Long-time readers may recall this: While Garmin has been offering beta software versions for its smartwatches for quite some time, they haven’t delivered via convenient over-the-air (OTA) updates even before the beta program existed. Instead, users had to connect their Garmin smartwatch to a computer as a mass storage device and then transfer a ZIP file to the watch, after which the installation would run automatically. Though not particularly complicated, this semi-manual update method does require access to a PC. <\/p>\n
Garmin has now rolled out a new beta software version<\/a> as a manual update for the following Instinct models: the Garmin Instinct 2, Instinct 2 Solar, (available on Amazon<\/a>) Instinct 2S, Instinct 2S Solar, Instinct 2X, and Instinct Crossover. A separate file is available for each watch. The changelog is extremely short, covering just a single bug fix for an issue that could prevent solar charging.
<\/p>\n Despite including only one change, this update to software version 17.11 may be significant. The solar-charging capability, coupled with low power consumption, is likely a key selling point of the solar-enabled Instinct 2 models, allowing them to achieve virtually unlimited battery life depending on usage \u2013 provided users aren\u2019t constantly tracking activities while using GNSS mode at full capacity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Long-time readers may recall this: While Garmin has been offering beta software versions for its smartwatches for quite…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":435413,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[222796,768,356,222795,96097,769,761,767,111,139,760,69,770,766,762,763,145,765,764],"class_list":["post-435412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-gadgets","tag-17-11","tag-benchmarks","tag-gadgets","tag-garmin-instinct-2","tag-garmin-instinct-crossover","tag-graphics-card","tag-laptop","tag-netbook","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-notebook","tag-nz","tag-processor","tag-reports","tag-review","tag-reviews","tag-technology","tag-test","tag-tests"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=435412"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435412\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/435413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=435412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=435412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=435412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}