Price: $399.99 - $299.99
(as of Dec 09, 2024 20:54:13 UTC - Details)

Whatever you do, own it with Instinct® 2 Solar. This rugged GPS smartwatch is tough enough to keep up with you and unique enough to fit your style. Plus, solar charging gives you unlimited battery life in smartwatch mode (assuming all-day wear with 3 hours per day outside in 50,000 lux conditions) so you can take on life’s unlimited possibilities. Do more of what you love with preloaded activity profiles for running, biking, swimming, strength training and more. When paired with a compatible smartphone, you even can stay connected to what matters to you with smart notifications, Garmin Pay™ and Connect IQ™ compatibility. Understand your body better with all-day health monitoring for energy levels, stress, sleep, Pulse Ox and much more (Pulse Ox not available in all countries. This device is intended to give an estimation of your activity and metrics; it is not a medical device).
Go longer than ever with solar charging that gives you unlimited battery life in smartwatch mode (assuming all-day wear with 3 hours per day outside in 50,000 lux conditions)
Battery life: in smartwatch mode, unlimited with solar charging in 3 hours of direct sunlight (50,000 lux) per day; in GPS mode, up to 48 hours with solar charging continuously in direct sunlight (50,000 lux)
Built-in sports apps to take on running, biking, swimming, strength training and more; plus, VO2 Max and other training features
Live the ultimate connected life with smart notifications and Connect IQ compatibility when paired with your compatible smartphone.
Track your adventures with the built-in 3-axis compass and barometric altimeter, plus multiple global navigation satellite systems (GPS, GLONASS and Galileo)
Understand your body better with all-day health monitoring features that track your heart rate, sleep, Pulse Ox, respiration and more (Pulse Ox not available in all countries. This device is intended to give an estimation of your activity and metrics; it is not a medical device)
Extend your battery life and your time doing what you love using the power manager to see how settings and sensors impact your watch’s battery life and make changes on the fly
Rugged GPS smartwatch is water-rated to 100 meters and thermal- and shock resistant with fiber-reinforced polymer case and scratch-resistant Corning Gorilla glass
Reviewer: Jollyroger Hobbies
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: I love this watch!
Review: So I come from wearing a Casio Solar Atomic (not smartwatch) for over 7 years. At the time of this review I have been wearing the Garmin Instinct 2 Solar (45mm) watch for 11 months. The Casio was a true solar watch and I never replaced the battery, not once in 7 years and when I gave it to a friend after I moved to this watch it still showed full battery. HOWEVER that was NOT a smart watch. There is a point to me bringing that up and it has to do with a previous reviewer. But I will get to that point in a minute. Comparing the size and weight to that old watch I was quite surprised. I expected this watch to be bigger and heavier. However it was neither. This 45 mm Instinct is about the same size as the old Casio but it is much lighter. The band is silicone which is very flexible and comfortable while still being strong. It has two excess band holders which I thoroughly love! Now I have worn a watch since I was about 6 or 7 and could tell time. I am 43 now so you do the math. It all that time my biggest pet peeve about watches is that excess band sticking out and catching on EVERYTHING! The band would come out of those old holders or it would catch on something. it was just a fact of life. Enter Garmin, they give you two excess band holders. one old style slip and slide that you can slide into any position and one on the end that is same type but adds a notch that fits into the excess band and locks it in place! No more catching it anything! OMG I can't get over such a simple and wonderful feature!!!! Now for the watch itself. Lets talk battery/solar and then we will get to features. So the face of this watch is a Solar panel. the outer ring takes in 85% of the solar light while the center watch face itself takes in 15%. The battery has a great capacity compared to other smartwatches. Another reviewer stated that she owned a Casio watch exactly as I had and got this watch, now she has to charge it often and her old watch she didn't that makes this watch trash. How wrong that is. Is it possible to use the solar panel to keep the watch charged and never need to plug it in? YES! However that means shutting off every feature that you want this watch for including smartwatch mode. If you used it EXACTLY like the Casio watch and it got the minimum amount of sun every day then yes, you could achieve an infinity battery. However you wouldn't pay this kind of money not to use it right? so lets be realistic here. I'll tell you how I use MY watch and what kind of battery life I see. I use smartwatch mode which includes receiving text messages from my phone and sending canned replies often. I also have the heartrate monitor on 24/7. However I do have the Pulse ox turned off. I had it on constant the first day I received my watch and I watched the battery go from being measured in days/weeks to hours! it said my battery would be dead in less than 24 hours so I turned that feature off! My watch goes on Sleep/do not disturb mode for bedtime each night so I don't receive texts and have it wake me. Also backlight goes to 5% at night. I also use the gps at least once a week sometimes twice for about an hour during walk/hikes. In the summertime I am outside alot and get way more sun than the wintertime so this timeline is during then. I realistically on my settings see a battery life of 26 days on a full charge. However due to gps and everyday usage I on average have to plug it in to charge it every 21 days. ( I charge it at 15% or 2 days left) Now my sister has the Instinct 2 40mm watch size and she uses hers like mine with roughly the same settings and she has to charge hers typically every 14 days. So an additional 7 days and an additional gps time is the difference between the 40mm version and the 45mm version if anyone is curious. So realistically the solar panel is a subsidiary battery charger not meant to charge the whole battery (though it can be used that way if the watch is turned off and placed in the sun all day during when you cannot charge it via power supply). the panel subsides the need for a full battery charge more often. I do believe the non-solar versions battery life are measured in hours or a few days. not the amount that this one gets. So the solar version really is worth it! I have seen in the summertime when I was in the sun alot, I have seen my watch actually charge an extra day or two. Watchface: Now this watch comes with some chooseable watch faces. However by using a separate program, you can build your very own watchface from the ground up! I love it. I have everything that I want to see at a glance on my watch face. The the rest accessible by sub menus. Gps is very accurate and tracks everything well. No complaints here. Now I could go into detail about every feature and be here for another 10 pages but I do believe I have hit the most questions asked and the high points of this watch. If you are doing research on this watch then you already know about all the features it has.In conclusion this watch is now my favorite. it is very comfortable to wear, very usable and just plain wonderful. I have no idea how I have lived life without it. Sad thing is, I now can NEVER go back to a plain old watch like my old Casio.

Reviewer: A Reader
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: From a smartwatch-reluctant watch collector
Review: I don't write a lot of reviews, but I thought I'd chime in about this. (Just a regular old customer here--no connection to Garmin or Amazon.) My point of view might be uncommon for Garmin owners: I actually don't think of myself as a Smartwatch guy and have actually turned down free Apple Watches (as holiday gifts) on two occasions. No interest in texting on my wrist. I'm a "watch guy" in the more traditional sense--a big fan of mid-tier to high-end mechanical watches. But I wanted one techy watch for when I bike and work out and for a long backcountry hike where GPS was going to be necessary. I've owned this watch for a couple months now and have put it through its paces: swimming (it's highly water-resistant), biking, lifting, and (as mentioned) in the wilderness. It hasn't disappointed.Set up is easy and intuitive: if you can handle using an iPhone, you should have no problem making your way through the process. Downloading the smartphone app on your device and syncing it is worth the trouble, in my opinion. Among other things, it will allow you to keep on top of software updates, control your music while working out (without having to touch your phone), and get whatever alerts (like texts or Ring notifications) you might want to opt into. I have it set up so that the Garmin app only seeks out my watch when I open the app---don't want this thing constantly searching and draining my phone battery when I'm not even wearing the watch.I do still fumble through the different buttons trying to remember what does what, but it is getting better. I usually only wear this for a few hours at a time a few days a week; if I wore it more regularly, I'm sure I would be far more fluent by now. And the good news is, you really can't mess anything up by pressing the wrong button.There's tons of customization that you can do (during setup or just whenever) to rearrange the main screen, add or remove activities and options, etc. For an entry-level smartwatch, it's impressively featured!Battery life is utterly insane. I charged it before a 10-hour hike where the GPS was going the entire time--that was in early May. Since then I've worn it several times for many collective hours, sometimes in GPS mode, sometimes not, and I only had to charge it again today--in mid June. Granted, I power it down whenever I'm not using it, but still, you get a lot of time out of a single charge. I have the solar version, and I suppose that extends the battery life in a limited way---can't say I've tested that or noticed strong evidence of it, but I'll take Garmin's word for it.The GPS tracking feature works very well once you get it dialed in to your preferences, which isn't tricky to do. If you get lost, you can flip to the screen where your track is: it's just a squiggly line on the screen---there's no map background on this plain-Jane, smaller, black and white display---but with pretty minimal brainpower, you can use it to retrace your steps, no problem. No chance of getting lost with this thing on, as long as you've got a signal---and I've never had any trouble acquiring one. Beyond that, just having it on your wrist as a trip computer, tracking how long you've been at it, how many miles you've covered, your elevation, etc, is really nice. It allowed me to provide very specific answers every time my kid asked "how many more miles do we have to go?" Note, though, that you'll need to activate the GPS mode when you start your hike (or ride or whatever). And you'll want to shut if off when you're done in order to extend the battery life.Nice to have the heart-rate and pulse oximeter features. Also reassuring to have the "incident reporting" feature, or whatever it's called. Thankfully haven't had to use it, but I've read positive customer reviews from folks who have. It's a comfort to know that my wife will get an instant alert on her phone if I crash my bike, for example. And I believe the alert will include my exact location.As for the watchy-watch stuff: this thing is very well built. It feels robust, but is as light as a feather. I mean, you can really forget you have it on, especially if you're accustomed to wearing a luxury sports watch that weighs more than 100g. I haven't tried swapping out the rubber strap, but I see no reason why you couldn't put it on a NATO or something if you wanted to. The integrated strap itself feels like it's good quality, though I imagine it will eventually need to be replaced after a few years of putting it on and taking it off.The overall look is very rugged and "tactical." At least with the black model, there's nothing refined or luxurious about it at all.The main thing I want to say about it as a watch per se is that the size is perfect, at least for me. A lot of these smartwatches nowadays are enormous: 45mm and super-thick. To me they look absurd. This one is about 40mm, which is by no means small, but it's sensible and while definitely "sized" for a man, could work well as an oversized unisex option. Point is, when I'm wearing it, it just feels like a normal watch, proportioned like several of my other, mechanical watches---not like a giant wrist computer. It calls no attention to itself. The screen isn't tiny or anything: the display is plenty readable. It's not touchscreen, it's not full color, you can't watch videos on it---if you want all of that, look at a different model. This is one of those "everything you need, nothing you don't" items. (Though, again, it has a pretty surprising array and number of features---most of which I've never used.)Big fan.

Reviewer: Winston Mullet
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Easy to use, great features!
Review: Love the features. The heart rate calculator isn’t as responsive or accurate as I’d like it to be, like if I walk up a flight of stairs it doesn’t update my heart rate immediately. But it’s responsive enough for most fitness uses.Can also be used to connect to other devices (like Peloton or Echelon) to monitor Heart Rate with the “Broadcast Heart Rate” feature, which is awesome!Scrolling through menus is easy with a little practice, and the button shortcuts are highly customizable (single press, press and hold, and combination presses to quickly access different menus, and you can change any of them as desired).Phone alerts show up nicely and are easy to read. Watch faces have many built in options, and all areas can be customized. There are only a couple locations that will display certain values, like heart rate, seconds, and sunrise/sunset… which is a little bit of a bummer if you want them all to show on your main display. But you can only fit so much on a watch face so, I can’t really complain, especially since this is still the MOST customizable watch face ever.Battery life is the best for any smart watch I’ve ever had, I go weeks without charging it even in the Winter where the Solar recharge doesn’t help as much.Overall very pleased, great smart watch.

Reviewer: Mikey
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: This watch is amazing. I'm very happy with the build quality and features. I've been using G-shocks for years at work and this Garmin met every expectation and more. I wanted a smart watch again, but wasn't willing to give up rugged reliability. I really like having the health and sleep tracking feature and Garmin does not try to force you to pay a subscription to get this data that the watch collects. Every other manufacturer extorts a subscription fee to get the data they take from you anyway. You can tell Garmin puts careful thought into the design, it's very comfortable and functional.

Reviewer: Tarcisio Costa
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Perfect product. It seems quite resistant, and it has all features from garmin! Nice on the woods and trails! But the battery life is not that all. If you do long exercises every day and use all the features, it going to rest 10 to 12 days max or less. Not more than 15 days for sure.And not enough memory to run the tools inside, so it takes too long to post it on the connect app. But not a big deal in my opinion.The Overall is 5 stars!

Reviewer: Joe Kunt
Rating: 3.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: I like my old Garmin Forerunner better than this watch. Forerunner has bigger numbers on the display and is easier to use.

Reviewer: Cassie
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: After going back and forth from apple to fitbit, I decided to give this watch a try. The battery life is exactly as advertised and there’s lots of cool features for workouts and activities. I have zero complaints about the connectivity to my iPhone, as my watch notifications go off at the same time as my phone. I would definitely recommend this watch!

Reviewer: Miguel A. Vergara
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Lo compré porque estaba harto de la batería del Apple Watch, y honestamente las funciones que me importaban eran de fitness.Este reloj es más preciso trackeando cualquier tema de fitness, tiene más deportes, la batería dura eternamente y lo mejor de todo es que es lo robusto que es.Cons: el vidrio se ensucia fácilmente, yo le compré un protector y siento que quedó mucho mejor que el de fábrica.Lo único que me gustaría adicional es que tuviera un cambio de correas.