This discussion has been locked.

You can no longer post new replies to this discussion. If you have a question you can start a new discussion

New Garmin Instinct user left somewhat disappointed

Former Member over 4 years ago

I am an aviator, so I have been using Garmin products since the early 2000s and left never disappointed besides the very rude and incompetent customer phone service they had back then (some untrained rude guys answering phones, I think back then they must have had home office). Thinking of returning it, but asking for additional feedback of others and their experience, suggestions.

I was extremely disappointed with the user manual, I mean wtf, really? No real explanations nor behind the curtain/background additional info, just very short half sentenced explanations, nothing really detailed. The complete opposite than the Garmin GPS products. I don't like these "manuals for manual haters", especially not in for such complex products. Be that as it may, I quickly adapted to it, got the watch running, but have now three main annoying issues.

1. Vibration when receiving text messages, calls, when I make calls. I turned vibration OFF, nothing. I went through the Garmin troubleshoot guide where I have to use my iphone8 to solve the issue, nothing. I tried find info on the internet, found countless others with same issue and to this day, problem not solved. So I guess I have to just get used to this.... sadly.

2. Weather sensor completely inaccurate. I wake up in the morning, watch was on the shelf next to me, it reads -10 (minus) C. I restarted the watch, it did not update since hours, just says ( -- NOW). Also yesterday I had complete wrong readings, usually around 20 C below the actual temperature, which is a severe difference.

3. Weather widget also not playing along. Sometimes GPS data activation solves it but then it doesn't really update.

4. Baro settings are wrong, a lot of significant jumps during the day and during night it falls drastically, which lets me assume my own bodytemperature affecting it (after I calibrate it to the normal standards of what my weather station reports).

What bothers me most is the lack of information that solves these issues. I looked up all the three above, and people report the same and no fixes.

Question, is this watch broken? Not just mine, but in general. Does it work on your ends? I need this to work. I deliver food, mail, people and supplies now via caterpillar transports to remote areas in mountainous regions, I got this watch as a form of backup and preliminary indicator of weather changes while having the essentials, I deliberately chose this one over the Finish made Suunto, but since 48 hours I am just getting wrong indications ! Even GPS Altimeter was OFF by 50-60 meters, had to manually set it. Compass is also off by approx. 20-30 C with GPS inputs.

Thanks in advance for some feedback or inputs !

0 9449556 over 4 years ago

Hi there, I see nobody's replying, so I thought of sharing my experiences...

I think you are correct on most of the counts.

2. and 3. Right now, the watch says 1C (the NOW thing on the watch face), while the weather widget says 6C. My actual sensor outside says 9C. Typing "weather" in Google says 7C. Apparently, the watch pulls data from some mysterious weather service via the phone and Garmin Connect. If there is no contact to the weather station via phone and/or Garmin Connect not running and/or location issue on the phone, no weather widget either...

4. The way I understand, the same sensor measures both altitude and the air pressure. It's the software that then decides whether you changed the altitude, or there is the change in air pressure. It often gets it wrong. Sometimes, I don't move for an inch, and my altitude drops by 10-20 metres. Sometimes, I drive through a hilly area, and the watch gives me a storm warning (instead of adjusting the altitude). Bottom line, it's amusing, but wouldn't trust my life to it.

Still love it, though - but that's because it's for casual use - a hike now and then, and I can forgive it all those little annoyances. My main thing is the battery life and the AOD, can't get better for that price.

0 trux over 4 years ago in reply to 9449556

9449556 said:
If there is no contact to the weather station via phone and/or Garmin Connect not running and/or location issue on the phone, no weather widget either...

That's comprehensible, since the watch alone has no other way to acquire the weather info, than through the app.

9449556 said:
The way I understand, the same sensor measures both altitude and the air pressure.

The sensor only measures the air pressure. And then it has to decide whether the change of the air pressure was caused by the weather, or because you changed the elevation. That's a challenging task - when there is no GPS working, it cannot see whether you moved or not (the accelerometer cannot help, since Instinct has no gyro, hence it cannot detect the direction of the acceleration). And when the GPS works, and the auto-calibration too, it leads to even more problems,since the accuracy of the elevation at GPS is in the range of tens of meters, hence it often makes the result even worse than without the calibration. The DEM mode can help on a relatively flat terrain, but both GPS and DEM are practically unusable when in urban environment, or in strongly accidental terrrain. Even worse it is indoors, because there can be pressure changes due to the changing of the floors, as well as due to airconditioning and/or ventilation, due to temperature changes, or due to barometric changes.

That told, the algorithms for the elevation are certainly far to be perfect at Instinct, but the task is much more complicated than most people can imagine. and there is no ideal solution anyway.

0 3390939 over 4 years ago

I am having several of the same issues. The manual is truly awful. It gives perfunctory answers at best. They will lead you to one point, but not specify how to follow next steps. For example, instructions say to press menu, the go to settings > activities apps. I get to settings, but there is no clear way to get to activities/apps

I have also turned off notifications from my phone and synched with the Instinct again, but keep getting buzzed everytime I receive an email. This is NOT why I got another Garmin. Also, why is it so difficult just to get bak to the watch face? I want to add activities, but can't seem to do this unless I restart entirely.

I just had to turn it on and off just to get back to the time. Will call Garmin support when it reopens after holidays, but am disappointed that relatively easy tasks have been rendered so difficult due to terrible manual instructions.

0 6913862 over 3 years ago in reply to 3390939

Just a quick answer to getting back to watch face during activity: un map the back key as lap key then you can press it to get back to watch face