Instinct 3 - Recent Threads

Instinct 3 Solar activity Nautical Distance is "usual" distance

3igen3ggy — Tue, 31 Mar 2026 14:22:43 GMT

Hello,

Garmin 3 Solar Tactical 50mm, newest soft.

Nautical distance in activity show distance in kilometers (for me) instead of nautical miles. Please fix.

Also can you fix this?
Instinct 3 - System.getSystemStats().battery

Thanks

Regarding the screw specifications on the dial of the Instinct 3 Tactical Edition.

3723268 — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 18:12:01 GMT

The screw is worn out and needs to be replaced, but I don't know the model. I only know that it can be unscrewed with a T7 screwdriver.

Backlight not timing out - firmware issue or hardware defect?

2516514 — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 17:30:18 GMT

Hey,

I mentioned an issue I had with my Instinct 3 Solar in another thread yesterday:

Feature Request: Setting for triggering high refresh mode

---

What was it about? My watch did not turn off the backlight, even though I have the timeout set for all 3 profiles (during activity, general use, sleep mode).

Today it happened the second time: but this time not after a nap (where I might have pressed against the watch buttons), but at work.

And before anyone asks, no, I do not sleep at work 😜

Just as the last time I kept my wrist still and looked at the watch for 30s or more -> it went back to low refresh mode (not showing seconds), but the backlight was kept on.

Once I pressed the button for the backlight, the behavior went back to normal (meaning it times out after 8s according to my setting).

---

In order to have a bit more concrete evidence, I installed a watch battery app, in order to have a visual representation of my statements.

You will find 4 attached screenshots from my I3 Solar:

G3QE4307.BMP -> this is the battery graph of the last 6h, just after I noticed the issue... I would say the drop of 15% happened in the last 3h of that graph.

G3QE4629.BMP -> this is the battery percentage over the last 3 days... you can observe a daily drop of around 3.5%, which is more than acceptable.

G3QE5122.BMP -> the same thing as the previous image, but for the last 7 days (only have the app running for 4 days)... around the same daily consumption.

G3QH0456.BMP -> the battery graph over the last 6h, which I took a few hours after I fixed the issue by pressing the button again... usage went back to normal

---

I am rather unhappy with that situation as you might imagine - I really love that watch, but dropping 15% in around 3h is insane, just because the backlight is not turning off.

Before you ask: no, it is not possible that I accidentally changed the setting for the backlight to not time out (most of all since I describe it going back to normal behavior, once I press it manually).

Right now I am not sure if this is a firmware issue (I have read of other people having such situations with other watches), or if this is a hardware defect - I was not able to forcefully reproduce it at will, even when playing around with the button with evil intent (for example ever so slightly pushing the light button, but trying to avoid pushing it all the way in) .

Any ideas? I would like to avoid going for a warranty claim, if this really is a firmware issue, since nothing will change (besides losing out on a screen protector that is already on it).

Best regards.

Instinct 3 for running (from FR965) — real-world feedback?

Piotr — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 14:37:09 GMT

Hi everyone,

I’m currently using a Garmin Forerunner 965, but I’m pretty sure my unit is starting to fail (GPS multi band accuracy and barometer seem off/broken), so I’m considering replacing it.

I’ve been looking quite seriously at the Garmin Instinct 3 (45mm), and I’d love to get some real-world feedback from people who actually run with it regularly.

A bit about my usage:

* I run ~4–5 times per week (mostly in open environments, not dense urban canyons)
* I follow structured workouts via Runna, but I mostly know my sessions by heart
* During runs I mainly rely on:

* lap average pace
* HR zones
* cadence

* I don’t really care about advanced metrics anymore (GCT, readiness, etc.)
* I almost never use maps

So my questions:

1. How is GPS accuracy on the Instinct 3 (multiband)?
Especially for pace and distance consistency in real-world running

2. How usable is it for structured workouts?
Not looking for fancy visuals — just clear guidance and reliable alerts.

3. How does it feel coming from a Forerunner?
Do you miss the “polish”, or does the simplicity actually feel better?

4. Any annoyances after a few weeks of use?
(UI, data screens, buttons, pace feedback, etc.)

5. Would you recommend switching from an FR965 to Instinct 3 given my usage?

I’m basically trying to understand if I’m making a smart simplification… or if I’ll regret losing the Forerunner experience.

Thanks a lot for your feedback 🙏

Solar battery life when used in battery saver mode - how much sun is enough?

marratj — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 08:46:20 GMT

Garmin states "Unlimited" battery life with Solar in smartwatch mode and battery saver mode for the Instinct 3 Solar.

My question is: Does anyone has real-life experiences on how much light actually is enough to keep the watch running "indefinitely" in battery saver mode?

The "smart" Casio G-Shock DW-H5600 can be powered for many weeks/months even with 500 Lux indoor lighting and 10.000 Lux near a window is more than enough when only the basic timekeeping/watch functions are used.

Does the I3 Solar even register such low light intensity? Or is real outside sun exposure with 50k Lux really required to keep the watch running for more than a month or two even in battery saver mode?

Persistent inaccurate moving time

6676377 — Mon, 23 Mar 2026 23:57:20 GMT

Instinct 3 solar 55m. Moving time is always off by at least 15 minutes while hiking on steep terrain. For instance, today I did a 4.51 mile out and back hike with 2,125 foot total ascent. Almost all the ascent is over the first 2.25 miles. My actual moving time was 2h16m. However, the watch recorded a moving of 1h38m. Hiking activity selected. All + multi band enabled, 3d speed enabled, 3d distance enabled. Auto pause off. Battery saver off. Same occurs when hiking with a map imported from All Trails. Route guidance is accurate. Heart rate and steps appear accurate. Any ideas? Does incorrect moving time affect the other metrics such as calorie burn, training effect, intensity minutes, etc? Thx.

Bodyweight squats: the rep counter works at first but then stops.

Instinct N — Sat, 21 Mar 2026 14:34:48 GMT

I am using the Instinct 3 Solar.
When doing bodyweight squats, the rep counter works at first but then stops.

It automatically counts reps correctly up to around 10–20. After that, no matter how many more squats I do, the count does not increase.
This has been happening for the past 8 months, and I expected it to be fixed through an update, but it still persists.

When I finish one set and start a second set, it again counts properly up to 10–20 reps. However, after that, no matter how many squats I do, the count does not go up.
My breathing and exercise speed are consistent. Also, this issue did not occur on my Instinct 2.

Feature Request: Setting for triggering high refresh mode

2516514 — Fri, 20 Mar 2026 23:08:27 GMT

Hey,

I have got myself an Instinct 3 Solar and I noticed that my battery was unexpectedly draining a lot during the night on 2 or 3 occasions now (I have the watch for around 3 weeks).

This caused me to dig deeper into how to optimize my watch to be as frugal as possible, in order to conserve battery.

What I noticed is, that the high refresh state of the smartwatch triggers way to easily, by detecting motion with it's accelerometers I assume.

It would be a huge benefit for me (and I assume others as well) to have a setting, where I can slide sensitivity for that, or outright disable it, so it stays in the low refresh state (display update every minute) until I press a button for example.

Right now there is only a setting for the backlight, in order to react to gestures during general use, activities or sleep - turning off those gestures does not work for preventing the watch to switch to high refresh mode.

I will also post this as an idea - maybe someone else has additional thoughts or other solutions.

Best regards.

Optical heart rate while wearing paired chest strap

Abe Frohman — Sun, 15 Mar 2026 19:21:15 GMT

With my old Instinct Solar (Gen1), during an activity while wearing a paired chest strap for HR, the optical heart rate (green lights) would not operate. Heart rate from the strap shows on the watch.

With the new Instinct 3 tactical solar, in the same scenario, the optical heart rate (green lights) DOES operate.

Is this normal?

instinct 3 solar

7705412 — Sun, 15 Mar 2026 18:55:31 GMT

In "activities/fishing" mode, you cannot see weather data on the map

Instinct 3 Amoled: turn end of unit beep to vibration

2844073 — Sat, 14 Mar 2026 19:37:29 GMT

During a training the clock beeps five times before the end of each unit.
I can only enable or disable beeps. When disabled I get one long vibration at the end of each unit.
On my Forerunner 255 I got five short vibrations and one long at the end of each unit.
How can I have this behavior on my Instinct 3 Amoled too?
Thanks for any tips!

Instinct 3 stuck at v5.21 and "Restarting..." after updates

1203281 — Sat, 14 Mar 2026 09:05:39 GMT

I've seen similar issues to this on the forums, but I tried everything suggested and I'm still stuck.

This started about a week ago, the watch prompted me to install an update and I accepted. It then installed, but got stuck on "Restarting...". After a manual restart it started up and gave a message indicating update has been successful.

I've since realized it was not, because the next day the exact same things happened and since then it does the same thing every day going through this cycle:

Message indicating to install update to v5.23
Accept (or defer and then it just does it later anyway)
Stuck on "Restarting"
Manual restart
Succesfully updated to v5.21

I have now also tried the following (I'm on Mac):

Installed OpenMTP and used this to clear storage. Managed to get free storage up from ~13MB when I started to ~36MB
Tried to update via Garmin express. This goes through a process and eventually says "You're up to date!" but the version is still shown as 5.21 (screenshot below)
When I unplug the watch from the computer it then says v13.29 available with an option to install.
If I install, it just gets stuck at "Restarting..." again.
If I choose install later and go through the manual steps again (quit garmin express, connect watch again via USD, clear files in OpenMTP, quit OpenMTP and try to update via Garmin Express) I just end up in exactly the same place.

Does anybody have any advice on how to escape this loop?

Crash when entering Interval in Run activity

8462188 — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 17:24:07 GMT

Hello,
My Instinct 3 crashes when entering into Intervals in Run activity. As in the other post on this forum about it, the solution was to update garmin to 13.29, but after updating and restarting problem still persist.

Rucking activity and Instinct 3

asines316 — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 12:01:11 GMT

I'm trying to register a reading of Vo2 max with my Garmin Instinct 3 by "rucking". I've come across conflicting info in previous searches.

The "rucking" activity in Garmin Connect is supposedly able to measure Vo2 max, but I haven't figured out how to make that happen yet. I've had many "rucks" this spring that had my HR at 70% or above for extended periods of time (15 min or more), but no readings.

I read elsewhere that a pack weight of anything over 5 lbs disables the Vo2 max measurement for the rucking activity. That seems awfully stupid to me, because rucking usually involves more than 5 lbs. My normal rucking setup uses a pack that weighs 45-50 lbs....sometimes more.

Just yesterday I had a LONG ruck where I set the pack weight to 1 lb.....still no Vo2 max reading. My HR was over 70% for almost 25 minutes straight (using chest strap).

So.....any help?

Daylight Savings Bug

7929263 — Sun, 08 Mar 2026 15:04:47 GMT

I woke up today at 9am. My garmin displayed 10am until I synced it to the connect app then it showed the correct time. If daylight savings didn’t happen the time would’ve been 8am. What happened?

Instinct 3 Solar/AMOLED/Crossover System Software 13.29

Garmin-Jim — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 16:18:43 GMT

Hello Instinct 3 users,

We have fully release software version 13.29 to 100%.

13.29 Change Log (since 13.28, current Public release):

Fixed possible crash when using Interval Workouts.

Instinct 3 AMOLED screen bright issue

i.gogolin — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 10:14:57 GMT

Hello dear Garmin
I noticed that the brightness for the display with the "Always On" feature only works when pressing the "ctrl" button or using the "wrist gesture" command. Then the screen lights up brighter than in standby mode when I do nothing whith my hand. However, if I don't want to enable "wrist gesture," the screen brightness is too low to read information in sunlight, and it cannot be adjusted manually or automatically. What I mean is, if I need to look at the screen in direct sunlight right now, am I forced to either press a button or enable the "wrist gesture" function and twist my wrist? I noticed that the "Always On" display mode has some automatic brightness adjustment (if you cover the watch with your hand, the screen brightness decreases — which is great), but it only works in one direction — toward reducing the backlight. However, when the watch is in direct sunlight, the brightness reaches a certain level and does not adjust further.
Waiting for your answer. Hope, it is a bug and it can be fixed soon

thank you!

Feature Request: Bike Park / Lift-Assisted MTB Activity

djantoine — Fri, 06 Mar 2026 09:26:38 GMT

Many MTB riders use Garmin watches in bike parks with chairlifts or gondolas.

Currently there is no dedicated activity for lift-assisted downhill riding on Garmin watches like the Instinct series.

A dedicated Bike Park activity could:
- automatically detect lift rides vs downhill runs
- count the number of runs
- track total vertical descent
- separate runs like the Alpine Ski activity

Garmin already has downhill MTB features on Edge devices (Flow, Grit, jump detection), so adding a Bike Park activity to watches would be extremely useful for MTB riders.

Many users currently use the Alpine Ski mode as a workaround.

It would be great to have a native Bike Park / Downhill MTB activity.

Thank you!

Add Georgian (Mkhedruli) Unicode support to Garmin watches

4513294 — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 16:10:19 GMT

Hello Garmin team,

I am a Garmin Instinct 3 user and I would like to request support for the Georgian alphabet (Mkhedruli) in Garmin watches.

Currently, when I receive notifications in Georgian, the text appears as question marks or empty boxes because the Georgian characters are not included in the system font.

Example:

Instead of:

გამარჯობა

The watch shows:

???????

Many Georgian users use Garmin devices, especially models like Instinct, Fenix, and Venu, but we cannot read messages or notifications in our native language.

Adding Georgian Unicode support would greatly improve usability for users from Georgia and Georgian speakers around the world.

Technically, this would likely require adding the Georgian Mkhedruli glyph set to the firmware font pack.

Thank you for considering this feature request.

Best regards

A Garmin user from the Georgian community

Bug at Running mode

9423922 — Tue, 03 Mar 2026 06:37:18 GMT

Hi there,

When I started to practice on my Run mode, during my run the screen get to restart mode, it happened a few times at one station.

Instinct 3 - 45mm, Solar
Ver. 13.28

In the picture you can see that 11 times the clock get to restart mode.

Instinct 3 - System.getSystemStats().battery

3igen3ggy — Mon, 02 Mar 2026 20:38:55 GMT

Hello,

let's suppose I have battery state = 96.2%. This is what watch return within my app:

Instinct 3 Solar 50mm - 96.969696% (it used to be 96.00000%)

Instinct 2X - 96.200000%

For 42.8% would be:

Instinct 3 Solar 50mm - 42.4242% (it used to be 42.00000%)

Instinct 2X - 42.800000%

Please update Instinct 3 to be in line with previous watches.

Thanks

Instinct 3 Tactical battery question.

grinch_actual — Sun, 01 Mar 2026 13:06:15 GMT

This may seem like a weird question, but I just got a Tactical on Friday and after charging it to 100%, it has not gone at all. Still reporting 100%. Software is updated to current version. Is my Garmin running on cold fusion or is there a glitch? I did a soft reset. Appreciate any help with this.

Sleep Mode Turn Off Key Tones

lexington476 — Sat, 28 Feb 2026 12:44:25 GMT

On the Instinct 3 50mm Amoled. Is there a way to turn off the key tones in sleep mode? Do not Do Not Disturb in sleep mode does not turn off the key tones like on my older Instinct 2. On the 3 the key tones are either all on or all off. I am running running the latest latest firmware.

Interval training and black screen

1029887 — Sat, 28 Feb 2026 12:10:49 GMT

Hello, I can’t do interval training while running. I immediately get a black screen and then the Garmin logo appears. Does anyone know how I can fix this? I have turned the device off and on again and restarted it, but this didn’t work. The watch is about three months old. Thanks in advance!

Garmin watch crash

9826573 — Fri, 27 Feb 2026 18:59:04 GMT

My Garmin Instinct 3 Oled, started to restart itself the last week or so and now it has completely shut down and I can't factory or normal reset it. When plugged into charge mode it does not wake up only Show blue triangle with light flashing.

When I plug it into the computer it does not pick the watch up and again show the triangle and the flashing light.

How can this be resolved?