Ed Tech Fitness

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Garmin Instinct

Should I Get a Fitness Watch? – A Short Guide

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It’s New Year’s resolution time! There is no better time than now to get started on improving your fitness. It can be tempting to run out and buy a bunch of new workout clothes, sneakers, and other equipment to get started on that fitness improvement goal. And you might even consider getting a watch that tracks your heart rate, activity time, and other fun metrics. If that sounds like you, take a look at my brief flowchart about fitness watches.

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How to Use a Fitness Watch

Last month I published what I’ve learned from now more than 300 workouts completed while wearing my Garmin Instinct watch. In that post I described what I learned about using heart rate-based training methods to improve my endurance and lose weight. That post also provides a comparison of two Garmin fitness watches. No matter how you do or don’t use a fitness watch the most important thing is to be persistent and enjoy working toward your fitness goals.

Dear Amazon, This is What I Want on Prime Day

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Dear Amazon Algorithms,

I know that you don’t care about my needs and just want to extract money from me on your upcoming Prime Day. So to help you make it easy to get my money next week, I have made a list of the things that I would like to buy if you offer significant discounts on them next week.

Wahoo Speed and Cadence Sensors

I’m tired of having to swap the speed sensors and cadence sensors between my road bike and my time trial bike. But I’m also too cheap to purchase a second set at full price. If you can see to it that these are discounted on Prime Day, I’d be most grateful.

SUUNTO Spartan Trainer Wrist HR

I am quite happy with my Garmin Instinct fitness watch and plan to keep it forever or at least until Garmin’s planned obsolescence of it kicks in. I’d like to purchase the SUUNTO Spartan for my significant other who has recently committed herself to getting back into top cycling shape. We’d like to be able to do a comparison of these two fine watches without spending top dollar. Can you make this happen? Please.

Zipp 302 Wheels

You probably know from analyzing all of my search history, but I do covet a nice set of Zipp 302 wheels for my bicycle. I’m not so delusional to ask that you discount Zipp 303’s or Zipp 454 NSW’s on Prime Day, but if you could see it in your algorithmic heart to discount a set of Zipp 302 wheels on Prime Day I’ll take very good care of them and never ask for anything again (or at least until next Prime Day).

Thanks for considering my Prime Day wish list.

All the best for a most profitable Prime Day,

Richard

p.s. my mom told me that you know when I’m sleeping and when I’m awake? Can you ask Alexa if that’s true?

A Good Deal on a Great Fitness Watch

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Six months ago I decided that I wanted to get a smartwatch / fitness watch. I had previously used a Fitbit Charge for counting steps and heart rate (not accurately) and a Casio Pathfinder for basic information about altitude, barometric pressure, and location while skiing and hiking. But I wanted to get something that combined all of those features into one package.

After extensive research, I purchased a Garmin Instinct and I love it! You can read about my entire selection process here and what I learned in the first month of wearing it here.

As is almost always the case when I purchase something electronic, the price of the Garmin Instinct is now significantly less than what I paid for it in January. The Garmin Instinct is now available as low as $246 on Amazon depending upon the color you select. The baby poop yellow version is $246 and all non-poop colors are $249 or roughly $70 less than I paid six months ago. Also, there are more colors available now than six months ago.

If you’re in the market for a new fitness watch that isn’t bulky and doesn’t look like every other smartwatch worn by every soccer mom on the block, the Garmin Instinct is a great choice. (Sorry soccer moms, I love you, but I don’t want to look like you).

Wow! Garmin Fenix 3 is $180 Off!

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Back in January I purchased the Garmin Instinct fitness watch. As I detailed here, I considered some other Garmin watches but they were all out of my price range. One of the watches on my preliminary list until I saw the price was the Fenix 3. At a list price of $499 the Fenix 3 was out of my price range which is part of why I ultimately purchased the Instinct. Amazon now has that watch listed at $319.

I don’t at all regret buying the Garmin Instinct. Other than the minor annoyance of it or the Garmin Connect app not always syncing with Strava, I’m very happy with the Instinct. That said, if I could have gotten the Fenix 3 for it’s current sale price, I would have jumped on it.

Should You Buy a Fitness Watch?

Ultimately, only you can make that call. As I wrote a couple of weeks ago,
the decision to buy a fitness watch depends on your goals, needs, and budget. If you’re just starting to work on your physical fitness, there are much better places to spend your money (better food, a trainer, yoga classes, fitness class). If you already have the exercise habit and want to improve your training, a fitness watch could help you get a little more out of your workouts and or create a little more accountability in your fitness habit.

What I Learned in a Month of Wearing a Fitness Watch

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A month ago I published my initial review of the Garmin Instinct fitness watch. Now that I have been wearing it every day for a month, it’s time to share what I’ve learned from the experience.

Better Cardio Training

My primary reason for buying a fitness watch was to track my heart rate throughout my workouts. I hate wearing a chest strap heart rate monitor. The Garmin Instinct has proven to be incredibly consistent in tracking my heart rate throughout the day and throughout my workouts.

By using HR feedback I have been able to better target my workouts on my bike. Efficiently cycling is achieved by finding the sweet spot where your heart is thumping out of your chest but you’re also not just grinding away on a big gear. Using the HR feedback has enabled me to target a specific HR at a specific resistance to maximize my pedaling efficiency. In other words if I see my heart rate is consistently lower than my goal but my speed is where I want it to be, I know that I’m probably not pedaling as efficiently as possible.

Weights Move My HR More Than I Thought

I don’t do a lot of work with weights, but I have noticed that when lifting my heart rate is higher than I would have guessed it to be.

Identifying Stressors

I have to thank my therapist for this one. She suggested taking a look at my heart rate through the Garmin Connect app to see if there was pattern during the day in which my heart rate increased from its normal resting BPM in response to various stressors. Interestingly, some things that I thought would raise my heart rate didn’t raise it as much as I thought it would while other events definitely spiked my heart rate.

Texts and Phone Call Alerts

I’m often annoyed by alerts on my phone so I try to keep them to a minimum. I thought that I would be annoyed by getting text and phone call alerts on my watch too. Surprisingly, I actually kind of like getting those alerts on my watch. The reason is that those are the only alerts I’m letting through so if my phone buzzes but my watch doesn’t buzz, I know that I don’t need to pick up my phone.

I Don’t Walk Enough

At my previous home I had a mile long private road and hundreds of acres of land surrounding it. I took my dogs out for walks twice a day. I never worried about walking enough. Since moving to a neighborhood 18 months ago, my dogs and I don’t walk nearly as much as we used to. Not coincidentally this is about the same time that I started to pack on the pounds around my middle. I knew that I wasn’t walking enough, but wearing the Garmin Instinct for a month has confirmed that in a big way! Most days I don’t come close to 10,000 steps. In fact, most days I’m not getting much more than 5,000 steps.

Features I Haven’t Used

My Garmin Instinct has a slew of other features including weather alerts, music controls, GPS, a barometer, and an altimeter. I don’t listen to music when working out so I haven’t used the music controls on the watch other than to try them once. I haven’t been able to ski for the last month except for taking my daughter to the bunny slope so I haven’t given the GPS, altimeter, or barometer options a try. That is going to, hopefully, change tomorrow.

Would I Buy It Again?

After a month of wearing the Garmin Instinct I can say that I am happy with the purchase. Does it make me a fitter person? At most it makes my training a bit better. Should you buy it? That depends on your goals, needs, and budget. If you’re just starting to work on your physical fitness, there are much better places to spend your money (better food, a trainer, yoga classes, fitness class). If you already have the exercise habit and want to improve your training, a fitness watch could help.

To learn more about the Garmin Instinct and why I chose it over some of the similarly priced competitors, read this review.

Garmin Instinct Review – A Rugged and Lightweight Fitness Watch

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The Garmin Instinct is a lightweight fitness watch that offers all of the features that you could need in a watch built for outdoor training. I purchased mine last week. After one week of daily use, it’s time to share why I chose it along with my initial likes and dislikes about the watch.

Selecting the Garmin Instinct

The first thing that I looked for when starting my search for a new fitness watch was a wrist-based heart rate monitor. I know that the wrist-based heart rate monitors are not as accurate as chest strap heart rate monitors, but I really don’t like wearing a chest strap.

After whittling my list down to watches that have built-in heart rate monitors I started looking for watches that have ANT+ connectivity so that it could pair with the computer on my bike. The Garmin Instinct has ANT+ and Bluetooth connectivity.

As some of you know, I love to ski and in the summer and fall I like to mountain bike and fly fish. Therefore, I wanted a watch that had altitude readings, barometric pressure reading, phone-independent GPS, and waterproofing able to withstand frequent dunking. That led me to the Garmin Fenix 5. But it was out of my price range unless I went the refurbished route. I have not had good luck with refurbished electronics in the past so the Fenix 5 was out.

My final three choices were the Garmin Instinct, the Garmin Vivoactive 3, and the Suunto Spartan Trainer Wrist HR. This is where size, shape, and overall appearance broke the tie.

I had been strongly considering the Garmin Vivoactive 3 ($60 off right now) until I saw a woman wearing it while I was in line buying lift tickets at a local ski mountain. While I wouldn’t say that it’s a “woman’s watch” it did have more of a bracelet look than “men’s watch” look. At the same time I also didn’t want a super bulky watch which seem to be trendy in men’s watch design. That’s why I ruled out the Suunto Spartan Trainer Wrist HR. That left just the Garmin Instinct. I went with the Tundra color over the classic black or bright red.

It’s worth noting that my selection criteria was fairly basic. I wasn’t concerned about mobile payment capabilities, music storage, calling or texting capabilities, video streaming, or camera capabilities. For what it’s worth, the Instinct will pair with your phone via Bluetooth to display text messages and other alerts. It can be used to control music on your phone, but it doesn’t store music. The Garmin Instinct also does not have any kind of mobile payment capability. If those things are important to you, I suggest taking a look at the Vivoactive 3. 

What’s Great About the Garmin Instinct?

The form factor of the watch is fantastic! It comes with the most comfortable band I’ve ever had on a watch. The band is far more comfortable than the one on my Fitbit Charge and the band on my Casio Pathfinder that I often wear while skiing.

The Garmin Instinct is not touch screen. That means it always responds to input no matter how much sweat I get on it or how shaky my fingers are after a hard workout.

The heart rate monitor is consistent even if it’s not 100% accurate. I’ve been watching the heart rate feedback throughout my spin workouts for the last week and I haven’t seen any wild, out of the ordinary spikes or drops. By contrast the Fitbit Charge, which is hard to read during a workout, has always shown me some spikes and drops that just don’t seem right (no one goes from 130 BPM to 80 BPM in seconds without dying).

Once you have selected some favorite workout activities on the Garmin Instinct, it is easy to start and stop, save, and share recordings of your workout data. What’s not easy is figuring out how to create those activities on the watch (more about that in the next section).

The Garmin Connect app, available to all Garmin watch owners, is easy to pair to the watch. The watch and the app sync together easily and automatically after the initial set-up. In the app you can view lots of data about your workouts, your fitness, and even your diet. The Garmin Connect app will let you sync data with other fitness apps including Strava and My Fitness Pal.

What’s Not Great About the Garmin Instinct?

The initial set-up was frustrating. The owner’s manual that comes with the watch has a grand total of seven miniature pages that tell you nothing that isn’t totally obvious. If you want to figure out anything else like how to create favorite activities, how to save workout data, or how to share data, you’ll have to either randomly press buttons until the option you need appears or do some Googling. I ended up doing a lot of Googling to figure out how to use all of the features of the watch.

The Garmin Connect app works very well with the Garmin Instinct. However, the app is hit or miss when it comes to synching data with other fitness apps. I connected my Garmin Connect account with Strava and My Fitness Pal. I’ve done six workouts since getting the watch. The data has correctly synched with Strava on only three of the workouts. The other three workouts I had to manually enter.

Bottom Line

This watch isn’t for those who must have all of the conveniences of a smartphone packed into a watch format. But if a rugged, lightweight fitness watch that doesn’t look like every other smartwatch on the market is what you’re after, the Garmin Instinct is a great choice! The heart rate monitor is consistent. The watch is comfortable to wear. And the data for outdoor activities is great. Overall, I’m very happy with my purchase.