Wow buddy. Great tip on the resume later on the GPS activity. I've been going for walk and pausing while having a coffee for like 20 minutes. I had no idea that was an option. Awesome.
Great advice - I have to say when Pulse Ox arrived I was interested but haven't looked at it in ages - turned it off and my battery days went from 8 days to 11days... Many thanks!
"Resume" - thanks for letting me know about this feature - I may just have to include that in my next review - awesome that you taught me something about a watch I have been wearing, nearly daily, for the last three months! I love the details you add to your videos - nice pace too and I liked your organization 😎
I contacted Garmin and asked the same thing. They told me there is no difference with regards to battery usage between the screen backgrounds (dark vs. light).
Thank you so much, I was pulling my fair out cause my new instinct surf was maxing out on 22 days for a full charge, I thought it was defective because everywhere else it shows a minimum of 24 days. After tweaking a few things that you recommended, it now shows 27 days with my own settings and preferences. Thank you once again. Liked and subscribed. This video deserves WAY more thumbs up!
It will follow the settings you have for the given activity. For example on the Walk Activity you can have Heart Rate turned off. . . . but on the Run activity you can have it turned on. Thus it would just depend on the activity you are doing. If that doesn't make sense, let me know and I can try to do a video to show you how to do/check that. Thanks for watching.
@@JUMBLE2015 Hello, I really want the same thing as Wooly. I essentially only want to use my HR for activities as I don't really look at it otherwise and it drains the battery. However, when I turn it off and try to starting a Bike activity, HR doesn't come back on. Is biking different from the other activities or am I doing something wrong? When I go into power settings for biking HR is crossed out as well. any ideas?
Thanks for watching and the comment, I really like the strap as well. I paid like $3 for it on AliExpress, it is well worth the money. I have a link to it in this video in case you are interested. - th-cam.com/video/2vf8RK0fTL8/w-d-xo.html - have a good one!
Is there a way to not have any notifications from your phone ever, but still have it report health metrics back to the app? I never want notifications from my phone on my watch.
How do you tell the Garmin Instinct Solar to change the power saver mode? I have the following three options: 1. Max Battery 2. Jacket Mode 3. Test Mode (one that I created whereas the other two are default when I bought this watch) Thank you for the help in advance.
Excellent info, still even though I been through all process, still and even showing the watch many days of battery, it runs out within some hours. Any additional help?… Please and thanx!!!
Are you buy chance in an activity that is using the GPS? That is the only thing I can think of that would be using that much battery life. There are lots of people who forget to stop an activity and thus it is running in the background. I would check that first. A restart of the watch would be the second thing I would try and see what happens after that. Hope that helps, keep me posted.
I have just double checked all activities and set for max battery in all which allowed me to. Anyway, I have just charged the watch nearly 5 hours ago and I have left 84% of battery. I keep you posted of how it goes It is a Garmin instinct tactical solar
Can you tell me please why is so hard to upload a map to my watch I finally managed but it took ages and needed to disconnect and reconnect the phone blue tooth to achieve the transit of maps from the app to the watch still one Is pending....
I have a solar lamp I use for my solar watches. Its a tiny device you sit the watch face on. Supposedly its safer than charging in the Sun. I can fully charge my Casio in a couple of hours. Could I use that for my incoming Instinct2? Could I use it to soley charge the Instinct or would I still need to use the supplied power cable as well at times? (I assume the Instinct solar only has a solar battery, but I could be wrong). I realize I will need the cable to sync, and I bought a cradle device for that purpose. Thanks in advance for any input!!!
It will charge with a lamp (same as your solar Casio watches). The big difference for me is with the Garmin I do have to pull out the charging cord on occasion to charge it. It is kind of understandable because it does so much more than my Casio watches, so I never really expected not to have to charge it. Now I have heard from others that they do not so maybe they are just getting more sunlight than me. I go 20-30 days between charging with a power cord and that is not doing anything out of the ordinary (like putting it in a window or under a lamp). This video will show how it can charge with a lamp, hope it helps. Enjoy your Instinct! th-cam.com/video/FkshzYIJHYc/w-d-xo.html
Hi! I have a question. The data graph under the number of days in the top. I thought this graph was for how much solar light the watch has absorbed. But it doesn't show anything in my watch. But when I go to the widget app and look at Solar Intensity and then go back to the watch face, the data graph appears. Could of seconds later it's gone again. Do you have any idea what is up?
Thanks so much for this! Just got the watch and found this super helpful! Just one question re the battery saver during sleep? If I left the heart rate switched on for battery saver, but turned off all the phone connection stuff, would it still record my sleep and then just upload it to the phone when I reconnect in the morning?
Hey Josh, glad the video helped. To answer your question, your phone really has nothing to do with HR tracking on the watch. So you can have your phone totally disconnected from the watch, and as long as the HR is on it will record your HR. The only time the phone comes into play is when you want to get your HR data over to your Garmin Connect account you will need to reconnect the phone. . . . then sync it so your watches HR info gets written to Garmin Connect. That is what I do, I hardly ever leave the phone connected. . . but every now and then I will connect just to get my sleep, step, HR, etc. data written to Garmin Connect. Hope that answers your question and makes sense.
my watch battery drains around 5-7% a day in smartwatch mode with a constantly working heart rate. Pulse Ox Sleep tracking is off. Do you think my watch's battery is ok? at this rate, I can't have it on my wrist for 24 days.
Hey Jumble, is it true, that it charges when turned completely off? If so, one could charge it a few days and then turn it on again charged only by the light.
That is correct. If you have the watch off and expose it to light, it will charge. The only thing I will say is it is not like a solar Casio ProTrek in that you will get it to fully charged with just light exposure. . . . the solar charging on Garmin is really more for extending battery life between charges. But it will charge enough so you can power the watch back on. Hope that helps.
Is it possible to have BT off and let it turn on automatically when doing an activity where and when needed ? OR ... now when I light press the Menu I see the notifications, but I never use that, can I set it so that with the light press of the Menu I can toggle the BT connect on/off ?
When you press the light button, that is what is called your "Control Wheel". You can customize it however you want. So as you mentioned, you could remove everything in it other than "Phone Connection", so that you can simply press and hold the light button. . . . then turn on/off your Bluetooth whenever you want to. I have mine set the same way. I think this video will walk you thru it but if you need more just let me know. th-cam.com/video/aXdsciva8dY/w-d-xo.html
6:23 "because i'm using a brighter light" --> no it doesn't stand to reason. you are not using the light, you have just set it to 100%. so the estimation should not increase/decrease since the light is not used. IF it was really used, then yes i could understand that the number of days changes, but the power is not used. so i don't understand why the number of days changes.
It's probably based on how often you're using the light. It's not hard to calculate that if you use the light 5 minutes per day then having it at 5% brightness for 5 minutes per day will use X power and 100% brightness for 5 minutes per day will use (X * 20) = Y power.
There is no way to turn off the solar charging so it will always charge regardless. It is just that if you do not get enough light to keep it going, then at some point you will need to plug it in to charge it. If you get enough solar charging, then no need to ever plug it in for charging.
Hey, thinking to buy them, do you think the solar version worth it? And is it possible to use Ultra track mode while GPS map is on the screen? Is it possible to configure the period of coordinate evaluating? As I know the default is 5 min, is it possible to set 30 sec or 1 min?
Hello, I get asked the question is the "solar version worth it" a lot. I had the non solar version before getting the solar version. For me personally I felt like even though it would cost me $100 or so dollars more, in the long run the solar would be worth it. I enjoy the solar charging, as well as the other things you get with the solar model (i.e. Battery Management, Hunt and Fish Activities, etc.). But with all that said, the non solar version was a great watch as well. I only charged it about once every 25 days, so battery life was never an issue. Budget should be your first consideration, if you can swing it, go for the solar. . . if not, save some money and be happy with the non solar model. Regarding Ultra Trac, unfortunately you have no control over the frequency of evaluating :(. I hope this helps, thanks for watching!
Best way to save battery is switch of oxygen reading when asleep. It's not very accurate and uses a shit ton of battery. Then you don't need to worry about any of the lights or anything.
Did they manage to fix the HR sensor on the new Instincts? It's so unreliable on my Instinct classic that I'm thinking of disabling it to save battery. 🥺
With a full charge and everything turned off or lowest setting I’m only getting 5 d max on battery. It was much higher before, the watch is new, but something seems to be running in the background. Turned it off but no change, any ideas?
@@christianthuller7561 I think I figured it out. If you setup a control for “phone” and turn off Bluetooth when not needed the watch goes back to 11days or more on a charge. Keep in mind sleep and activity data will be stored on the watch until you sync it so nothing is lost. I figure the only thing I lose by not having the phone always connected is weather, which is “fun” to have but a quick sync and I have it without draining the battery.
@@robertland2616 thanks Robert! I never had Bluetooth on all the time. Only when syncing. What was on was the heart rate and stress monitor. GPS was always OFF. Watch was fine till two weeks ago when it suddenly switched OFF due to empty battery. Switched OFF heart rate too now and still no improvement. Thanks for your advice! Highly appreciated!
If you are getting a decent amount of solar charging each day. . . .not using any of the functions, and have everything off (i.e. not connect to a cell phone, HR monitoring off, Pulse OX off, watch face data elements off, etc.) then I would say yes it is possible.
Activity Tracking will be more daily health items (floors climbed, steps walked, sleep, etc.). For runs, that is an actual "Activity". Press the GPS button. . . you will see your "Activity" options (if run is not there you can add it). Select run, then start the activity. It will track the specific data for the given run you do. . . then stop the activity when done.
I just go out every day to exercise and make sure my watch is solar charged. I keep all the options enabled except for the pulse oximeter. Now I get infinite battery life
Just wanted to say thanks for your videos for the Instinct Solar, I have learned so many invaluable tips all explained clearly and concisely. 👏👏
Thanks for the comment, glad the videos helped.
I just stumbled on this channel as I recently bought a Garmin Instinct 2 Solar. Thank you for such awesome content. Very informative and concise.
Thanks for the comment, glad the videos helped!
Wow buddy. Great tip on the resume later on the GPS activity. I've been going for walk and pausing while having a coffee for like 20 minutes. I had no idea that was an option. Awesome.
Great advice - I have to say when Pulse Ox arrived I was interested but haven't looked at it in ages - turned it off and my battery days went from 8 days to 11days...
Many thanks!
"Resume" - thanks for letting me know about this feature - I may just have to include that in my next review - awesome that you taught me something about a watch I have been wearing, nearly daily, for the last three months! I love the details you add to your videos - nice pace too and I liked your organization 😎
i am new to Garmin. Watched a few instruction. This tutor the best understandable so far. Excellent job!
nice video. How about the screen? white number on black background or black number on white background, which one is saving more battery?
I contacted Garmin and asked the same thing. They told me there is no difference with regards to battery usage between the screen backgrounds (dark vs. light).
Thank you for the review. I normally tracking my heart rate 24/7
Thanks, I will look into these settings. My battery used to last 3 or more weeks and now less than a week.
Good stuff here man! Short, sweet and well detailed.
Thank you so much, I was pulling my fair out cause my new instinct surf was maxing out on 22 days for a full charge, I thought it was defective because everywhere else it shows a minimum of 24 days.
After tweaking a few things that you recommended, it now shows 27 days with my own settings and preferences.
Thank you once again. Liked and subscribed. This video deserves WAY more thumbs up!
If I turn of the heart rate monitor/pulse oximeter do they still come on automatically when I start an activity? Like walking / hiking etc
It will follow the settings you have for the given activity. For example on the Walk Activity you can have Heart Rate turned off. . . . but on the Run activity you can have it turned on. Thus it would just depend on the activity you are doing. If that doesn't make sense, let me know and I can try to do a video to show you how to do/check that. Thanks for watching.
@@JUMBLE2015 brilliant, thanks for the reply
@@JUMBLE2015 Hello, I really want the same thing as Wooly. I essentially only want to use my HR for activities as I don't really look at it otherwise and it drains the battery. However, when I turn it off and try to starting a Bike activity, HR doesn't come back on. Is biking different from the other activities or am I doing something wrong? When I go into power settings for biking HR is crossed out as well. any ideas?
@@gabrielh7782I have the same problem too
Great info. Well explained.
I am jealous of the watch strap you have on.
Thanks for watching and the comment, I really like the strap as well. I paid like $3 for it on AliExpress, it is well worth the money. I have a link to it in this video in case you are interested. - th-cam.com/video/2vf8RK0fTL8/w-d-xo.html - have a good one!
@@JUMBLE2015 thank you.
I watched the video and I ordered it. It is arriving tomorrow.
Very nice watch, thanks for your tips...
Good to hear all this tips. Thanks bro...
Is there a way to not have any notifications from your phone ever, but still have it report health metrics back to the app? I never want notifications from my phone on my watch.
Never mind! Answered at 16:05! Nice work!
How do you tell the Garmin Instinct Solar to change the power saver mode? I have the following three options:
1. Max Battery
2. Jacket Mode
3. Test Mode (one that I created whereas the other two are default when I bought this watch)
Thank you for the help in advance.
Excellent info, still even though I been through all process, still and even showing the watch many days of battery, it runs out within some hours. Any additional help?… Please and thanx!!!
Are you buy chance in an activity that is using the GPS? That is the only thing I can think of that would be using that much battery life. There are lots of people who forget to stop an activity and thus it is running in the background. I would check that first. A restart of the watch would be the second thing I would try and see what happens after that. Hope that helps, keep me posted.
I have just double checked all activities and set for max battery in all which allowed me to.
Anyway, I have just charged the watch nearly 5 hours ago and I have left 84% of battery.
I keep you posted of how it goes
It is a Garmin instinct tactical solar
If you turned off bluetooth and hr monitor in ideal sunny conditions, do you think you could you make the gps life last longer than 38hrs?
Can you tell me please why is so hard to upload a map to my watch I finally managed but it took ages and needed to disconnect and reconnect the phone blue tooth to achieve the transit of maps from the app to the watch still one Is pending....
I have a solar lamp I use for my solar watches. Its a tiny device you sit the watch face on. Supposedly its safer than charging in the Sun. I can fully charge my Casio in a couple of hours. Could I use that for my incoming Instinct2? Could I use it to soley charge the Instinct or would I still need to use the supplied power cable as well at times? (I assume the Instinct solar only has a solar battery, but I could be wrong). I realize I will need the cable to sync, and I bought a cradle device for that purpose. Thanks in advance for any input!!!
It will charge with a lamp (same as your solar Casio watches). The big difference for me is with the Garmin I do have to pull out the charging cord on occasion to charge it. It is kind of understandable because it does so much more than my Casio watches, so I never really expected not to have to charge it. Now I have heard from others that they do not so maybe they are just getting more sunlight than me. I go 20-30 days between charging with a power cord and that is not doing anything out of the ordinary (like putting it in a window or under a lamp). This video will show how it can charge with a lamp, hope it helps. Enjoy your Instinct! th-cam.com/video/FkshzYIJHYc/w-d-xo.html
@@JUMBLE2015 Thank you for reply. Can't wait for Instinct to arrive!!!
Hi! I have a question. The data graph under the number of days in the top. I thought this graph was for how much solar light the watch has absorbed. But it doesn't show anything in my watch. But when I go to the widget app and look at Solar Intensity and then go back to the watch face, the data graph appears. Could of seconds later it's gone again. Do you have any idea what is up?
Thanks so much for this! Just got the watch and found this super helpful!
Just one question re the battery saver during sleep? If I left the heart rate switched on for battery saver, but turned off all the phone connection stuff, would it still record my sleep and then just upload it to the phone when I reconnect in the morning?
Hey Josh, glad the video helped. To answer your question, your phone really has nothing to do with HR tracking on the watch. So you can have your phone totally disconnected from the watch, and as long as the HR is on it will record your HR. The only time the phone comes into play is when you want to get your HR data over to your Garmin Connect account you will need to reconnect the phone. . . . then sync it so your watches HR info gets written to Garmin Connect. That is what I do, I hardly ever leave the phone connected. . . but every now and then I will connect just to get my sleep, step, HR, etc. data written to Garmin Connect. Hope that answers your question and makes sense.
@@JUMBLE2015 Ah that's perfect, thank you very much!
Josh turn off oxygen reading it's battery hungry and not accurate on most occasions. No need to mess with the rest they use minimal bat.
my watch battery drains around 5-7% a day in smartwatch mode with a constantly working heart rate. Pulse Ox Sleep tracking is off. Do you think my watch's battery is ok? at this rate, I can't have it on my wrist for 24 days.
Brilliant advise!! Thanks man.
Nice tips.. very helpful 👍 bro
Does the same watch face but with inverted colours change the battery life?
Hi there, nope battery life will be the same regardless of the inverted colors or not. Thanks for watching!
Hey Jumble,
is it true, that it charges when turned completely off? If so, one could charge it a few days and then turn it on again charged only by the light.
That is correct. If you have the watch off and expose it to light, it will charge. The only thing I will say is it is not like a solar Casio ProTrek in that you will get it to fully charged with just light exposure. . . . the solar charging on Garmin is really more for extending battery life between charges. But it will charge enough so you can power the watch back on. Hope that helps.
Thanks very helpful it helped me with my solar one
Thanks Man.
Glad to find such an informative channel, just bought the Tactical Solar one week ago.
Keep going!
Is it possible to have BT off and let it turn on automatically when doing an activity where and when needed ?
OR ... now when I light press the Menu I see the notifications, but I never use that, can I set it so that with the light press of the Menu I can toggle the BT connect on/off ?
When you press the light button, that is what is called your "Control Wheel". You can customize it however you want. So as you mentioned, you could remove everything in it other than "Phone Connection", so that you can simply press and hold the light button. . . . then turn on/off your Bluetooth whenever you want to. I have mine set the same way. I think this video will walk you thru it but if you need more just let me know. th-cam.com/video/aXdsciva8dY/w-d-xo.html
6:23 "because i'm using a brighter light" --> no it doesn't stand to reason. you are not using the light, you have just set it to 100%. so the estimation should not increase/decrease since the light is not used. IF it was really used, then yes i could understand that the number of days changes, but the power is not used. so i don't understand why the number of days changes.
It's probably based on how often you're using the light. It's not hard to calculate that if you use the light 5 minutes per day then having it at 5% brightness for 5 minutes per day will use X power and 100% brightness for 5 minutes per day will use (X * 20) = Y power.
Can I enable continuous solar charging without recharging? Does it affect battery life?
There is no way to turn off the solar charging so it will always charge regardless. It is just that if you do not get enough light to keep it going, then at some point you will need to plug it in to charge it. If you get enough solar charging, then no need to ever plug it in for charging.
@@JUMBLE2015 okay. Thank you very much 😁
What is the link for the phone notifications for Apple iOS phone
th-cam.com/video/7f_2OQXGVBc/w-d-xo.html
Where is the video that explains how you can choose which alerts you get from an iPhone? Thanks.
This should help - th-cam.com/video/7f_2OQXGVBc/w-d-xo.html
Thanks a lot, great vid!
Hey, thinking to buy them, do you think the solar version worth it? And is it possible to use Ultra track mode while GPS map is on the screen? Is it possible to configure the period of coordinate evaluating? As I know the default is 5 min, is it possible to set 30 sec or 1 min?
Hello, I get asked the question is the "solar version worth it" a lot. I had the non solar version before getting the solar version. For me personally I felt like even though it would cost me $100 or so dollars more, in the long run the solar would be worth it. I enjoy the solar charging, as well as the other things you get with the solar model (i.e. Battery Management, Hunt and Fish Activities, etc.). But with all that said, the non solar version was a great watch as well. I only charged it about once every 25 days, so battery life was never an issue. Budget should be your first consideration, if you can swing it, go for the solar. . . if not, save some money and be happy with the non solar model. Regarding Ultra Trac, unfortunately you have no control over the frequency of evaluating :(. I hope this helps, thanks for watching!
@@JUMBLE2015 thanks a lot for explanation and the review btw! :)
Best way to save battery is switch of oxygen reading when asleep. It's not very accurate and uses a shit ton of battery. Then you don't need to worry about any of the lights or anything.
Good Luck!
Did they manage to fix the HR sensor on the new Instincts? It's so unreliable on my Instinct classic that I'm thinking of disabling it to save battery. 🥺
My solar is accurate and in line with 2 other fitbits
With a full charge and everything turned off or lowest setting I’m only getting 5 d max on battery. It was much higher before, the watch is new, but something seems to be running in the background. Turned it off but no change, any ideas?
Same here! Same here! Down to 5 days from one day to the other. No clue why! Very disappointed! Did a reset! No change!
@@christianthuller7561 I think I figured it out.
If you setup a control for “phone” and turn off Bluetooth when not needed the watch goes back to 11days or more on a charge. Keep in mind sleep and activity data will be stored on the watch until you sync it so nothing is lost. I figure the only thing I lose by not having the phone always connected is weather, which is “fun” to have but a quick sync and I have it without draining the battery.
@@robertland2616 thanks Robert! I never had Bluetooth on all the time. Only when syncing. What was on was the heart rate and stress monitor. GPS was always OFF. Watch was fine till two weeks ago when it suddenly switched OFF due to empty battery. Switched OFF heart rate too now and still no improvement. Thanks for your advice! Highly appreciated!
it is possible to the watch survive only with the solar charge and battery saving mode?
If you are getting a decent amount of solar charging each day. . . .not using any of the functions, and have everything off (i.e. not connect to a cell phone, HR monitoring off, Pulse OX off, watch face data elements off, etc.) then I would say yes it is possible.
@@JUMBLE2015 thanks for the answer!
How do I track my runs? I turned on Activity Tracking, per your instructions. Need to easily track my runs, etc.
Activity Tracking will be more daily health items (floors climbed, steps walked, sleep, etc.). For runs, that is an actual "Activity". Press the GPS button. . . you will see your "Activity" options (if run is not there you can add it). Select run, then start the activity. It will track the specific data for the given run you do. . . then stop the activity when done.
Is it okay if my instict solar battery is 324 day but only 92%??? I only charged by solar
Now the battery days indicator shown infinity...is it normal?? % is 88
mean for christ sakes it already has a insane battery life whats the problem with charging it lol
i take mine off and turn it off at night🤣
How do you turn it back on again?
I just go out every day to exercise and make sure my watch is solar charged. I keep all the options enabled except for the pulse oximeter.
Now I get infinite battery life
Yeah battery life on this watch is hard to beat. Thanks for watching, enjoy your Instinct!