The “surf-edition” simply doesn’t work while surfing. Can Garmin fix this problem?

Sorry for you, but I clocked out at 100.1kph over the weekend

You forgot to mention the issues with the tide data being completely inaccurate

Fortunately, my tides are OK, but then it's pretty easy even to work out the tides in a thousand years' time.

However, I am still confused by my rides: wrong wave count, speeds and distances.

Sadly, it seems like Garmin has some kooks on the design team...

How are people feeling about this since the last few firmware updates? Wave tracking quality seems to have improved a fair bit.

I'm considering upgrading from Instinct Surf to Instinct 2, now that Garmin has added the Surf activity to all models (with the latest firmware update). Anybody tried that? And can anybody explain how the Surf tracker 2 data field works? Is it compatible with Surfline syncing?

And/all info would be much appreciated!

Buy the apple watch and use dawn patrol or surf apps.

Mine only improved from horribly wrong to still wrong. Every session shows waves that appear to be ridden out to sea, or some that go towards shore and then back to the line up. I had way more accuracy in the past with an older Vivoactive HR with the Surf Tracker V2 app. I am not sure Garmin has actually worked with any actual surfers to improve the accuracy of their software. They should update the Instinct Surf firmware to allow connect apps as well, but then like you many would not consider upgrades.

I’m in the UK, we wear 3-5mm wetsuits (plus gloves in winter) wetsuits. So strap length is a problem. Plus the non-rugged nature on the Apple Watch. Plus the time on the Dawn Patrol display is is hard to read/non-customisable. Plus the watch is a pain to unlock or adjust during a session.

All that aside, Dawn Patrol worked great on my used Apple Watch 2nd gen as long as the battery lasted (often not even a whole session in winter) under my wetsuit. But did not work well on the replacement 3rd gen or SE watches that I tried it with after I lost the first one (UAG ‘rugged’ strap failed).

So reluctantly tried Garmin Instinct. As a ‘rugged activity’ watch it is better for my needs than Apple. Secure, readable/customisable display. Surf tracking is passable at the moment. They’ve just extended the surfing app to all models. Which might suggest that it may improve further.

Dawn Patrol recently add DP to Strava sync. The devs told me that they’ve added Strava to DP on the app roadmap. So Garmin custom activity with Surf Tracker 2 data could be great once (if) that happens…

So interestingly enough I have had 4 Instict 2 solar surfs and 1 fenix 7. Everyone of them as failed after the first session. Garmin keeps saying there is no known problem and keeps replacing my watches and eventually replaced it with a different model(Fenix 7) and same thing. One session and I have a dead watch or a fully charged battery that drains in 6 hours. I find it hard to beleive that I am the only surfer that has these issues.

They have replaced 3 of them for me. The back button is broken. The waves keep counting them wrong. It's a shame it doesn't work well, for the waves it's a waste of money.

Same here - the back button failed. Mine went back to Amazon for repair, they lost it somewhere and had to give me a refund. I replaced it with a Forerunner 255. The solar instinct surf was very disappointing - solar made almost no difference, tide times were way out, surf tracking was erratic.