Charging A Garmin Instinct With an External Solar Panel

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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.