I’m a bit surprised to see a years worth of forum complaints unaddressed here. I really wish I would have saved 250 dollars by getting a normal Instinct, as all the special features are not in the least bit functional for my use case (which, unsurprisingly, is surfing). Just wanted to add to the chorus in case it helps dissuade anyone else from wasting their money on this thing.
- Tide data is unavailable whenever it’s needed. I bike or walk to the beach without my phone (because who surfs with their phone or wants to leave it on the beach?) and apparently the tide data still only works with a phone connection. Why can twenty year old freestyle quartz watches accurately display several years of tide data and this watch can’t? I’m back to using the little booklet from the local surf shop.
- Every time I surf the watch reports a half dozen waves for every one I catch. Maybe I paddle fast? I don’t know? Whatever the problem with the algorithm I get 30-40 waves reported when I generally catch 5-10.
- Surfline cam rewinds only works with iPhones and is therefore not a feature for ~80% of the population. I actually just switched to iPhone and was excited to try this feature out but then realized I had to wade through 30 false positives.
- Not much useful info on surf activity screen - a functional tide indicator and wave count would be a lot more useful than speed - when did y’all think a surfer would be interested in checking their speed in real time? While the watch is flailing around on a wrist while paddling or while on the wave itself?
- Solar charging - I guess it works, but it’s really insignificant and I can’t imagine I would end up charging my watch any more than I do now if I didn’t have this. (that being said, battery life overall is great and the one reason I’d still get a normal Instinct for hiking and cycling if I were to do it over again… however these can now be found on sale for $150 instead of $450).
Who knows, maybe if enough folks point out that these ‘features’ don’t work they’ll fix them, though I’m not holding my breath having already read through dozens of ignored complaints here.