Smartwatches have become a dominant force in the market. Wearables, as they are called by tech writers, have expanded. From Fitbit fitness-focused offerings to the mini-computers from Apple, there is something for everyone. If you tend to be more on the adventuring side, classic GPS company Garmin has been making watches for years now. I’ve gotten hands-on with the Garmin Instinct, which represents a smartwatch for the outdoorsman.
Garmin seems to make dozens of watches, and you might wonder where the Instinct sits. It’s more or less a bare-bones model. It doesn’t have a giant, bright color screen, or topographical maps, or a real-time street-by-street GPS. It’s a black-and-white screen that acts as a basic smartwatch, a fitness watch, and an adventurer’s watch.
The Garmin Instinct — Adventurers Smart Watch on a Budget
The black and white display is more than enough for me. I grew up on a Gameboy. The backlight is quite effective, and the watch’s face is easily visible in high noon and dark night. During the day, a pair of polarized glasses certainly won’t cause any issues with seeing the display.
The info displayed on the .9 x .9 inch screen is easy to read and decipher at nothing more than a glance. The resolution of 128 x 128 is plenty for the information displayed. The watch itself is fairly light at 52 g. Honestly, it’s very light compared to other smartwatches I’ve worn and is a nice change.
The Garmin Instinct is available in numerous colors, and the QuickFit accessory bands allow you to easily swap bands to mix and match. Battery life varies, but as a smartwatch, it can last 14 days. In GPS mode, it will last 16 hours. That’s fairly long for a smartwatch.
It’s both tough and water-resistant. Users can swim down to 10 meters which is further than I’ll ever take it.
There is no touch screen, which means navigating all the features with five buttons. It’s a bit of a hassle at first, but eventually, you learn how to blaze away with the watch and how to make it work in an extremely functional way.
For this review, I decided to break down the various features of the watch and how they function in different capacities.
As a Smart Watch
Like every other smartwatch, this one connects to an app, specifically the Garmin Connect app. This app works with iOS and Android and provides a space to break down all the information fed to you, as well as allows you to tweak settings with a much better interface than the watch itself.
When properly connected, you receive all the alerts from your phone to your watch, which to me, is invaluable. I can see who or what is popping off without grabbing my phone and looking. This means I can react to high-priority people, like my wife, quickly and ignore the vibrations of Verzion texting me about trading in my phone for the eight millionth time.
You can also use it to control your music or other audio. Again, if I’m running and my phone is in an arm strap, I don’t have to retrieve it to change songs. I can just use the watch.
Basic information like the weather and sunrise and sunset time show up automatically. It’s quite handy when getting kids ready in the Florida spring, which switches from 40° F to 95° F throughout the day.
You can also set alarms and timers. I often use the vibrating watch as an alarm because it tends to only wake me up and spares my wife my early morning reveilles. As a smartwatch, you get all the basics you expect with a fairly long battery life. It might not blow you away, but it provides what you’d expect from a budget-friendly smartwatch.
As a Fitness Watch
I like to work out, and I’ve become quite accustomed to getting the numbers for calories burned, heart rate, stress levels, and more while I work out. The Garmin provides all that and more. First, in terms of heart rate monitoring, the device tracks it throughout the day and during workouts. During workouts, it breaks you into several categories, from warm-up to anaerobic exercise. The measurements were accurate but slightly delayed.
When worn and compared to a chest-mounted heart rate monitor, I reached the same levels, but there was a five to 10-second delay. So if I reached 160 BPM on my chest-mounted monitor, I reached 160 BPM five to 10 seconds later on my Garmin. If my heart rate went from 160 to 144, the watch would reflect that after about a five to 10-second delay. Overall it captures the entire workout and heart rate levels reached.
The differences between the chest wrap and watch exist but are fairly minor. I tended to reach a higher heart rate with the chest monitor than with the watch, but not by very much.
Getting Fit
You can scroll through several screens to track different information depending on your activity. Runners will have the distance ran, speed, and similar information. Strength training will track reps and rest periods. You can select and set several different activities from a preloaded selection and even make your own. You can kayak, swim, lift weights, run, and do generalized cardio workouts as well.
The watch automatically counts reps for strength exercises. This is mostly accurate, but you can count additional movements as reps. You can edit this or just ignore it. The app also tries to log exercises and is pretty good at it. It can’t tell between an incline bench press or a flat, but it can tell the difference between a barbell and a dumbbell press. It guesses most basic exercises well, but don’t expect it to be able to track burpees.
Total Body Fitness
The Garmin Instinct can also measure your sleep and assigns you a sleep score. There are some minor accuracy issues as it might begin counting your sleep fairly early if you are still and relaxed enough. For example, I was reading a book before bed, and it put me to sleep 20 minutes prior to actually going to sleep.
The watch can also measure stress and does this fairly well. I remember a long day at the day job, and the Garmin Connect app gave me accurate feedback on high-stress times that coordinated perfectly with my day.
You also get a Body Battery measurement which takes into account sleep and stress and assigns you a number. This number has felt pretty accurate to how I felt throughout the day.
As a Navigational Watch
The navigational features are very simple. Don’t expect real-world maps of streets and roads or topographical mapping. The navigational features are simple but useful. You can mark spots and get coordinates. You can save specific spots to return to later. For example, I marked where I parked my car at a zoo and used my watch to find it after a long day.
The navigational features are basically a straight-line direction. It won’t help you navigate obstacles, but it lets you know which direction you should be moving in. It works well with a map to predict water bodies, hills, and other obstacles you’ll deal with.
There are also Breadcrumbs and Back To Start features, which give you an actual route to follow instead of a straight line. However, this requires some initial adventuring to set up. Unsurprisingly there is also a built-in compass which works quite well.
While the features seem barebones, they are about as much as I need for hiking, kayaking, and even dealing with massive, very crowded parking lots.
The Garmin Instinct – Black and White
Overall this simple watch is quite effective. Don’t be fooled by the lack of a color screen, it is feature-rich and quite easy to use. It fills all the basic requirements of a smartwatch, a fitness watch, and an adventurer’s watch. The Garmin Instinct provides an excellent base watch with great features and a lightweight but rugged design.
