Reliability of this watch?

On the user forum you will always only see posts from people having problems. Users who have no problems, mostly do not even know about the existence of the forum.

Hi! As I myself have been, and still am, holding out on buying the Instinct Solar due to the many issues being reported again and again, I would be very thankful if you could post a short update on your experience in due time. Garmin products, in my experience, have always been best around the end of their life, because software quality had matured to what you would normally expect on release. Of course, what you read on this forum always underlies selection bias, but on the other hand, many people simply don't realise what is going on, ignore mistakes, develop workarounds, let the product disappear in a drawer, or simply give it back. There are many articles and videos out there that refer to the unrealible altimeter due to its placement, to badly working surf tracking, to sometimes unreliable battery life, to multiple crashes while tracking, to buttons not clicking like they used to, to wonky bluetooth pairing, and to the ongoing frustration of getting the Explore app to work offline for synching of tracks and waypoints (hint: it barely ever does, apparently).

I'm an owner. Had it since August. This is actually my second Garmin watch (VA3 was my first). I've had absolutely no issues with this watch. The battery life is incredible. I typically go about 21 days without charging and that's with very little sun.

I've used it for runs, bike rides, hikes, and my daily rowing (inside the home). I pair it with the Garmin heart rate strap when I row as optical sensors (AW, Garmin, Whoop) all get a little less accurate with the rapid wrist motion of rowing.

When I first got the watch there was a couple of very minor bugs. Those have been addressed with frequent updates.

I've seen people post about other issues, but I've never encountered those. My watch is rock solid.

Someone else pointed out that most people here are reporting issues. That's why it seems so one sided. I personally come here to check and see if any updates are available. Garmin is great about staying on top of firmware updates.

I'd have no hesitation to buy this watch again if I lost mine for some reason.

Thanks for sharing your experience! Sounds like a cool watch after all.

Instinct Solar Tactical - great watch, the battery life is awesome ~21 days including 1 hour activities every few days. The only issues are when I put a custom navigation file on that I've generated on my computer for long technical runs (4 hour ish), the watch may crash once or twice during the run but always recovers (resets and then starts again with the activity paused, I've never lost the activity). Probably due to the amount of waypoints and icons. I have no regrets buying this watch.

Thanks, that's very helpful.

Interesting to hear about the crashing. How big are these GPX files in terms of mileage? How do you create them, and how do you deliver them to the watch (Explore? Connect?) Lots of variables!

I’ve not managed to pair a WHOOP! Strap - is it possible?

have had the regular solar for a while and have had no issues. 

Had this watch for 3 months, never any problems, just use this forum for beta software and idea's etc.