Instinc solar surf don't count waves...

Waves cannot be measured by GPS. The vertical accuracy of GPS is in the range of tens of meters. The watch uses the built-in barometric altimeter to detect waves. But to keep it working, you'd need to keep your wrist above the surface and dry all the time. Once water enters the pressure sensor hole, it cannot measure the atmospheric pressure changes (and hence the waves). You could perhaps try keeping the watch under the wetsuit, or under a hood / swim cap, but then again, it may also hinder the correct pressure reading. In other words detecting the waves is rather challenging. Accelerometer could be perhaps used, but there are numerous challenges involved too.

But then why garmin sell a model specifically designed for surfing? And moreover, I had surf tracker on vivoactive hr and it worked... I think something is not correct, I will try again today... But think barometric must be the answer... 

Finally don't agree about barometric excuses, accelerometers and GPS velocity are the variables, and any you would require. And just let me tell any engineering something (I am Space engineer). Why do you design one functionality in a device to practice a sport INSIDE the water (surf) and have probes/sensor/hardware problems because being INSIDE the water? Has no sense my friend.

MAke a SUP/PADDLING activities to count waves, or integrate into the SUP app installed. and make them SUP and traditional surf more accurate...

Garmin please give a solution, your honour and my patience is running out...

Kni Surf said:

Finally don't agree about barometric excuses, accelerometers and GPS velocity are the variables, and any you would require.

It does not matter whether you agree or not about the barometer, the reality is that GSP cannot be used to reliably count waves, because of its very limited accuracy (vertical accuracy in the order of tens of metes), and the data from the accelerometer is uselss if you do not have the vector of the acceleration. And at instinct you do not have it, since it has no 3D gyroscope. So I am afraid the counting of the waves won't get much better at Instinct Solar Surf.

I think the main issue here is Garmin should have test the watches and get out the bugs before selling it as a "surf" watch. I have a RipCurl 2 GPS that has no problems recording only waves surfed. Yes its not a smart watch but at least the data is accurate!!

Kni Surf said:

If you are right and no 3D accelerometer (are you sure? its specification remark it has accelerometer...)

Instinct does have a 3D accelerometer. It does not have a 3D gyroscope. Accelerometer alone is wortless on a watch for detecting the acceleration in the desired direction, since its relative postion to the Earth planes permanently changes, and without the gyro, you then do not know what direction the accelerometer has detected.

... but frankly told, I know nothing about the way the waves should be counted in the Surf mode. If you want that the watch counts the number of rides, then in fact the vertical detection is not really necessary - it would be enough to detect the rides due to the higher velocity (I assume you ride the wave faster than paddling towards it). That should work with the GPS alone. If it does not, consider enabling the Every Second GPS recording (instead of the Smart Recording) in the System Settings of the watch, and enebling the option GPS+Galileo for improving the GPS accuracy, and for getting a quicker lock on the sattelites.

Ok, It was as I supposed, we use in Spanish 3D accelerometer for a Gyroscope (it is a bad habit but ...). And when I read your answer and see gyroscope I intuited the difference, and effectively, a normal accelerator just detect in the axis it can (usually 3D) any shocks... but no more.

It would be more effectively does a Gyroscope (and pay the difference) instead of consuming battery of the GPS mode, for surfing activity. Let's garmin answer to this if they want....

Surf tracker V2 on my vivoactive HR work on GPS records points and did more or less acceptable, SUP and surfing. I never though I would do a step back buying this device...All options you mentioned were activated, second track rate and galileo and GPs and trash anyway :)