Over the last week or two I decided to run and to swim. These are two sports that are easy to do if you have access either to a pool, or the right shoes. Swimming was in 14°c water for 17 and ten minutes. The first time my hands and feet were cold so I wore gloves. It’s a way of enjoying a different sport than usual. It’s a way of using different muscle groups too.
The watch got to 92 days of battery life. I went for a swim in 15c water. it was just a pool swim.
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.
Updating software is something that we do every single day, often without knowing that it is being updated. WatchOS updated two or three days ago. iOS updated yesterday recently as well. The most notable was Xcode, because it requires several gigabytes of space or it fails to even try, if it detects that there is not enough disk space. I had the same issue with the Garmin ETREX 32x except that in this scenario Garmin Express wipes the device’s memory before it has checked that the computer from which you are running the installation has enough space to proceed.
The weather is relatively cold but the sun is out so the time for spring cycling has come. Spring cycling is like other forms of cycling, but you want to dress warm enough to be comfortable, but not so warm as to overheat. You also want to find routes that are short enough so that if it is cold you can get home without being cold for too long.
The conditions were mild today.
People Fishing.
Today I sat in the sun to charge my watch. I kept my left wrist facing the sun. My right wrist was employed in keeping a kindle in place, reading.
My goal was to get the watch to go up by one day of charge and it worked. I wouldn’t sit in the sun to get a tan, but I would to charge a device. I didn’t time how long it took to charge but it wasn’t more than half an hour.
A solar powered watch in Spain
If you were a solar powered watch would you prefer sunny Switzerland or sunny Spain? Luckily my watch has now tried both. The watch likes that you walk with your watch wrist facing the sun and the wrist without a watch to be on the shady side.
I know this is not an ordinary thing to think about but it is key to having a watch charge as you wear it.
For two days I have played with the Garmin Instinct Solar and I already see a niche for it. If I want to be like every other reviewer I will say, “use the expedition mode for up to 127 days or hours of battery life, but I won’t because I think there is another more interesting niche. Activity tracking, without needing to take off the watch for weeks or months at a time.
Yesterday I decided to take a break from the Apple watch for up to a week. I am tired of two behaviours. The first of these is the watch’s habit of saying that I did not stand for two or three hours in a row. I know that I have. I need to stand to cook, or to brush my teeth and other tasks. It also annoys me that if you bend your arm it counts that you sat down.
The Garmin Vivosmart 4 is the first activity tracker that I see tracking descent as well as ascent. It is yet another fitness tracker and in theory I had no need for it as my Suunto Spartan Wrist HR Baro and my Apple Watch Series 4 do almost the same thing.
I was curious to play with this device for two principle reasons. The first of these is the body battery functionality that looks at the energy we use during the day and the sleep we get at night to say whether we need a rest day or not and because I wanted to fill the daily activity metrics in the Garmin connect app.