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Compass sensor affected by the springbars

5288316
over 3 years ago

Recently bought a INSTINCT 2 SOLAR and I'm having an issue with the Compass sensor. I noticed that if I remove the original strap, and I leave the springbars on (in order to use a Quick fit strap), the Compass sensor is affected by the rotation of the bottom springbar. I have to repeat the calibration process every time I accidentaly rotate the springbar (and considering it is very loose it's very easy to happen).

It's so frustating and I'm wondering if this is a common problem. I bought the watch on Amazon and it is already been replaced 2 times, always with the same problem.

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to rentagreement

    For my instinct 2 solar everything still seems to work fine after receiving a new set of pins from Garmin.

     Again, not sure if they've changed the material (would have been the cheapest solution I guess). Or that it had no time to get magnetised yet.

    I'm wearing it day and night and therefore there's a lot of movement on the pins and the watch strap. For about over a month now.

    At least replacing the pins with non-magnetic pins does the trick.

  • 0 over 2 years ago

    Out of curiosity I tried some more Instinct 2 watches next to my Venu2. The Instincts compass was going nuts most of the time despite making sure to wear the watch properly and having it calibrated. Actually even after calibration the compass showed often very weird behaviour. 
    The Venu2 worked perfect, showed the right direction without any flickering, no need to calibrate at all. 

    It is a shame that a designated outdoor watch like the instinct 2 is in such a manner unreliable and affected by whatever in terms of compass.

    How is navigation supposed to work with such an unreliable compass?

    I returned the Instinct2 and will never look back. 

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to rentagreement

    After getting no joy out of customer support in the UK (they didn't think non-magnetic springbars would solve the problem) I obtained a set of non-magnetic springbars (316L stainless steel).  Compass has now been rock steady for 2 months without recalibration.

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to 1174869

    Seems they're not the most brightest lights there Laughing

    I got new springbars from customer support in Holland. They told me they were aware of the problem.

    And they asked me to try it.

    The springbars seemed to have a quite different "color". So maybe they changed something in the composition or the material already.

    But since then my compass seems to work correctly too.

    Also for about 2 months now.

    I'm even wondering if they're actually reading this here Laughing