Garmin Instinct?

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Roadrunner6 17 May 2020

Has anyone used one?

It seems more for adventures as well as running, is it OK as a running watch as well?

The price seems pretty good here, $200.

1
 Heike 17 May 2020
In reply to Roadrunner6:

Hi,

I got one last year for my big birthday and was well excited, but I am not sure I can recommend it. It is very unreliable, the altimeter is hit and miss and yes, it works ok, when it works, for running and biking etc, but quite often it is totally out with altitude, distance and steps or it just stops recording. It might be ok for just running, but all in all I am not too satisfied. I would have sent it back, but my hubby who gave it to me as a gift had lost the receipt. So, I still use it, but it is very annoying on occasion.  Got another Suunto Core now (a present from hubby again for my next birthday  (he is a good man) and it is a delight, but then it doesn't do the running stuff, etc, it is more a climbing /hillwalking watch.

So, either I was just unlucky or the Instinct isn't that great. Difficult to say.

Roadrunner6 17 May 2020
In reply to Heike: thanks, 

Oof that’s not good at all. It might be worth sending back anyway. The Garmin GPS tends to be pretty reliable.

the price range is what’s attractive. 

im looking at other makes but I’m just used to Garmin And how they interface.

In reply to Roadrunner6:

I've had one for over a year now (I think) and get on with it fine. Seems as good as other Garmin's for distance on runs and rides. I've had fenix 3 and a forerunner in the past. 

As you say, very good value for money at less than half the price of the fenix 6 series if the few features that are missing aren't important to you.

I often run with the guy I passed my forerunner on to, and my instinct does seem to measure 1% longer, (200 m over a half marathon we did together). But it seems pretty consistent at that. Never had any noticeable anomalies in the 100+ activities I've done with it. 

Height gain it is not so good. I do get quite large anomalies against friends with other devices and sometimes against activities repeated on the instinct. But  lot of people's Strava recordings seem to show incorrect height gains, so don't think this is an issue unique to the instinct. 

Roadrunner6 18 May 2020
In reply to mountain.martin:

Thanks, I've ended up going for it.

TBH the big thing was the 40 hour battery on ultratrac, I realize that's not great at recording in terms of accuracy but its handy to have something that will stay on.

It's a lot of watch for what it is. Generally reviews were pretty good. I do like the simplicity of my forerunner 25 but the limited battery life is a pain, they say 10 hours but 7-8 is more typical. 

The elevation is an issue, but my FR or strava cuts me down quite a lot. I just did a vert challenge and had 2600 feet of gain on garmin and 2300 on strava, and it was up an down a trail so pretty easy to calculate what it actually was an strava wasn't recording the full descent each time somehow.

Overall elevation isn't too important for me though. I'd love a Fenix but just can't justify it at almost twice the cost.

DANDREWS 18 May 2020
In reply to Roadrunner6:

On the more expensive Gps watches you can change the interval of when the watch picks up a signal,and they will also have barometric measurement for height gain.

Roadrunner6 18 May 2020
In reply to DANDREWS:

This has a barometric altimeter. I think its working with strava there's some issue.

My FR25 just has 'smart recording' but you can set other ones at 1s intervals. This also have ultratrac mode which lasts 40 hours (80hrs for the Fenix), but that is much less accurate, it'll show your trail supposedly but straight lines so much speed and distance are way off.

 George Ormerod 18 May 2020
In reply to Roadrunner6:

My wife has one and it’s a good watch. What a serious runner like you might want to factor is that the heart rate is unreliable and slow to pick up changes. If you want a good HR measurement you’ll need to factor in getting a Garmin (expensive) or ANT+ chest strap. 

Roadrunner6 18 May 2020
In reply to George Ormerod:

Yeah thanks, I have a chest strap for my FR25 anyway. The chest based one seems to be much more accurate when you are running.

In reply to George Ormerod:

Agreed about HR, one of the reasons I changed from the fenix 3 to the instinct was for the built in wrist based HR, but having realised it gives you a closeish figure but is not that accurate/responsive I have recently bought a chest strap to give more accurate HR data. £50.

I imagine a runner of roadrunner's experience already has a chest strap?

 Heike 01 Jun 2020
In reply to George Ormerod and all.:

Glad yours works. Mine is probably faulty , then. It is utterly rubbish. It has been saying I am at 32.000m below sea for the last three months, when I go up a hill, it gets down to 31.000m or so, It is bonkers. It is a shame my husband has mislaid the receipt (or email -as he bought it online).

1
 mbh 01 Jun 2020
In reply to Roadrunner6:

Kind of, sort of on your OP theme. I need a new watch it seems, since for a couple of weeks now my Garmin 230 just won't give me reliable distance, location or elevation after three years or so of decent use, no matter what system resets I try. Stupidly, I wore it on a climb at Bosigran last year and cracked the screen, so maybe a year's worth of drizzle and sweat has finally fried the circuits.

I could get a 35, but the 245 is very tempting. The breadcrumb thing sounds like it would be useful for exploratory runs, if it works and if I get the to point where I do any this year. It also looks nicer than the 35. Anything fancier than that is out of reach.

Roadrunner6 01 Jun 2020
In reply to mbh:

I've had the instinct for a few weeks.

Really like it, I'd say it reads slightly short when in the woods but generally pretty good. On a 45 mile run this weekend I got 44.8 miles, another runner who did it 2 weeks ago got 45.8 but he made at least one wrong turn, so we were pretty close.

Elevation wise I've found it great, I got 10,300 ft, the other guy got 10,000 ft. Which over 45 miles in a heavily forest area, constantly up and down is pretty good.

I really like simplicity of the 25, but the extra stuff on the instinct, like the breadcrumb trail is handy.

 Stig 09 Jun 2020
In reply to mbh:

I've had a 230 for about four years now and it's still going strong. Great watch. I'd get a 245 without hesitation if I needed one. Heard good things about them.

To Heike: Just send it back. You don't need a receipt any more for online purchases.The vendor will have a record of the purchase, surely?

 mbh 09 Jun 2020
In reply to Stig:

I went for the 245 and used it for the first time today. Really like it. I did also look at the instinct, but thought the 245 better for someone who mainly runs shortish distances and also wants a watch for all-day use as I do. It was cheaper too.

 Heike 09 Jun 2020
In reply to Stig:

Yeah, I think I will do, it is currently showing I am at -31 km under the sea...

Roadrunner6 11 Jun 2020
In reply to Heike:

Did you change your recording interval?

Mine was OK but I wasn't too happy with the smart distance data so changed to every 1s and it seems more accurate.

 Heike 11 Jun 2020
In reply to Roadrunner6:

I am not sure that I understand what you mean, but maybe you can explain? I have found this watch very difficult to understand It would be much appreciated if you could explain!!

Roadrunner6 11 Jun 2020
In reply to Heike:

In your settings you can change it to record as 'smart' which only updates your position when you change speed or direction (I think), where as 1 second records every 1s. It is generally more accurate but uses more memory. Typically default is smart recording.

Go into Settings > System > Data recording.

You can also use 'ultratrac' which is much less accurate but is turned on in the activities and app section. That allows 40 hours of battery but will give much less accurate distance and elevation data.

Typically on trails I don't mind smart data but on roads I like every second because measuring 10-20 m too far is another 3-5s per mile which matters in a race.

And yes, it's a complicated watch. Its why I loved the FR25, just such a simple neat watch. With the instinct I'm often googling how to change or access something.

Post edited at 18:45
 Heike 14 Jun 2020
In reply to Roadrunner6:

Thank you, did that and it first didn't change, but today I went on a long bike ride and we are now back to almost correct levels!! So no more -33k under the sea to 90 m above sea level which is almost correct ( we are at 70m above sea).

Thanks

Heike

 Heike 15 Jun 2020
In reply to Heike:

It has been really cool in several months. Thanks!!

 oliwarlow 15 Jun 2020
In reply to Heike:

I have had an instinct for 18 months now, and have had similar issues to those above.  The main one being something faulty with the barometric altimeter.  Lots of back and forth with Garmin about it, who have insisted it is a software issue.  The latest software update (you will need to plug in via garmin express to force the update) seems to have made things better but it still isn't perfect.  

The issue is that there can be dropout and spiking of altitude which makes it look like you have suddenly ascended and descended 1000m.  This is annoying, but not as bad as the 'drift' in altitude.  Now you will of course expect some drift as sea level pressure changes but this should a) be taken into account by some smart algorithm that detects a slow change in air pressure and b) would not result in the sometimes 100s of metres drift you see over a few hours of activity.  Annoyingly this is intermittent, sometime absolutely spot on when calibrated in the car park and within a few m on a munro summit, but other times thinks I have left my house at 50m altitude and arrived back at the same location  1 hour later at -50m.  

Otherwise it is pretty good - I got it for its ruggedness and and not very good at looking after my things so need something that can cope with being bashed of rocks and stood on.  you can fully customize all your activities too which is nice, so just make the screens you need.  As above poster said I would definitely go for 1s tracking unless you are really trying to push the battery life.

In general I would not trust a wrist based pulse sensor, so no difference here

Ulratrac = in my experience not accurate enough to be useful.

 mbh 15 Jun 2020
In reply to oliwarlow:

> In general I would not trust a wrist based pulse sensor, so no difference here

Please tell me that is not always true. Since getting my 245 I have been basking in the fact that my resting heart rate. averaged over the four hours before I wake up, is in the low 50s, which is lower than my age.

 Heike 15 Jun 2020
In reply to oliwarlow:

Thank you, that is really useful.

I agree, it has good sides (if only it wasn't so complicated and the altimeter worked...) Yes, it  has so many individualised options and screens and I like the way the activities get downloaded to my phone and I can see where I went, etc.

Roadrunner6 15 Jun 2020
In reply to mbh:

I think the wrist is OK for general day to day stuff (overnight etc - but the chest strap is always better generally), its when you are running and hitting high heart rates I think a chest strap is much more accurate. I still use it on long days out just to keep an eye on my HR and also so I'm not wearing a chest strap with a vest.

If I'm running a hard effort/track etc I'd much rather use the chest strap.

 mbh 16 Jun 2020
In reply to Roadrunner6:

Makes sense, that's what I thought was likely the case.

 oliwarlow 17 Jun 2020
In reply to mbh:

Hi yes - as above.  Wrist based in generally ok if you are not doing much with your wrist and heart rate isn't too crazy.  If you are doing something like mtb or fell running the shock and vibrations through your hands will 'jiggle' it about too much to get a meaningful reading.  

 Ridge 17 Jun 2020
In reply to mbh:

In line with the other posters I think wrist based HRM is pretty good for resting heart rate.

I'd question its accuracy during exercise though. I've found it useful after a long layoff and have been using it for the last 3 months to avoid overtraining.

However it doesn't align with perceived effort at all (125 bmp when feeling like death doing hill reps, 187 bpm when running at what feels fairly comfortable downhill).

 mbh 17 Jun 2020
In reply to Ridge and oliwarlow:

Interesting, thanks. I've got a chest strap so may try that out too and see how they compare, if I can get the watch to talk to it.

Roadrunner6 18 Jun 2020
In reply to mbh:

Mine picks it up and automatically takes the chest over wrist when that's an option.

Roadrunner6 18 Jun 2020
In reply to Roadrunner6:

Ignore that I had to add it as a sensor, then it was easy after..

I do like the instinct but it you can get lost in it.


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