Related
Options

Does the Instinct 2 handle multiple message notifications better than the last Instinct?

LaurenceGough
over 3 years ago

For anyone that's got their hands on one - does it display multiple messages without having to go into the message and scroll down each time? Say someone sent you a few chat messages, and then another chat message comes through, does the latest one get displayed on the watch or does it just keep showing you the oldest message for every new one that comes in? On the old Instinct it used to keep displaying the oldest chat message repeatedly whenever someone sent you a message. It drove me mad. No other smart watch I've owned has done that.

So in summary, is it like the old Instinct where if you received more than two lines of text in a chat (which could be two seperate words or emojis) for every new notification it'd just show the old one? (unless you went on your phone and marked it as read or went into every new notification on your watch and scrolled down all the way every time).

This happens with SMS/text, messenger, telegram or any chat application. 

To test you can just get a friend to send you a few messages.

Garmin told me this ridiculous behaviour is intended - but I see no reason why other than it not being tested correctly - why would anyone want to know about same same oldest message every time a notification comes in? Again, I've used 5 different smart watch brands and none of them operate in this backwards way.

Thanks in advanced!

  • 0 over 3 years ago

    It appears to be like any of the Garmin watches I've owned.  The messages are "stacked" as you describe.  I've usually dismiss the message by hitting the Start'/GPS button to clear out the message thread.

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to Dan.Boilermaker

    Hey, thanks for replying I see you got the new Instinct, nice one.

    This is quite hard to describe, I'm not sure if you mean the stack of different notifications, like Gmail, banking apps etc if so yeah that works perfectly. If you didn't mean that then I apologise. 

    I'm trying to think of the easiest way to describe my issue. It takes seconds to describe to anyone in person but tricky by text.

    Basically if you have an Android phone (not sure if iOS has same issue) get a friend to message you in FB messenger or telegram or by SMS - it probably happens on WhatsApp etc too. They must message you a few times. Then whenever they send a new message the instinct will only show you their oldest message for every new message that "pops up" on your instinct. It also does it in group chats. It will continue to do this until you go on your phone and mark it as read. Then the whole process happens again after a couple more messages. 

    This means you have to rely on getting your phone out to mark messages as read for your watch to display new messages as they come in defeating the whole point of at a glance notifications on a smart watch.

    I can't see any reason at all why anyone would want this. I hope it's fixed in the Instinct 2. Apart from some random battery issues on the last Instinct Solar this was one of my biggest issues with it.

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to LaurenceGough

    So, I'll describe just what I'm seeing with group SMS also on Android.  Just got a slew of responses to a group text.  Each text is displayed on sequence with the contact name in the header to show where each individual's text starts.  The whole thread is maintained if pulled up from the notification widget until the text is cleared via my phone or the watch by selecting the GPS button and selecting dismiss.  Then it starts all over again with the next set of texts.  This seems no different than any other Garmin I've had. (Instinct 1, Instinct 1 Solar, FR945, f6, f7).

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to Dan.Boilermaker

    Thanks. So that means still you cannot see the latest message on your watch without going into each notification with a button press (no one handed viewing) and scrolling down to actually get to the latest message? Which of course can be a pain especially if there are many unread ones - again which you can't mark as read until you go to your actual phone.

    The "popup" notification display/preview shows the oldest message still right (if there are unread messages)?

    I know it sounds minor but when you have your hands full or dirty it means it's impossible to view what is actually being sent to you, aside from being a pain for every message that comes through...

    I've still got no idea why it was ever put in place like this. I wonder if the Garmin team ever used other smart watch brands.

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to LaurenceGough
    LaurenceGough said:
    The "popup" notification display/preview shows the oldest message still right (if there are unread messages)?

    Yes.

    LaurenceGough said:
    can't mark as read until you go to your actual phone.

    You can clear the message thread from the watch while viewing the text by selecting the GPS button then selecting Dismiss from the menu also.

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to Dan.Boilermaker

    Thank you for your help.

    Seems the issue is still present, well I cannot think of any reason anyone would want it to work this way rather than always being shown the latest message coming in.

    I cannot think of any reason why someone would want to receive a notification of an incoming new message but instead of that message you get to see the oldest message instead.

    This is especially true when you are carrying something or otherwise only got one hand free.

    I just can't get my head around that and the fact that Garmin thought that that's a good idea. Seriously, a £20 fitness band can always show you a new message when it comes in.

    Think I will pass on this watch for now until it's fixed or on a massive sale.

  • 0 over 3 years ago

    Hi Luke sorry for the direct tag, I see you are a Garmin team member in this forum, any ideas if this could be resolved in the future? Thank you

  • 0 over 3 years ago

    I would like to add to this thread: it's borderline unusable in its current state and once in a while it annoys me enough to disable it. Few weeks pass, I enable and then inevitably disable again…

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to Kamil

    Yes, it does drive me mad too and I thought with the Instinct 2 they'd fix it. I did speak to Garmin and also suggested it quite a few months ago via the proper channels.

    Yes, it's a sports watch but also a smart watch, notification display is a prime part of that. It's not a cheap watch by any means. If they want to charge higher than nearly every other smart watch going then it needs to do the basics at least right.

  • 0 over 1 year ago

    Bumping, is this still an issue? I'd like to buy a Garmin but not if this is still the stupid "design" of it. Thanks.