Instinct Solar Surf issues

I am so with you. What frustrates me about Garmin is that there is so much good there. But then it feels, like with Nokia (remember the old Nokia?), the beancounters always win and ruin the products.

With the Instinct / Solar, memory seems like the limiting factor for everything. Tide station data can simply not be stored, because there is no space. Real-time analysed activity and sleep data, large amounts of tracks and waypoints, who needs any of that, if we can constantly sync it to and from the cloud, right?

Except - who needs a 'smartwatch' if it basically is no more than a dumb terminal to a constantly linked mobile phone? Apart from an altimeter and a pulse sensor, any modern phone can do so much more than the best smartwatch.

It all feels very much like a Garmin bubble, where everyone says, 'but hey, the influencers like it, the superficial money spending lifestyle people like it, and the I-jog-around-a-park-three-times-a-week types like it. And as Garmin are in every sporty retail store in the world, why should they care about anything else? It's all about the image and the bottom line.

That leaves you with the real outdoor types. The long distance hikers. The surfers. The adventurers. But they are ten per cent at best.

So why should they care? They stopped listening many years ago, it's so much simpler for them that way.

Update: I want to elaborate on one aspect a bit more - software quality. I don"t think Garmin software developers are per se not talented. I do, however, think that the software philosophy at Garmin leaves *a lot* to be desired. The whole thinking is like the worst version of 'Agile' software development, where basically every first public sales release is beta quality and then, after months to years, it approaches the normal release quality you would actually expect on day one.

I am not sure if the developers at Garmin think 'it's pretty cool what we get out of this tiny bit of hardware and a lot of the time it works' or rather 'I hope my supervisor continues to not really care about the details as long as he can sell this semi-trainwreck to upper management in a clever way'.

I really don't know. But I, personally, would be ashamed.

I agree here. I’ve recently purchased a Fenix 7 for mostly surf tracking and other activities of course. Because garmins surf activity is so bad I use Surf tracker 2 ( it’s really good and actually tracks you). Let me say, surf tracker 2 works great! Tracks your waves almost perfectly, count is on, for what it is it works great! However, when you safe your surf the relation between ST2 and garmins surf app…… it doesn’t recognize half the data. Surf 11 waves and save it and garmins data says six waves surfed!? It’s terrible. 
Garmin, you need to do something with your surf app, it sucks. Maybe Buy Surf Tracker 2 from the developer and use that instead, please, your going to start losing business to apple watch for this reason.

hope Somebody reads these and is listening to the customers.

I am so with you on this - I spent £300, more than I've ever spent on a watch before because of the surf features and the solar charging. I should have bought another Forerunner for half the price. 

• solar charging - might work slightly but I really can't tell
• tide data - completely inaccurate and Garmin blame the data provider. I have a 10 year old cheap Casio surf watch that has years of accurate tide data.  Finally found a workaround on this forum where specific coordinates retrieve accurate tide times but for any other location I use magicseaweed. 
• wave count - very erratic

I am so with you on this - I spent £300, more than I've ever spent on a watch before because of the surf features and the solar charging. I should have bought another Forerunner for half the price. 

• solar charging - might work slightly but I really can't tell
• tide data - completely inaccurate and Garmin blame the data provider. I have a 10 year old cheap Casio surf watch that has years of accurate tide data.  Finally found a workaround on this forum where specific coordinates retrieve accurate tide times but for any other location I use magicseaweed. 
• wave count - very erratic

Very sad to be here saying the same things 2 years after..

I have gone through 7 Garmin watches. Every time I surf the watch either dies, a button stops working or there is sudden battery drain. Garmin keeps sending new watches, but this is becoming a joke. I had used Garmin's for years and they were super reliable, apparently just not for surfing. I have no idea what the issue is, but I find it hard to believe that these are isolated incidences. They have replaced my Instinct 2 Solar surf , upgraded me to a Fenix 7 (x 2) and now they have offered me their dive watch the MK2. Top notch customer service but what happened to reliability and dependability.

In my case, the Garmin support wanted 150 euros to replace my Instinct Solar Surf with the notorious stuck button. And it was still under warranty... this is in France so maybe support here is just a bunch of bitter AHs. Anyway, I'm a watch collector and will be stopping my Garmin collection here due to poor support, death ears to commun SW and HW issues and will be telling my colleagues, family and friends to stay away from Garmin products, Ripcurl surf watch and Apple watches here I come!

Interesting, I didn't realise the stuck button was a common thing. My Instinct Solar Surf bottom left button stopped working completely. It was just under 2 years old and Amazon accepted it for repair, then lost it and gave me a full refund. I replaced it with a new Forerunner 255 which is really much better - better screen, battery life almost as good, Connect IQ support .. true there is no surf activity support, but the Instinct was pretty useless so it's not really a disadvantage.

Definitely the sudden battery drain is an issue i've just had my 4th instinct 2 solar surf die on me after 1 session