New Garmin Instinct: SA Pricing Confirmed

Garmin is obviously well known for their place in the car-mounted GPS market, but they’ve been making waves in the fitness and adventure watch market for some time now.

The latest in their range of tough, outdoor wearables is the Garmin Instinct – a robust and durable GPS watch with more technology stuffed into it than you can shake a stick at.

First of all, since it’s billed primarily as a GPS watch, the GPS-related technology is front and centre. It doesn’t rely on a single source for its GPS data, but three. It contains multiple satellite based systems, namely GPS, GLONASS, and Galileo. Beyond the positioning systems, it also comes with a barometric altimeter and 3-axis compass to round out all the navigation functionality most adventurers could want.

It’s not just built for the great outdoors, though – it’ll also provide a lot of value for anyone who takes their fitness seriously (or those who want to start). It has a heart-rate monitor, which is fairly standard, but also comes with built-in sports apps and wellness data readouts so that you can keep track of your performance during exercise or physical activities.

As far as its construction and design go – it’s clearly built to be taken into the toughest environments. It’s military standard ( MIL-STD-810G) certified for thermal, water (100m rated), and shock resistance in a polymer case. The display will also be able to deal with most things you can throw at it due to the scratch and chemical resistant treatment of the glass.

Anyone who’s already got some other devices in the Garmin family (inReach Mini, VIRB Action Cameras, etc) will be happy to hear that the Instinct has connectivity and compatibility to be paired with those devices, too. Its battery life is good for 14 days in smartwatch mode, 16 hours in GPS mode, and up to 40 hours in Garmin’s UltraTrac battery-saver mode.

So whether you’re hunting, hiking, or just heading out on a trail to get away from the city lights for a bit, the Instinct can help keep you on track. It’s available in multiple colours – Graphite, Tundra, and Flame Red – and will be retailing for R6,199.