real time across various built-in apps.
- See your real-time heart rate so you can maintain a healthy heart rate while exercising
- Keep a log and view graph history of your heart rate throughout the day
- The Pulse Ox2 sensor shows how well your body is absorbing oxygen, which can help the meter measure your sleep quality or how well you’ve adapted to altitude
Garmin Instinct Solar uses different heart rate and oxygen level algorithms to measure your current stress and energy levels. It provides feedback on this in the form of a stress tracker, and a “body battery” app that will let you know if you need to rest and recharge your energy levels.
Garmin Instinct . Solar Monitor and App
Seems like a big drawback that Garmin Instinct Solar doesn’t have online shop where developers regularly release new apps. However, the library of apps already offered on the Garmin Instinct Solar is so extensive that it covers nearly all the activities and functions that any hiker, kayaker, runner and pretty much any other outdoor enthusiast or athlete could ever need.
To see if these apps and these watches are right for you, dive into the apps and features you’ll find on the Garmin Instinct Solar smartwatch.
Garmin Instinct Solar home screen
Each screen on the Garmin Instinct Solar may look a bit dated at first. Think digital watches of the 1990s, but with more digital graphics and icons included.
The main watch display is basically the time, date, sunrise and sunset, and battery life. You can change up your watch face a bit by scrolling through the watch face designs and choosing one. The main difference is the data you want to be displayed on the main side.
Press the down button (bottom left button of the box) you can scroll through other screens. These are your default apps and include:
- Your pulse Ox2 level and current heart rate
- Log your heart rate for the last four hours with maximum and minimum values for the day at the top
- Summary “My Day” page showing all health stats like steps, climbs, minutes of vigorous activity and more
- Dedicated screen for your total steps for the day as well as your most recent workout
- Current rainfall at your location, as well as the current temperature and high and low temperatures for the day
- The compass display shows your direction in degrees, as well as a visual compass around the bezel
Navigation feature
To see the activities available to track on the watch, simply tap the GPS button (the upper button on the right side of the case). This will take you to a list of activities you track with your watch. To quickly track your baseline progress during hiking with GPS, simply scroll down (using the down button – bottom left of the box) and select (using the GPS button) Follow me.
The Quick Navigation feature displays a screen showing how long you’ve hiked, the distance you’ve covered so far, and your current heart rate.
All three of these pieces of information are very important to know during hiking, especially if you are hiking for strength training. Every time the watch tracks your hike, it also records all the sensor information for you as well as a map of your location and progress.
You can access that log by pressing the GPS button to review Activity, select Directionaland choose Activities.
This will show you each recorded and saved activity including total activity time and total mileage. Just scroll to that activity and select it to see all activity details.
This will include:
- Distance
- Time past
- Speed of movement
- Calories burned
- Average and maximum heart rate
- Total elevation increase and decrease during hiking
Location tracking is one area where Garmin outperforms any other smartwatch on the market. Garmin gives you access to a variety of global navigation satellite systems including GPS, GLONASS, and Galileo. This watch will monitor areas where only GPS can fail.
This watch also includes a “Route Trackback” feature that helps you get back to where you started by showing you how to go back along the same route you took to get there. As long as your watch has battery life, you will never lose wearing it.
Other Activities Garmin Instinct Solar Can Track
You’re not limited to hiking with this smartwatch. There is a long list of active apps included that you can add at any time. To view activities to track, simply select the GPS button and start scrolling with Up and Down buttons in the middle and bottom left of the watch case.
Preloaded active apps include:
- Swimming
- Running
- Ride bicycle
- Long walk
- Rowing
- Strength training
- More and more.
If you reach the bottom of the list and don’t see an activity that interests you, you will see the last section add you can select using the GPS button to add more activities to your list.
Other features
In addition to all the features listed above, you will also have access to email, texts, and alert notifications on your wrist, as long as the watch is paired with your smartphone via Bluetooth. You can also access events and details on the calendar that you have stored on your smartphone.
Finally, you can pair your watch with any InReach satellite communications device to send or receive satellite messages, receive weather alerts, or send emergency messages.
The Garmin Instinct Solar isn’t a smartwatch with the latest bells and whistles or flashy apps that let you browse social media from your wrist. But what is it used for, it’s actually very good. It’s navigation and activity tracking for all your outdoor activities. If you are an outdoor enthusiast, you will not be disappointed with the Garmin Instinct Solar.
