Hi I have a Garmin vivoactive hr which is ok but looks wise not great, I also have a Casio g shock which I like so the Garmin seems great.

I know a lot on here have brought them how are you finding them?
Tough enough to wear all the while?

I bought mine on the back of the other thread, a few weeks ago. I’d happily wear it all the time, though don’t wear it to work as a bit bright and bulky, and the email notifications are a bit annoying during the working day.

I am loving mine. Wear it all the time and the integration with phone app is ace. Best purchase of 2018 for me.

Here you go

Garmin Instinct, thoughts and options please.

I really like mine and its only coming off for work hours where it doesnt really go with my suit.

Love mine. Wear all the time apart from when I’m interviewing candidates for jobs or in my smart work gear. The bright orange looks great with a navy strap. Tough as old boots.

@iainc you can disable individual app notifications on the Connect app.

Yep, reaally like mine. Wear it all the time; a few of us at work have them as we got a big discount via company health insurance 🙂 I like the GPS functions – I’m not sure how useful it is for actually navigating (probably my own ignorance), but great for seeing where you were lost once you get home !!

@iainc you can disable individual app notifications on the Connect app

Interesting, how would I disable outlook work mail notifications but leave gmail on ?

Iain – on the app Settings/Smart Notifications.

Then Outlook = off, Gmail = on

If you have both being delivered to a single email client (app) you probably have an issue.

Connect app > settings > smart notifications then select or deselect individually. Damn you Krypton

Either disable outlook on Connect or if that’s not possible, thru the phones notification centre?

Garmin vivoactive hr which is ok but looks wise not great

Have you seen the instinct? it’s hellish looking, like a cheap casio rip off you’d have worn when ye were 10.

Get one that’s smart enough to wear all the time, especially if yer as vain as Iain and Kryton.

Am not seeing smart notifications as an option in settings in the App. I am a Luddite !

Loving mine & wear it all the time..a Garmin for G-Shock admirers. One of the key jobs for me is using it to track rides for Strava etc and it does a great job with good accuracy. Given i tend to smash into trees/fences/ground, i did get a screen protector. Also have a non-garmin strap on the way.

it’s hellish looking, like a cheap casio rip off you’d have worn when ye were 10.

🖕😛

Can you have fancy clock faces on instinct?

so on the app on my iphone, i open settings, then only app related options are App Permissions and 3rd part apps – where do I see smart notifications ? apols in advance for being a numpty 🙂

Can you have fancy clock faces on instinct?

There’s about 5 different styles of clock face, each available in black or white. Then you can customise what data fields are shown.
It doesn’t support Connect IQ, so you can’t add fancy fully custom faces.

Ok thanks. Looking at a few smart watches and I keep coming back to the instinct. Would order immediately if I could have posh analogue face on it 🙁

so on the app on my iphone, i open settings, then only app related options are App Permissions and 3rd part apps – where do I see smart notifications ? apols in advance for being a numpty

Let me guess, this isn’t the Garmin Connect App? If it is, it needs upgrading.

a) Open the app
b) Click on the three little lines on the top left with your finger
c) Using said finger, slide “up” the resulting menu to reveal “Setting”
d) Tap on Setting with your finger

You then get the options of:

Profile & privacy
User settings
Messages
Smart Notifications
App Permissons
3rd Party Apps
Sign Out

e) Use the same – or a different finger – to select Smart Notifications, and I’m hoping by now the rest is obvious…

Would order immediately if I could have posh analogue face on it

If you go to link below it has an image of all the different a faces available that you can zoom in on:

https://www.nakan.ch/wp/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/garmin_instinct_watchfaces_web.jpg

Cheers Nuke deal sealed 🙂

Thanks for pointers on notifications, my app must be out of date as I don’t have Smart Notifications between Messages and App permissions. Weird, iPhone 6s and iPad 2 both the same…

Seems to be an Apple thing 🙁

Smart Notification Control iOS from Garmin

^^^^ thanks, that explains it…

Just to add another positive comment for the garmin instinct.

For the last few years I’ve owned a garmin fenix 3, which for the first year was really flaky due to garmin not fully testing their firmware, but once they’d got to grips with the firmware it was pretty good. Mine was the None Heart rate version, and after 3 or so years of everyday wear was looking increasingly battered.

I fancied a fenix 5s plus, but there’s no way I ‘m paying so much money for it, so I bought a garmin instinct instead. It arrived yesterday and its great, the screen is really clear (great contrast between the black and white) and easy to read compared to the fenix 3 . Its responsive, and does everything I used to use the fenix 3 for and more.

Its also excellent value for money at £197.

Interesting. I had a non HR version of the Fenix 3 (Sapphire) and it was bullet proof after a couple of SW upgrades. I bought a 5 plus in the sales but it was still very expensive. I’m now on my second and it has the same problem as the first.

Basically the battery drains in two-three days. It’s a known problem and Garmin are trying to fix it. Very likely software as replacing the device made no difference. It gets worse over time as well so mine has gone from losing 1% per hour to 2% in the last week.

I’m tempted to get a refund an buy an instinct. I’m probably never going to use the music app and while the maps are good, that’s a heck of a price jump to pay for that..

Basically the battery drains in two-three days. It’s a known problem and Garmin are trying to fix it. Very likely software as replacing the device made no difference.

That sounds like my experiences with the fenix 3 in the first year of its release, I persisted with it and eventually Garmin sorted the firmware out and it was fine from that point onwards.

In addition to maps, onboard music and garmin pay, There are a couple of other small things missing from the instinct that the fenix series do have:-

– instinct cannot estimate your Vo2 max
– instinct cannot give you an estimated recovery time
– instinct cannot be paired with a power meter, but it can still be paired with chest HR strap, cadence and speed pods.
– instinct does not do multisport within a single activity – eg a triathlon. you can still stop one activty and start a new one though.

none of those matter to me, quite happy with the instinct so far

All the other stuff I used to do on the fenix 3 works great:-

– customisable activities, allowing you to select and view different data fields for different activities
– display/navigate a route
– race a previous activity
– intervals
– metronome
– alerts based on customisable data, eg beep/vibrate if speed > x
– read text messages etc , and reply from watch

Its early days though, so maybe the curse of garmins disasterous first year firmware releases will also affect the instinct.

I expect the instinct is canibalising sales from the fenix range, I’m surprised they released it with its sports functionality so close to the fenix range.

Thanks that’s useful. VO2 max is kind of interesting but I could definitely live without it. Power meter pairing is amusingly broken on the 5 plus and I don’t miss it. I only ever do one activity unless you add ‘drinking’ to ‘mountain biking’ so again I feel I can deal with that lack of functionality.

I’m sure they’ll fix it eventually but having looked round, I just can’t see why I’d bother Might as well save 100s and get something that looks bullet proof and does what I need.

I’m not convinced with the HR monitoring without a chest strap, it seems to lag quite badly. I know when I’m at 160+bpm, but it shows 135 or something. I really bought it for the basic navigation, which is comically difficult to follow but just enough to avoid pulling a map or phone out at every fork on a new trail.

just checking back on this one re the smart notifications when linked to an iPhone 6S. Would be great to find a way to turn of some, but not all (e.g. work mail) without having to switch off the push settings on the phone each time (it’s a work phone and my only phone and is used for everything, work and personal)

Late to the party, but I’ve just ordered an Instinct (thanks PPI payout). £169.99 from H Samuel. I was looking to buy the black, but it was out of stock so I went with Sunburst yellow. I may well return in a couple of days with questions.
As they say locally – cheezing! 😁

The Altimeter only works properly if you wear it on your right 🙁

The position of the pressure sensing hole means it gets blocked on the left and means you consistently miss about 20% of your total climb.

The Altimeter only works properly if you wear it on your right 🙁

The position of the pressure sensing hole means it gets blocked on the left and means you consistently miss about 20% of your total climb.

Not in the ones I’ve had, yours must be faulty.