Customer Ratings & Reviews

OK... I had the Garmin vivoactive HR great watch. Did thr job for a couple years. The step measurement was always a bit short, and the sleep tracker was meh.. But it was a great system, lasted 5 to 6 days. But I went swimming with it, and it suffered an "unrecoverable failure". So I started researching and came down on the Garmin (yeah I trust the name) Vivoactive 3 and the Instinct. Chose the instinct because it seems tougher. Light weight, durable have had it on my wrist for a week and it's awesome. I needed a way to respond to texts without grabbing the phone (for meetings etc) Been using for 5 days.. Only lost a bar in the battery.. (I despise a smart watch you have to recharge every night.. Because frequently I'm not near my charger for a couple days. Yes.. It is not connectable to the Garmin IQ... It doesn't store music or have the Garmin pay stuff.. It's a tough workhorse watch. That looks good. To be honest the cute colored watch faces were nice (this is monochrome) but I need a watch that works in the rough environment I work in. Easy to read quick to learn the operations... It's a time piece not a wrist toy. There are 6 faces you can have. The standard black with white digital gives you, time with seconds , date, steps, sunrise sunset. A couple of button pushes brings up an accurate compass, altimeter, alternate time, weather, events messages and heart rate... You cans set it up anyway you want. Its not touch screen so ya gotta work the buttons, but it feels and looks great. Looks like a real watch.

Great watch, lasts me 2 weeks on one charge! I use it to go mushroom picking so I didn't get lost. I really like it! Tracks so many things like heart rate, sleeping, stress, steps, stairs, miles and speed while I'm GPS mode, and on and on. Really cool and not that expensive.

Best watch for the money. I prefer function over appearance or fancy screens. The disply on the watch reminds me of a low-def Ti calculator screen, which I think is cool. Tou can text, email, make calls, etc. But that isnt really why I got this watch. I love the HR monitor, one of the most accurate wrist-based HRs out there. However, you can still pair this with a chest strap HR via bluetooth or ANT+. The other reason why I got this is because this also has an accurate GPS to track running and hiking on trails with a topographic map. It also has many exercise options with different training intervals and intensity cues. This watch is also rugged, and has impact, dust amd water resistant ratings that are among the best. Nothing fancy about thia watch. It just works.

Love the rugged and efficient features. Great battery life. Used the GPS feature to get back to hotels while traveling in south east Asia this year, very useful!!! Use waterproof feature to track swimming. Very good to take on hikes and for runners. Wife and I go on night hikes to take pictures of Arizona’s many national monuments, watch helps to track moon phases, we go on nights with no moon to get a better view of the night sky. I would highly recommend this watch.

This watch is great for military members and non has GPS compass weather apo u can down load to track heartbeat steps sleep . Also can be linked to a phone fir message notification or calls definitely wear it every day battery last about 7 plus days without charge. I take a shower with it and I work in a freezer environment and holds up beautifully.

With a battery life of 12 days in gps mode, this watch is all I needed. It shows me notifications and tells me the time while also being rugged enough to take a hit or two. Great basic smart watch with insane battery life so I don't have to worry about charging it.

I have had a couple of other smart watches, but none have come close to this. I have a Samsung and I really like that watch but you are lucky to get a full day out of a charge on it. Even connected to my phone I can still get two weeks or more out a of charge with the Garmin. I really, really, like the Garmin and all the extras that it can do. It has become my all day wearable.

I just wanted a fitness tracking watch and boy did I get it. Pros 1. (Most important) this watch is ready to go out of the box. There is an app but you don't have to sync this to a smartphone to get full use. I don't want big tech controlling my health data 2. Display is crystal clear in direct sunlight 3. Heart rate is accurate 4. Workout mode is awesome, with clear HR target zones, audible and vibrate cues for lap times and amazing workout summary 5. It looks great and seems to be very rugged and durable 6. GPS syncing is accurate and keeps time adjusted 7. Battery charge goes for days (although I think it's shortened if you sync to a phone and get pushed messages, notifications etc) 8. Barometer and altimeter at this price point are nice bonuses. Cons 1. Uses a special charge cable. Mini USB would have been great since I have them everywhere 2. GPS mapping looks good but isn't overlaid with a geographical map. I really didn't expect this anyway for the $200 price point. It does give you coordinate stamps so that's nice. I can't recommend this watch enough. I'll never own one that isn't Garmin after this.

Awesome watch, I love it, the only thing is that the screen is not touch like an I watch but this one is more tactical and the battery last forever I would recommend this one 100%

The Garmin Instinct smart watch works as advertised. It has everything that I need to monitor my heart rate, as well as letting me know how many total steps I've taken on a day by day basis and letting me know how much sleep I've been getting each night. Very helpful tool.

Have had this watch for over a year now, the battery life is outstanding and the functionality of it is great. Spent 3 hours in a pool playing pool volleyball, with the watch on no issues, stayed water proof. It’s an outstanding product.

Battery life is way better than I expected, purchased on 4-22-21, 3 weeks later I'm still running on it's 2nd charge. I thought not having a touchscreen smartwatch would suck, but this thing has exceeded all expectations. Bluetooth connectivity is great,. If i leave my phone charging as I'm doing things around the house, i still get all notifications. You can preset custom messages to reply to texts through the watch, block apps from sending your watch notifications (apps of less importance), answer and dismiss phone calls, shuffle though your phone's music, it can sort of track your workouts and remind you to move, get instant gps coordinates from it, mark waypoints, and navigate(helps in my line of work), and the screen is easy to see and read even in direct sunlight, and a bunch of other cool stuff that i don't always use. I purchased screen protectors that i haven't even used yet (i will) but this gorilla glass has kept it scratch free. Sitting here trying to come up with any cons but i can honestly say i can't think of any. Too many great things to say about this watch to fit in here.

This is best watch money can buy. Great for tracking and built to last. Battery life is the best part. I am at around 50% after one week.

I just bought this watch. So far it works great tracks everything I need it to and does so much more. I would recommend it to my friends. I watched a couple of YouTube videos to understand how to change things around the directions out of the box are not much help.

This watch is possibly the best fitness tracker I have owned. I’ve ran since I was in high school, and I’ve never had such accurate and constructive data after a run like I have had with the Instinct. The battery life is amazing, the live tracking feature from the watch is awesome if you exercise/do activities alone and want a peace of mind so someone can know where you are! The widgets are awesome, and the music integration is awesome, especially on runs! I take it backpacking with my boyfriend, and the GPS has always been super helpful. I would recommend this to anyone, it’s an awesome watch. The only real constructive advice I can give, is that for a little bit it’s hard to remember the button functions and such, but it gets easier as time goes on!

Got it just to not have a second device to use when running or biking. It's been great as a watch and as a gps based activity meter. Display brightness/contrast even in direct sunlight is great. Gps accuracy is not top notch for sure, but still accurate enough not to be bothered by the range of variations even for 7 miles run (my guess it will be good enough for longer distances too for most people). Overall I'm happy with this model. A single feature it lacks that I definitely miss is no support for Alexa voice commands. But so far I still had no desires to look for another model (which also would be more expensive).

There are so many features, its unreal. Battery lasts a very long time.

It’s a great watch never lost connection tells me what I need to know I am a contractor I put a screen protector on it And I use it every day and no complaints no scratches ( small ones )but the watch resist so far it’s been like a month and still good like day one

Excellent watch,looks like a gshock version but with more technology and lighter weight, great design. I really enjoyed and highly recommend this watch for ppl who does outdoor activities or for daily errands help you to keep track of your steps,heart and many other features.

Good: This is a tough watch that is not quite as gargantuan as some of the other “tough” watches out there, and the step tracking works natively with the service my company uses. The altimeter function is nice, once you have it calibrated to a known location. And the Garmin iOS app has a nice look and good functionality. If you like to keep up with your pulse rate it does a pretty good job of that. Battery life is fantastic! Bad: It can be difficult to read at times because the automatic light function doesn’t always work. You have to calibrate the altimeter regularly to keep any sort accuracy. If you are used to a touchscreen interface like the Apple Watch, it can be a bit frustrating to struggle through the menus with the side buttons to make basic changes. The “weather” feature does not keep current information, and you have to get your phone out to look it up. (At that point, why even claim to have weather functionality?) Battery life diminishes greatly if uses GPS. The Ugly: The watch constantly loses connection to the phone. It doesn’t matter if the two are never more than a few feet apart, it drops connection and refuses to reconnect. You can delete the app, reinstall, get all the settings right, and still lose connection in minutes. I would return this watch if I could, but it worked fine enough for the first few weeks to convince me to keep it. Now it looks like it is only good for telling time and being “tough”, so it certainly isn’t worth the money. Conclusion: If you love the looks, want a tough watch but don’t want a G-Shock, and you don’t really care about the “smart” functions, this may be the watch for you. But if you are looking for something tough but with Apple Watch functionality then move along, move along. This is not the watch you are looking for.