Reliability of this watch?

1. I actually use .FIT files from plotaroute.com as described in the post here forums.garmin.com/.../distance-to-next-waypoint .this enables correct navigation to multiple waypoints that I was never able to figure out using Garmin connect. Milage about 15miles, but lots of waypoints and elevation changes over mountains. 

Had the watch since August. Replaced my vivosmart hr+. No issues with it at all. 

Good battery (even without Solar given office worker and British winter) and accurate activity tracking. Haven't had the bugs others have, only irregular body battery/stress readings. Seeing as that's subjective it might just be that I don't listen to my body enough!

As a quick follow-up to this thread, my Instinct Solar arrived today. I've just set it up and all's looking good so far. The only slight weirdness is that the battery gauge seemed to jump from 89% straight to 100% after about 20 minutes of charging, although I'm sure that's just the watch settling down on its first charge. I'm on firmware 10.00 and have turned off auto-update. Cheers for all the replies - I'll be back if anything goes wrong! :p

Thanks, very interesting. I don't use saved routes in this way so it isn't a use case that's likely to affect me.

I am a 20+ years Garmin customer. I have my Instinct Solar for the last 6 months or so, I've had zero issues, it's a reliable and a very versatile strong watch. Strongli recommended..

No sorry, my post was a little confusing. You can't pair the whoop with the Solar Instinct. Rather, I was pointing out that optical sensors such as those found on the Apple Watch, Garmin, and Whoop tend to be less accurate during activites with crazy arm movements. However, the Garmin's ability to connect to the chest strap takes care of that.

Hi,

It depends what sports do you do and what do you do with it. If your interactivity with a watch has only start/stop activity and sync, most probably you will not see any of mentioned issues. And of course if your solar version is the first buy and you have no experience with old one instinct.

The most annoying is that some issues like crash by navigation was resolved in old instinct and came on solar up. So I wouldn't say that it's a progression in the solar version.

on old instinct: forums.garmin.com/.../critical-bug-navigation-restart-watch

on solar: forums.garmin.com/.../crash-during-mountain-climbing-activity-with-navigation

And crash during swimming activity: https://forums.garmin.com/outdoor-recreation/outdoor-recreation/f/instinct-solar/244157/crash-during-swimming-pool-activity-on-pressing-rest-button-manually

And you're right even if you see on forum mostly problems of the watch it's a good indicator in comparison to old instinct how many bugs there are. My old instinct had no any issues before I changed to solar version but the way to that was long of course with a lot of updates. I gives hope that by solar it will be fixed also. But it's not normal that company sells one device with so many bugs which is more expensive than old one with bugfixes and then in years fixes it's bugs. What means that company saves on testing and lets users do this.

Best Regards,

Mihail

Ok, yeah I’d agree. For any activity that needs to be accurately recorded for training peaks it’s paired with a garmin hrm tri. Whoop is always on my bicep 24/7 as I find it’s useless on the wrist, as with all whr, unless you just want to record a walk or your resting hr

Its was great until it keeps shutting off on its own or any activity.  Its around 4 plus years and it is proving to be unreliable even after I got it repaired by garmin support.  I would avoid INSTINCT SOLAR