Garmin has announced the Instinct 2 and Instinct 2S outdoors smartwatches, both of which come in Solar variants for massively extended battery life.
The original Garmin Instinct, launched in 2020, supplied much of the rugged appeal of the Fenix range at a fraction of the price. The Instinct 2 follows suit, and this time there’s also the Instinct 2S for those with smaller wrists.
In addition to offering these 45mm and 40mm bezel options, the Instinct 2/2S provides a slimmer profile, as well as some new vibrant colour options like Electric Lime, Poppy and Neo-Tropic. There’s also a new high-resolution, easy-to-read display.
Lest you start to think that Garmin’s outdoors focus has shifted, that display is covered with chemically strengthened, scratch-resistant glass. The entire phone has been built to military standard 810, making it extra thermal and shock resistance. It’s also water rated to 100 metres.
Battery life looks to be mightily impressive, with a claimed four weeks of continuous use in smartwatch mode. Opt for the Instinct 2 Solar 45mm model, meanwhile, and Garmin promises unlimited battery life in smartwatch mode.
These Instinct 2 Solar models also include Garmin Pay for mobile payments.
Garmin has brought its full suite of wellness features to the Instinct 2 series, including Sleep Score and Advanced Sleep Monitoring, as well as a new Health Monitoring feature that tracks key health metrics like Body Battery, stress, and heart rate from a single screen.
In terms of fitness tracking, the Instinct 2 series adds VO2 Max, Fitness Age, Training Status/Load/Effect, Recovery Time, HIIT Workouts, and Daily Suggested Workout features to the package.
Garmin has also implemented Incident Detection, which sends a message containing your name and location to your emergency contacts in the event of an accident.
We’ve mentioned a few of the colour options already, but Garmin goes further with its Your Watch, Your Way program, which enables you to customise your design with more than 240 bezel and band combinations. It also provides three purpose-built editions for Surf, Tactical, and Camo with custom features. The Tactical Edition’s ‘Night Vision Goggle Compatibility’ has us intrigued.
The Garmin Instinct 2 series is available now with a starting price of £299.99.
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
