It rarely happens. I rarely forget my airpods at home, and when I do I usually turn around to get them. Yesterday I didn’t turn around. I went for my walk anyway. You might think “so what?” and you’d be right to. It doesn’t change much. I usually listen to podcasts and audiobooks, rather than music. I like my walks to be intellectually stimulating, as well as physically good for me.
One nuissance of most modern smart watches is that you must charge then once a day, once a week, or once a month. When you’re in Spain though, with a solar watch things change. At first you go from “26 days of battery remaining” to “36 days of battery remaining”, to “39 days remaining”. Before long the watch displays “infinity time remaining”. When you’re in watch the sun charges the batteries faster than normal use depletes the batteries.
People Fishing.
Today I sat in the sun to charge my watch. I kept my left wrist facing the sun. My right wrist was employed in keeping a kindle in place, reading.
My goal was to get the watch to go up by one day of charge and it worked. I wouldn’t sit in the sun to get a tan, but I would to charge a device. I didn’t time how long it took to charge but it wasn’t more than half an hour.
A solar powered watch in Spain
If you were a solar powered watch would you prefer sunny Switzerland or sunny Spain? Luckily my watch has now tried both. The watch likes that you walk with your watch wrist facing the sun and the wrist without a watch to be on the shady side.
I know this is not an ordinary thing to think about but it is key to having a watch charge as you wear it.
For two days I have played with the Garmin Instinct Solar and I already see a niche for it. If I want to be like every other reviewer I will say, “use the expedition mode for up to 127 days or hours of battery life, but I won’t because I think there is another more interesting niche. Activity tracking, without needing to take off the watch for weeks or months at a time.