Instinct 2 solar charging - how many % battery level increase?

Hi,

If it doesn't bother you much, could you please help test again when the battery level is low (like < 20%)?

Thank you very much for your kind help.

I've discussed my increase in charge % before.  It works.  I mountain bike 20km at a clip and sometimes relax at a lake under the sun before riding back.  The percentage goes up after about 45 minutes.

I also hike avidly during the summer and generally walk around in the sun.  The overall reduction in battery percentage during tracking is very low when there is sun and when not tracking, but still exposed to light, the differential is much lower than compared to winter.  I track exercise with gnss nearly daily and I mostly go off whether I get to a week or beyond in summer before charging (I also don't charge to 100% and don't discharge all the way).  This is with PulseOx during sleep btw.

Thanks for sharing your experience...

I think the solar charging function should work, what concerns me is that - is my watch operate as expected?

Since I can't find any information from Garmin web site, that's why I'd like to know how other users' experiences are...

Could you please help notice how many % increase you have being under the sun for 30 min?

(It looks like the increase is higher, if the initial level of battery is low, like < 20%...)

Thank you very much for your kind help.

We currently don't have a lot of sun, but your question also ignores that there is clearly, in my experience, fractions ofna percent that the watch monitors, but does not display.  I can say with experience and certainty that the 30 minute test is flawed because of that.  One could be outside and go up a percentage if they're at 79.8 in a very short time.

I'm not big on forum tests - it was enough for me to see a huge increase in run time moving from the I1S to the I2S and seeing a massive increase in summer between charges with the same behaviors and now we're in winter and have much less light and I still have ok run times, though absolutely not as good as in summer.  I'm not only GPS tracking nearly daily, but also using pulse ox at night.  It was also enough to see my tracking consumption much less than I would have estimated.  There are ao many variables involved that I don't know why one would be seeking concrete numbers and such- everything from light intensity, clouds, and angle and many more over the nost obvious metric of the length of time between charges.  I can only provide the following graph of my activity hours, 99.99% is outdoor.

Hi,

1. I agree that 30 min test may not be ideal. (I usually test for an hour at least.)

2. However, with the long test that I did (4 or more hours), the percentage increase in each 15 min interval is quite consistent.

(Thus a 30 min only test looks to be ok, if the increase in both 15 min intervals are consistent.)

3. For the test, what I did was try to achieve a best case scenario, that is, use as little battery as possible (no GPS, no SpO2, no activity during the test time) and make sure to get the best charging scenario (100% or very close solar intensity, initial battery level is very low (< 20%) since Garmin said that at high level, the charge may not occur).

4. I think I can say your watch is working great. Not only you use GPS but also SpO2 at night.

I use neither, and so far, my level increase is the lowest among that data that has been shared!

5. Your case showed that solar charge works.

But what I wonder is - Does my watch solar charge perform adequately? (Having absolutely no data available from Garmin made it extremely difficult to judge...)

Thank you very much.

The test was done yesterday during 1400-1500. The initial battery level is 43%. (Previous tests were done with the initial level of battery < 20%.)

I got 100% solar intensity during this period.

Here's what the widget showed: (detail view)

Time: Battery change:
15 min +0:30%
30 min +0:60%
45 min +0:90%
60 min +1.20%

The result look similar to low battery level test (about 1.20% per hour).

Test done : 1530-1630 today

Initial battery level : 71%

Solar intensity : about 70 (range decreasing from 100 to 50, with about 70% average) 

Time:  Battery change:

15 min +3.13%

30 min +3.13%

45 min +3.13%

60 min +3.13% 

(@yeti, why did the app give same data for these 4 periods??) 

Assuming that the data reported is correct, looks like we need more test since: 

1. Charging with higher battery level (71 vs 43) should be less effective, but it didn't (3.13% vs 1.20%)?!? 

2. Charging with lower solar intensity (70 avg vs 100) should be less effective, but it didn't (3.13% vs 1.20%)?!? 

3. If anyone has time, would appreciate your help to test and share your results. 

Thank you very much!

Sorry, somehow I don't get notifications from the forum anymore.

I can only explain the 3.13% increase in a way that the battery increased by 3.13% 60min ago and then stayen on the same level (not loosing, not charging). But that would be very surprising.

BTW. did you see that with the newest version of the app one can export the data to an Cloud storage? That would make your tests simpler. It is a bit geeky, but I could not find an other way of doing it (happy to hear suggestions and feedback) github.com/.../

Maybe there's something I missed, but I think you don't consider the variation of solar intensity over the measuring range.

If your watch displays 100% it only shows it's over the range it can measure, but I'm pretty sure it still can get more power out of it if goes higher...

So it could totally happen, that for Yeti it only produced higher numbers because his watch received more solar power, even if both was shown as 100%.

You should also consider the light distorting effect of water, as it can make the intensity much lower and even if it gets a lot of light, some of it arrives after distortion in angles that are not ideal for the watch.

Those are just ideas though, it can totally happen that none of that affected the results

Hi,

I just upgraded the widget and tried to setup cloud export.

However, when I am in the graph view and press GPS button, the following message appears:

Sending and then ERROR '-2'

Thank you very much.

(PS. I just applied to swissdisk and had test uploading data there and it works fine...)