Garmin Instinct 2S Solar Rugged GPS Smartwatch, Graphite

Product Information

The Instinct series was the second set of Garmin devices to get solar, following the original Fenix 6X Solar edition. With the Instinct 1, it dramatically expanded the usefulness of solar in a Garmin watch. You see, while the Fenix 6 gained some benefit from solar, it really didn’t add a ton. It was mostly pretty minor because the solar areas were smaller/thinner. On the Instinct however, the far larger solar surface area, and that combined with the Instinct’s more power-friendly design meant a significant difference. Most notably, there were scenarios that the Instinct 1 Solar could get forever-power. Meanwhile, for HR accuracy testing I’m typically wearing a chest strap (either the Polar H10 or the Garmin HRM-PRO), as well as another optical HR sensor watch on the bicep (mostly the Polar Verity Sense, as well as the Whoop 4.0 band). Note that the numbers you see in the upper right corner of the charts below are *not* the averages, but rather just the exact point my mouse is sitting over. Note all this data is analyzed using the DCR Analyzer, details here. And just to help clarify, here’s the two buildings I’m talking about. They’re maybe 10-15 stories tall each, but otherwise there’s nothing around them. And as for elevation accuracy? Using their own automated altimeter calibration routines (meaning, I didn’t manually calibrate any of them), they were all within just a few meters the entire time, despite shifting weather.

Instinct 2 vs 2S: Which one is right for you? Garmin Instinct 2 vs 2S: Which one is right for you?

Those are the most impressive figures we've seen for any running watch to date, and Garmin assures us that for the solar 45mm model, indefinite battery life is a real possibility, Other than these, the watches are almost identical. They offer features such as GPS, heart rate monitoring, smart notifications, and more. The software for mapping and navigation is also more advanced on the Fenix 7, and it comes in three sizes: Fenix 7S at 42mm, Fenix 7 at 47mm, and Fenix 7X at 51mm, compared to the Instinct’s 40mm and 45mm.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). So yesterday my Instinct 2 Solar arrived and I’m glad to say it’s everything I’m looking for. I do use Garmin Pay (I chose my bank [Staling Bank in the UK] when I moved banks because they support it!) but I don’t use on-watch music so that’s fine by me. The solar models are a little more expensive, but the photovoltaic material doesn’t have any effect on the look of the display, so it’s well worth considering the extra investment to avoid frequent charging. Further, there’s no support for any sort of smart-wake features, such as timed to a given sleep phase. Though, given how unreliable and inaccurate most sleep phase detection is on most wearables (and even supposed gold standard devices), this probably isn’t such a bad thing. You can still set regular alarms though. Similarly, you can accept or decline phone calls, which simply accepts or declines them on your phone. So accepting a call means it’ll accept the call on your phone, not on the watch (it doesn’t have a microphone or proper speaker, just a beeper). Oh, speaking of which, you can control the sounds/vibrations/tones within the settings menu, in case you want the unit to do something different in that arena:

Garmin Instinct 2S Solar review | Cyclist

Once you’ve wrapped up your workout, you can tap the upper right button to end the workout, and you’ll get a summary screen. Within this screen you’ll see the newer training load metrics and recovery details, plus all your other totals are available too within the menus: With the Instinct 2 Solar series, Garmin has basically doubled down on that. They’ve done it with two specific changes: The Garmin Instinct 2 isn’t a single watch, but an entire series. First of all, there are now two case sizes to consider: the standard 45mm, and a new 40mm diameter model. The watch we tested here was the 40mm Garmin Instinct 2S, and although 5mm shaved off the case size might not sound like much, it makes the watch much more comfortable and practical for smaller wrists. As always, the longevity of this watch's battery will vary depending on how you use it. Functions like SpO2 monitoring and GPS will drain power more rapidly, but if you've opted for one of the solar models, you can expect your Instinct 2 to last much, much longer between charges. I think the use cases here are probably pretty slim, but if you’re in a disconnected locale for extended periods of time anyway, and don’t care about your heart rate, this can save a boatload of battery power. Solar Edition FeaturesSmartwatch mode: Up to 21 days/51 days with solar*, Smartwatch mode (w/ battery saver): Up to 50 days/unlimited with solar*, GPS: Up to 22 hours/28 hours with solar**, Max Battery GPS mode: Up to 54 hours/114 hours with solar**, Expedition GPS Activity: Up to 25 days/105 days with solar* Next, I wanted to briefly show this set, because it’s a blend of a simple neighborhood run, but also some twists around a building. And it’s a perfect example of where multi-band/dual-frequency on some higher-end units (Fenix 7/Epix/Vertix 2) really does out-perform non-multi-band GPS (Instinct 2/2 Solar). Whether or not it’s worth the cost is the real question then. As you can see, at a high level these are nearly identical.