Smelly Garmin Instinct Silicone strap

Greetings All!

The watch/silicone strap constantly gets smelly. I am very fastidious about this and frequently remove the straps, and using isopropyl alcohol, clean the watch underside and sides, and clean the straps with attention to the attachment points both on the strap and on the watch in the recess provided for the strap. I clean the strap and then scrub my wrist with soap and water and then with alcohol. Then the whole works smell like alcohol for a couple of hours, and by the next day, it is back to being smelly again.

I know that I could replace the strap, but does anyone else have observations or suggestions?

Thanks!

0 trux over 1 year ago

Hard to tell, because each person is different, not only the sensitivity to odors may differ, but also each person's sweat may decompose with less or more odor. I just rinse the watch with lukewarm water after each activity, and disinfect it with alcohol once each couple of weeks, and I cannot smell anything bad even when sniffing directly at it.

If you suspect the material is the cause, try a leather, textile, or metallic strap. The ones sold by Garmin are pretty expensive, but you can find good and fitting straps at much lower cost from 3rd parties. I've got couple of spare wristbands from China for my previous Instinct, where the original band failed after ~1 year of use, but the band of Instinct 2, which is almost 2 years old still serves well, and does not appear to be smelly at all (at least not to me). And the cheap Chinese spare wristband still serves well, and in fact longer than the original one. Does not appear to be smelly (to me) either.

0 Sandy_Murray over 1 year ago in reply to trux

Thanks, Trux.