Garmin Instinct 2 Solar review: smartwatch promising unlimited battery life

It costs from £299.99 ($349.99/A$549) and comes in various versions such as one for surfing and even one for professional truck drivers. But it is the solar charging models, costing £389.99, that promise never to need to be plugged in for power.

It is very similar to many other Garmin sport watches, but what sets the Instinct 2 apart is its promise of incredible battery life even without the power of the sun.

The standard 45mm model without solar will last up to 28 days used as a general smartwatch, which is 10 days longer than the already impressive Fenix 7 and about 14 times longer than an Apple Watch.

For mainly indoor usage during winter without much in the way of solar charging, the watch lasted about 15 days between charges, including five hours of workout-tracking. I wore it 24 hours a day with message alerts, heart rate, stress, calories, general activity and health monitoring, plus sleep and blood oxygen (SpO2) tracking overnight. Turning off the Sp02 sensor added days to the life as did limiting workouts. The solar charging would add at least 24 hours battery for each sunny spring day spent outside, too.

Of course its battery prowess comes at the cost of features on fancier-looking Garmin watches such as the Fenix 7 or rivals like the Apple Watch. The Instinct 2 lacks a touchscreen, though the button-based interface is fast and logical. It lacks the new high-accuracy multi-band GPS tracking technology, but still has an altimeter, barometer and compass.

The biggest missing features are offline music playback, such as Spotify without having to use your phone, and offline maps. It can plot breadcrumb trails of where you have been on an activity to help you get back to the start, guide you in the direction of points of interest and even measure the area of a space by walking its perimeter, but it has no maps available.

The watch tracks a vast number of activities including various forms of running, walking, cycling, swimming, strength, cardio, Hiit and more exotic ones such as paddle boarding, hunting, fishing, backcountry skiing and bouldering.

All the activity and health information the watch collects is sent via Bluetooth to the excellent Garmin Connect app on your phone, within which you can pore over mountains of data, graphs and insights. Plus you can connect it straight to social networks such as Strava.

The Garmin Instinct 2 comes in two sizes and various models, starting at £299.99 ($349.99/A$549) for the standard version or £389.99 ($449.99/A$699) with solar charging.

For comparison, the Garmin Forerunner 55 costs £149.99, Venu 2 costs from £349.99, Fenix 7 costs from £599.99, Epix costs from £799.99, the Coros Apex costs £299.99 and the Polar Grit X costs £369.