Garmin - Instinct 2S Solar - Surf Edition

Same, but I'll buy the previous model on eBay for a fraction of the price (like I did with the s40)

I've had a Garmin S40 for years and love it. When it dies I'll get another one or whatever the new model is.

I currently have an Apple Watch Series 8 and I’m entirely fed up with charging it every day. I was asking ChatGPT the other day to give me a recommendation for a fitness watch that has good battery life. This was the first on the list and I ordered it yesterday, I’m so excited for my Instinct 2s Solar to come in!

This was so helpful thank you for commenting! I got my instinct 2s solar Sunday evening and I am completely obsessed with it. Even on my Apple Watch I turned all notifications off so I did the same thing here. I’m so excited to go on my first run with it! I have a 5K this Saturday for my birthday :D

none of those will work due to the surfing which is considered a high speed/pressure sport (guess when come off an hit waves or end up doing a washing machine the pressures may get too much for a 5 atm warrenty. Your best option would be to try and pick up an instinct 2 (try for the surf version as it has a couple of niche additions like the tide table watch face) or a garmin fenix 6, or fenix 7 / epix 2 - as these all cover exactly what you need, plus have built in surf tracking app (includes wave counts and will show rides post activity in the app - would add the surf tracker data field as it can help fineese the wave count).

either should be fine - personally prefer the amazfit eco system (but possibly as its sort of a direct rip off of garmin's eco system). --- sync for both with strava is a bit hit and miss compared with garmin. The main stuff should be fine but other stuff may not sync as well. With garmin its super rock solid including stuff like surfing etc - but really with garmin connect there is no need for strava (except for potentially community related stuff if mates are on different platform) - as it just gives so much more detail than free strava and to a degree even subscription stava - especially when it comes to things like surfing etc. With garmin can see my wave count, longest wave, max speed, surf time, session time, - i get a map showing each wave ridden and the details (length, speed, time); and usual hr, benefit, the total distance paddled compared to actual surf distance, calories , sweat loss, intensity minutes, training beneft etc etc, Compared to Stava basic - where get the basic data but don't get the wave data, and your tracked activity looks like a big massive blob. So not overly useful from that perspective etc - plus if you have surfline the garmin system can hook in with them too. Checking ebay - there are options for second hand garmin instinct 2 surf within that price range and fenix 7 / epix 2 for a bit more (could also check fenix 6 options).

If you are using a watch that is older than 3 years its very likely (outside of apple watch, garmin, coros, polar and suunto) that it doesn't come close to matching current models accuracy levels - especially as most brands (wear os / apple / garmin / coros / polar / suunto / fitbit / huawei / amazfit) update the sensor and gps chipset every 2-3 years (if not more frequently) and there have been significant improvements all around. For example current garmins are either using the elevate 4 or elevate 5 HR sensor (from health 24/7 perspecive virtually immaterial difference in results, but from an activity perspective especially around strength and cycling their is a more marked improvement - plus the elevate 5 sensors include ECG and baseline temp monitoring) however the elevate 4 was a significant jump from the elevate 3 sensor (4 veritcal led lights) which was an even bigger jump from the sensor prior to that (3 leds in a triangular shape). Huge jumps and leaps have been made in sleep tracking too, and for most its way more accurate than it used to be - though don't get me wrong it still can be fooled (i.e. sitting/lying and being super inactive (i.e. reading / watching tv) and its possible the watch can potentially record that as sleep. Garmin Forerunner 165 - its on special on Garmin sales at just under $200. (or could look to see what deals you can find for the instinct 2 or vivoactive 5). These are all running pretty much garmin's latest version of sleep tracking which is way better at determining sleep duration (I find start time is rock solid and seldom gets fooled - if it does at the worst it records it as light sleep so doesn't really impaact recovery at all -as would be giving you that as recovery anyway and the recharge rate from light compared to resting is so simliar I haven't noticed a difference in recharge rate; and wake time is rock solid as long as using morning report - cause as soon as you access morning report it switches off sleep - so if you wake up and want to go back to sleep don't access morning report - the morning report front screen includes time so no need to access it until you want to be up and about). The sleep tracking algorithms are from firstbeat and includes the use of accelerometer, HR and HRV compared to the older garmin sleep tracking which per my understanding was accerlerometer based. You could also look at anything from amazift (stick to bip 6, active 2, t-rex3 or balance - as all running most current version of their software and alogorithms); Huawei including Fit 3 is worth a look; and could consider anything from coros, suunto (just released the run which should be around the $200 mark) and polar. And you could also look at fitbit charge 6, sense 2 or vera. There is also xiaomi but their HR isn't as good as the others... But worth noting the accuracy of optical HR is still impacted by skin tone, body comp, hair, tats, weight & size of watch, how you wear it and if doing an activity the activity type - and until you use it there is no way to know if it will be accurate for you or not. However for most people most of the sensors of the brands I have mentioned tend to do a good job re accuracy for 24/7 health metrics and steady state activities (walking, steady running etc).

rock climbing - would suggest sticking to garmin or coros as those are the only 2 that provide that functionality. Note its limited to only a couple of models on coros, whereas on garmin its on most models. Haven't had a coros so can't comment much on it. Re Garmin - you would have to manually adjust your sleep schedule but its pretty easy to do via the app - so a bit of a PITA but not a deal breaker. You want something fairly durable if wearing while on duty - so would suggest either the coros vertix series (maybe nomad - don't know much about it) or the garmin fenix / instince series. Advantage of coros and fenix is the built in offline mapping for hiking.. Would give the edge to garmin in terms of the hiking and fishing as their built in aps for this are just better. (note that if using the instinct 3 amoled you can install a 3rd party offline map option, however no offline music option). Garmin Fenix does include offline spotify (assuming you have a sub), whereas as Coros offers your own mp3s only.

Garmin offers most of these: accurate hr depends on you - but yes the current sensors are good and work well for most people, but also may depend on the activities you want to track. all garmins are at least 5atm - which is good for swimming and other low pressure/speed water sports. They do also offer 10atm (high speed/pressure water sports) and full dive watches (closest you will get to water proof as include inductive buttons). sleep yes - make sure spec says sleep score and ideally sleep coach - though is like this for all current models - not only see quality but can get detailed breakdown of the sleep score components. Body Battery (BB) - yes all do but this is an assessment of your energy levels not necessarily your health. The new health status metric which monitors your HR, HRV, respiration, skin temp and pulse ox (spo2)) across time is a more accurate measure of health status. Recovery - garmin does this in a couple of way - most current garmin's provide an estimate recovery time - which is an estimate of how long until your body has recovered so that can gain max benefit from next hard workout - will adjust based on any activity done, your stress levels and sleep quality. can see this value on the watch at any time, including the ability to add as a watch face data point. Post activity you can do a recovery mode - before saving your activity press the recovery HR option - will now track your HR for two minutes while you rest - then press save when done. If you go into your activity and go to the stats section under HR it will show the recovery HR value i.e. 10bpm (what you HR went down during those 2 minutes). Of course for the activity you can see the HR chart fo the the tracked activity. If you wanted to track your HR for the 2 minute recovery period you can save the activity and then launch a health snapshot - this tracks your HR, pulse ox (spo2), respiration and stress for a 2 mins and provides average hrv metrics for that period - putting this into a pdf file you can download, see on phone/web etc. Workout HR zone - yes get visible and audable notification - can also get an audio note. Can have it set as an alert or can set it as a workout screen in which case adds a screen showing zone in green with other zones in red - so very easy to see when in or out of zone. (note can do this with other metrics too like pace, cadence etc). yes can set max/min alerts too. But think its pretty similar in terms of alerts. Pace indicator - yes - can set from 1 to 8 data fields per tracking screen (how many may depend on model and screen size but most now do 1-6 fields - though guage fields can reduce it by 1-2 fields depending on whether using 1 or 2 guages and screen size), and can do from 3 to unlimited (as such) tracking screens (depends on model). Can set up pace workout screen, or pace guage on tracking screen or just pace data fields (i..e. current pace, last lap pace, avg lap pace etc etc etc). See the data fields section of watch manual to see data field options. Watch face horizontal - stock garmins offer ones where hour is above minutes - but if you don't like the options there is always the garmin connect iq store (app on watch for some models, app on phone or web browser: [https://apps.garmin.com/](https://apps.garmin.com/) so you can have a look to get idea of options - there are also some other 3rd party sites where you can also get other 3rd party watch faces from). All garmins offer abnormal HR alerts and offer the ability to set HR alerts for an activity (can set these for each individual activity type and for models that offer activity copy action can set up multiple copies of same activity with different HR alerts making it quick and easy to select which one you want without having to go in and change the alert values).. all current garmins have very accurate gps. Sub £600 -- covers most garmins on offer. Depending on what types of activity you do and what sort of features you want, and whether want mic & speaker. But would suggest looking at the vivoactive, forerunner, instinct and fenix ranges as that probably is more in line with what you want. Basically gamrin health features (except ecg and baseline temp) and smart features (except offline music) are the same - its really the fitness features and training metrics where they really differentiate and even then its getting way closer (i.e ..not much difference between a venu 4 and forerunner 570).

you would need to check re saving points of interest, but in regards to offline maps, ability to save routes and then have them overlaid on the offine maps etc pretty much most brands now offer this functionality - would stick with amazfit, huawei, garmin, coros, polar and suunto models for best features around this. I know that with garmin instinct and fenix (and its variants) and the FR variants with offline maps you can save points at any time. In fact the fenix/FR with offline maps can even create a route on the watch from a saved point on the watch - very useful if you save hunting points and want to get from one point to the next and don't have a pre-planned route, or even decide you want to break off a route short and want to get back to the start - no need to retrace your route, or have to follow a bearing line to it - the wach can create a route back to the start. For the garmin's that don't have offline maps, note there are 3rd party apps like komoot that can provide the similar functionality as suunto, coros, polar, amazfit and huawei i.e. create an offline route on app/web and sync to watch with offline map section. Note that the fenix/instinct garmins come with built in hunt functionality - [https://www8.garmin.com/manuals/webhelp/GUID-EECCAC99-90D6-4AB1-9A3A-EC433D3365E2/EN-US/GUID-135067A5-7E0B-4467-A79C-D084B20D1DE1.html](https://www8.garmin.com/manuals/webhelp/GUID-EECCAC99-90D6-4AB1-9A3A-EC433D3365E2/EN-US/GUID-135067A5-7E0B-4467-A79C-D084B20D1DE1.html)

as you main focus is swimming I would stick with a garmin (the 5 buttons ones so a forerunner, instinct, fenix (and its variants like epix); suunto, polar or coros. Having the buttons enables you to swap data tracking screens while resting to check stats. as to which is best will depend on the swimming stats and features you require.

I have an Instinct 2s Solar, which has served me very well for the 2 years I have been using it. Ive considered switching up to a forerunner 500 series to better work with non-hiking training activities, but haven't made up my mind yet on if its worth the spend.

As someone who does not enjoy having a dinner plate on their wrist I very much enjoy the Garmin Instinct Solar 2S - simple, long battery life, robust. Edit: meant to specify the solar version

A pre-owned Garmin instinct 2s solar

It’s such an absolute game changer . Got an instinct 2s two weeks ago after having an Apple Watch my whole life. I will never go back

not at all! If you like it and it works for you that's all that matters. im the proud (woman) owner of a garmin instinct 2s Solar and i love it. it's improved my life and my health

I’d recommend the s70. The plays like distances without a subscription makes it worth it alone over s40/s50. No touch targeting on the others is rlly bad too. The health data on the s70 is all I could ask for. It tracks my runs/lifts/sleep etc without issue

Love mine (2S). I work outdoors and wear it everyday. Has held up great. Solar is great when it’s sunny out, never really have to charge it. I don’t use the gps functions or track fitness, ever.