Is Solar worth it?

I also want to note that I’m impressed with my battery life but at this point don’t think Solar had anything to do with this.  I’m impressed in a daily wear sense and yesterday was spot on with normal battery drain.  Especially in low power mode.  

"worth it" is subjective. Solar charging is cumulative, so if you only occasionally get a little sunlight, you probably won't notice much benefit. The benefit comes from having lots of solar exposure over long periods of time.

So in your example of the day at the theme park, your battery dropped 4% with the solar charging; without solar charging capability, it probably would have dropped 5% or 6%. Is that game changing? Well, no, not really in that scenario. But when you drag that out over the course of a few days or weeks, that extra 20% you gain from solar charging can be a big deal. But only if you get enough sunlight for it to matter, which it doesn't sound like you do normally.

The best use case for solar charging, in my opinion, is people who go on multiday outdoor adventures, like backpackers and mountaineers, where that extra 20% can mean the difference between having enough battery to get home, or the watch dying on the way back home. For the average user, solar probably isn't that important or noticeable.

Awesome verbiage!  It’s certainly not the reason I purchased the watch but it may be for someone else.  I think I understand a little better from your reply!  Thank you!  I average about 40k Lux Hours.  So it may help a little but not necessarily for how I’m using the watch.  

Living in the UK, Solar is definitely NOT worth it. I would rather have a slightly smaller watch without the Solar ring. The battery is already ridiculous. 

I am in the UK (Lake District) and am a solar sceptic  - today having said that while battery % has not raised, it hasn't lowered either.  i reckon I would have used around 2% otherwise.

For the watch it helps but not immensely like my 1040 solar. I think that if Garmin changed the LUX language to be like the 1040 solar to show you how much time you actually gained during an activity/daily it would be helpful. Garmin-Blake

As it sits now I do get a few extra days of battery which is great but personally I got the Tactix 7 Pro over my F6XS for the look and touch screen mostly. The solar was only a bonus as I never had problems with the 21 days my F6XS got.

C.sco said:

The best use case for solar charging, in my opinion, is people who go on multiday outdoor adventures, like backpackers and mountaineers, where that extra 20% can mean the difference between having enough battery to get home, or the watch dying on the way back home.

Nice explanation for having solar

if you spend most of your time indoors or live in a perpetually overcast area, it's not worth it. however if you enjoy walks outside and hiking and grilling and mowing lawns and walking dogs and long commutes driving in a car and everything else that involves the outdoors and at least some sun, then the savings from the slower battery drain are definitely worth it. think of it as a free boost to the battery

i'm even starting to get used to the obtrusive solar ring...

I know that the OP is focusing on the usefulness of solar as regards battery life, but I was pondering the other day whether it might be also a valuable metric for me to gain an understanding of my own sun exposure on a daily basis as well. 

Being able to somewhat correlate a particular day's accumulating lux totals with my own body's response to those totals seems like something that would be useful to me.

For example, did I get too much sun and end up with mild sunburn on a particular day?  If so, I can look at the solar total for that day and then keep an eye on the lux reading in the future, so that I can perhaps prevent getting burned again.

Granted, the solar cells probably react differently to UVa, UVb, and Infrared than my skin does, but I'm guessing that there may be enough information in the watch's solar collection data to use it in this way.

A bit of problem is that solar efficiency depends of the angle. If watch is hold horizontally or towards the sun, efficiency is better. For example, I'm noticing that solar indicator is showing less when I'm walking or running than when I'm biking. Simple because of hand/watch position.