Silent Walking and Garmin Instinct Battery Modes
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Silent Walking and Garmin Instinct Battery Modes

Byrichard

It rarely happens. I rarely forget my airpods at home, and when I do I usually turn around to get them. Yesterday I didn’t turn around. I went for my walk anyway. You might think “so what?” and you’d be right to. It doesn’t change much. I usually listen to podcasts and audiobooks, rather than music. I like my walks to be intellectually stimulating, as well as physically good for me.

Running Up and Down Like a Yoyo

Normally when I forget something I run back up the stairs, sometimes two or three times. Other times I would walk home, before starting the walk again. To leave the airpods at home is unusual. Sometimes I leave them because it’s raining and I don’t want them to get soaked, but that is rare.

Airpods fit easily into pockets. They fit so easily that I blogged about carrying two pairs in winter.

Noise Pollution

when you walk alone, and you forget your airpods you’re stuck with your thoughts, and the landscape. You hear the noise pollution from the nearby motorway, sounds of construction from the locations where grass once grew, that is being tarmacced over. People say that it’s important to listen to nature but between the Léman and the Jura there are roads everywhere, as well as cars, trucks, buses and tractors. It’s hardly quiet. To walk mindfully is to notice all the noise pollution. You don’t miss out by listening to podcasts and audio books.

Mindfull Cycling

I never listen to anything when I’m cycling. The noise of the wind is too loud. I also want situational awareness. I want to hear the sound of cars or other things approaching. I want to be focused on what I’m doing.

Driving in Silence

Many years ago I would listen to music when driving, and I wouldn’t dream of driving in silence. Eventually, because I drove such short distances that I would hear ads but no songs, I stopped automatically turning on car radios. Now I can do entire drives in silence. When you drive an electric car it’s funny to drive in silence, because at a traffic light you can hear things, as if you were not in a car.

Experimenting with the Garmin Instinct Solar

My Garmin Instinct Solar is at least two years old. You know that I have more watches than I have wrists so I struggle to decide which watch to wear on a daily basis, especially when I’m unhappy with some aspect of my life. That’s beside the point. I decided to put the Garmin Instinct Solar into max battery mode which turns off phone connectivity and heart rate monitoring.

When not fully charged the battery goes from 18hrs of endurance to 39 hours of endurance. My theory is that it will use so little energy that it should charge during the daily walk, rather than discharge in this mode. In theory a watch could be strapped to the bag and last forever in this configuration, especially in summer.

By using the Garmin Instinct Solar in “ultratrac” mode you still get step count, gps track, tempe connectivity, cadence and more. You can still see that you were walking for an hour and a half in 4°c at a cadence of 111 steps per minutes for a distance 8.58 kilometres.

Walking isn’t Sporty for Sports Trackers

If you go for walks like I do, fitness trackers by Garmin, Suunto, Xiaomi, Apple and others see it as a stroll, even when you’re walking with a heart rate of 100 bpm because of your walking pace. As a result it doesn’t matter whether you’re tracking HR or not. This is liberating because it means that the sports watch that you’re using to track a walk doesn’t need to be on your wrist, tracking HR. It can be in a pocket, on your belt loop, or even strapped to your bag straps facing the sun to charge as you walk.

If you’re not worried about heart rate you can wear Casio step tracking watches instead. They’re less invasive. They track your steps, and that’s it. No HR, no sleep, no standing and more. It just tracks your steps, and that’s it. You can wear the HR capable sports tracking watch when you’re running, cycling or doing other sports where you need that functionality. The rest of the time you can wear a “normal” watch.

What it Replaces

The Garmin Etrex SE is excellent in terms of battery life and it’s easy to swap batteries but it’s big and bulky and requires a large pocket to store it. The Garmin Etrex Solar is also interesting but it costs 270 CHF and I don’t think you can swap the battery. This means that it’s fantastic for summer, when it’s nice and sunny, but mediocre in winter, especially if you’re walking for a few days in heavy rain.

In theory the Garmin Instinct Solar isn’t great in several days of rain either, but it does track steps, temperature and more. it gives you a more comprehensive data set, wit temperature, step count, and the usual data. It’s also much lighter.

And Finally

I’m fine, walking without air pods and a podcast or audiobook to keep me company. I have also slowly weaned myself off of wearing two sports tracking watches. If Garmin, Suunto and Xiaomi respected walking as they should, then wearing their watches all the time would make sense. The truth is that Vo2 Max doesn’t care about walking, so unless you’re running or cycling, you can wear whichever watch you’re motivated to wear.

By strapping a Garmin Instinct Solar to your bag, rather than your wrist, for walks, you still get altitude, temperature, step count, speed, distance and more, but rather than 20hrs of battery life you end up with 79 when the watch is fully charged, and more if the sun recharges the device as you walk.

Charging A Garmin Instinct With an External Solar Panel

Charging A Garmin Instinct With an External Solar Panel

Byrichard

Yesterday, out of curiousity I experimented. I charged both the Garmin Instinct Solar and the Garmin 45s with a solar panel. The first thing I noticed is that they were using 0.1 amps to charge, rather than 1, 2 or more amps of power. Until this experiment I had never considered how small batteries for gps watches are.

200 mah

According to a Google search the battery capacity of GPS watches is around 200mah. That’s tiny compared to the amount of power mobile phones and other devices have. This means that it’s easy to recharge the batteries on wathes like the Instinct, as long as you have a larger external panel or even a relatively low power external battery.

As I read somehwere gps trackers are designed to be efficient, low power devices, which is why they last for days, or even weeks, depending on the mode.

Easy to Charge

200 mah is easy to charge. External batteries can have over 10,000 mah and solar panels can generate 2amps or more of power, so even an overcast day you should be able to recharge a fitness tracker with relative ease.

And Finally

Some watches can last for up to a decade in between battery swaps. These can last for a week or month. The garmin instinct can cope for months, if it gets enough sunshine every day. This makes sense, when you consider how little energy these watches use.

Playing With Garmin Coach

Playing With Garmin Coach

Byrichard

Today I began playing with Garmin Coach. I decided to try one of the running programs. It’s the first of January, first day of the year, and I have already been for two walks and a run. The run was a calibration run so I ran too fast and too hard so I burned out on the first task. I ran at 16km/h and 230 steps per minute for a short burst before tiring and slowing a bit.


In the end I did not reach the 5 minute mark, but only by 45 seconds or so. With a different gradient I probably would have made the five minute mark, as well as with a more rational pace. I was tricked. I read that I was meant to do a hard run to the maximum of my ability so I tried.


When I got home I saw that it said “a moderate pace” so I think I pushed too hard for the first run. Now I feel physically tired. That’s due to the sound of fireworks for hours over the new year.



When you do a workout on the Garmin Instinct, without audio queues the watch asks “Do workout, you select yes, and it gives you the visual queues for when to warm up, run and rest. It then ends the workout but does not stop the track. This means that if you have to walk the rest of the way home, or to a car, you can, and it will be included in the workout.


That the watch displays workout information like this is practical because you don’t need to count “from 0 to 2 minutes I do this, then from 2 to 5 I do that, etc. You simply say yes to the workout and that’s enough. Next time I need to check audio queues from the watch, and another time, audio queues from the phone via earphones.


As I am just one workout in I have not formed a concrete opinion on the workout.

Solar Watches and Spain
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Solar Watches and Spain

Byrichard

One nuissance of most modern smart watches is that you must charge then once a day, once a week, or once a month. When you’re in Spain though, with a solar watch things change. At first you go from “26 days of battery remaining” to “36 days of battery remaining”, to “39 days remaining”. Before long the watch displays “infinity time remaining”. When you’re in watch the sun charges the batteries faster than normal use depletes the batteries.


If you’re counting steps with the Garmin instinct then you will not need to recharge the battery before you return north, to where the sun shines less regularly. It also helps that the weather is warm enough to keep the watch exposed to sunlight, rather than sleeve light. Sleeve light is not good for solar watches.


On the flipside today I killed the Apple Watch battery going for an 18 minute swim in 14°c water. By the time I finished the swim the battery was low and died within a minute of getting out of the water. If you’re going cold water swimming do not rely on the Apple Watch, especially not a four year old series four. You need a wet suit for the watch, to keep it from cooling too much.


With Suunto diving watches you can log plenty of dives between battery changes. Apple watch batteries are just bad. This is one very good reason not to use the Apple Watch Ultra as a dive computer. You want to trust that a battery will last for the entire dive, many dives in a row. If a dive computer has any tendency to be unreliable then I would not trust it. In cold water diving you want technology that is flawless and faultless. Suunto Dive watches are not expensive and their batteries last for years, depending on diving habits.

One Year With The Garmin Instinct Solar
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One Year With The Garmin Instinct Solar

Byrichard

I bought the Garmin Instinct Solar because I was interested to see how the Solar option works. As with most watches the solar panels take several hours to recharge the watch, even during summer heatwaves. The Solar part is great, if you’re in Spain and leave your watch to recharge in the sun while you do something else.


This leaving the watch alone for hours, as it charges, is a paradox, since other metrics cannot be tracked, rest, heart rate, steps. They’re all stagnant whilst the watch charges for several hours in the sun. Having said this, if you use the watch as a watch, and you spend the entire day in the sun, then it will fill its role fantastically. I had it tell me that it had 99 days of power, at the current rate of charge and discharge, while in Spain.


Then Comes Winter


In winter we wear long sleeves, days are shorter, and we spend more time indoors. This means the solar aspect of the watch is barely used, unless we strap it to a bag, and make sure that it is facing the sun. This isn’t a likely scenario so it’s better simply to rely on recharging it from a usb port.


It Sulks


Of course it’s a computer, so it just runs programmed but I have found, on plenty of mornings, that it doesn’t want to sync with the phone. I will tell the phone several times “refresh” but nothing. I just have to wait until it decides that it wants to converse with the phone and update the stats. This frustrates me immensely. When I am supposed to wear a watch 24 hours a day, for it to get my HR, body battery status, step count and everything else and it doesn’t bother to connect with the phone I have a problem.


Forced Loyalty


I don’t like the term addiction so I’m going to use the term forced loyalty instead. Until the Garmin Instinct watch I was very happy with Suunto devices. I’d wear them and they’d sync all the data when I got home. Then Suunto offered the option of step tracking and heart rate monitoring and I was happy with that.


Then when I got the Apple watch Apple wanted the same loyalty, and then Garmin wanted the same loyalty and at this point you have to make a decision. “Am I the type of idiot who walks with two or three watches at all times? Do I wear just one and lose interest in the step data?


In the end I dropped the Suunto, retired from active service after several years of good use. It’s because of a weaker battery that I even shopped around for new devices.


Cycling and More


For a while I wanted to get a Garmin cycling computer, and as I cycle this would make sense. The issue is that I like quite a few sports, so having a device dedicated to just one sport would be a shame. It would lie dormant when I am not cycling, for weeks, or even months at a time. I workout every day so the Garmin Instinct made sense. I chose the colour and model I did for a simple reason. It was the cheapest option.


Aside from the watch I also saw that I could get the speed and cadence sensors at an affordable price, and wireless. They were easy to install and use within minutes and have been reliable sense.


Thinks I like


  • The Sunrise and sunset view. It shows both.

  • It also shows lunar phases

  • The body battery concept is interesting but I don’t real use it.

  • The Virb remote, should you own a VIRB that you have mounted for remote use.


The Challenges


Garmin has walking, cycling, running, yoga and body building challenges every month that you can participate in. Some of these challenges are short weekend challenges. Some challenges are month long challenge, for example 300,000 steps in a month of cycling 700 kilometres, or more. Some of them are easy to reach, and some of them are more challenging. Yet more are special day events, for example Halloween or other. You can participate in as many, or as few challenges as you like each month, and it doesn’t really matter whether you succeed or fail, except for collection of badges you end up with.


Insights


One of the encouraging, or discouraging screens is the Insights screen. On this screen you can see how well or how badly you are classed depending on sport, age and gender. I am in the top 1percent for floors climbed, top 22 percent for Sleep, top eight percent for steps per day but am not classed for cycling, swimming or running, due to not doing these sports enough recently.


Battery


After one year of use of this watch I have not had issues with this battery. I think it has always lasted throughout my workouts. After a year of daily use the battery still seems fine and I can still go for several days before having to recharge. I do turn off oxygen stats though because that halves the battery life from over 27 days to just 10. The data is not that accurate, so not that interesting anyway.


As I mentioned earlier if you wear the watch and use it as a step counter, then, with the Spanish sun it will eventually display that it has 99 days of battery left, so if you want a sports tracker that you forget about for three months then this is perfect. I say three months, but in practice that’s the maximum number of hours it can display. If I remember correctly it then displayed infinity.


And Finally


Two or three times I selected the wrong sport. I chose walking when I was cycling, which was frustrating as it meant that I missed some data from the start of a ride or two, and thus an opportunity to see how big an effort I made.


As with plenty of sports watches it takes a few seconds to detect the satellites and if you’re on a phone call or distracted in some other way, then you tell it to spot satellites but you forget to tell it to start tracking and timing. Result, you do an entire walk or bike ride and you are left with a step count.


Summary


If it wasn’t for the decision it takes not to synchronise on some mornings, despite being worn 24hours a day I would love this watch, instead of really like it. If it wasn’t for that I would never have considered replacing it. With 27 days of battery in theory, after over a year of daily tracking use for one and a half hours a day, it has been great for cycling walking, cycling, and hiking. It also plays well with the Garmin speed and cadence sensors. This provides us with a cheap versatile solution for cycling, without the nuisance of a single purpose device.


Compare the old and new watches


This watch was at least 100 francs cheaper than the Apple Watch Series 4 and I never worried about breaking it, or worried about the battery being too low to finish a walk or bike ride. It doesn’t need to be charged every day, and the strap doesn’t start to smell after weeks of being worn. If you’re looking for a lower cost watch then this is a good solution.


One of the reasons I switched from Suunto despite loving their products, and that they are a European company is that they went for Android and Google wear rather than their own watch OS. Their battery life declined and the niche they were in was lost. Suunto also stopped the web interface for Movescount, so that it became mobile only. That’s a shame because I loved Movescount and Sportstracker. Garmin Connect is a nice alternative nonetheless.

Garmin Instinct Solar Run, With A Mask, And A Walk.

Garmin Instinct Solar Run, With A Mask, And A Walk.

Byrichard

I tracked the run and walk with the Garmin Instinct Solar. It is very easy to use while wearing gloves. You can stop the activity, change sport, start the activity, do the second sport, and then stop the tracking of the second sport, without taking off your gloves. Now that we’re in the cold part of Autumn this is useful. On the flipside anytime the clouds hide the sun this watch is unable to recharge itself. Despite this the battery life is still good. When fully charged it displays 27 days, but it loses around two or three days of charge per day with a tracked activity. This is still excellent. The Apple watch needs to be charged every single day. It is a watch that you can wear in the classic style of wearing a watch, i.e. keep it on for days or weeks at a time.


Today I tried running two kilometres and a walk home. In the process I found that wearing an FFP2 mask did not hinder my breathing in the least. I only ran for two kilometres because I want to keep from pushing my knees too far. I don’t like finishing a run, barely able to walk. I have made that mistake, and I will avoid making it, if I can.


Running with the mask didn’t hinder my breathing at all. I could breath in, and I could breath out, and I never felt that it was getting in the way. This is due to two reasons. The first is that we’re over 20 months into this pandemic and we’re used to how masks feel and behave. The second reason is simply that it is cold. Wearing a mask provides a bubble of heated air, to prevent us from breathing cold air, or feeling cold air on our faces. I was also worried that if I took off the mask my face would feel cold. This means that I wore the mask for at least an hour. Nothing by some standards, but not bad, in the middle of the countryside with few or no people around.