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Comment by marcus0x62 | Hacker News Reader

Have you looked at/tried the Garmin smart watches? I wear an Instinct 2, and from your list I’d say:

- Battery life is around 25 - 30 days (it would be longer if I was outside more and got more benefit from solar charging)

- The screen is always visible

- The UX on the watch is pretty terrible, not going to lie.

- Not a problem at all. When it is very, very, dark I have to press a button to temporarily activate the backlight.

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When it is very, very, dark I have to press a button to temporarily activate the backlight.

The Fenix 3 I wore like ten years ago had a setting to turn the backlight on when I turned my wrist. It was not as reliable as the same functionality on Apple Watch, but good enough.

I’m an Apple Watch guy myself, but I’ve got a drawer full of Garmins, and they might make a fine choice for OP.

I don’t think the instinct line does this, but it does highlight something worth mentioning for anyone considering Garmin watches — these aren’t like Apple watches, where there are a few key differences between the various models. The UX and feature set is wildly different, and there isn’t even a real hierarchy where you can say “model a has features 1 and 2; model b has that plus feature 3; etc.”

I second the Garmin Instinct Solar as a really good everyday watch. I got tired of charging my Apple Watch everyday and getting annoying notifications all the time. I just wanted something to keep track of my walks, track my sleep and give me basic watch functions such as alarms, timers and stopwatch. The Instinct is perfect for that.

I also have it set so that the backlight turns automatically on when it's dark and I flip my wrist. I wear it to bed (sleep tracking) and I can always check the time if I wake up in the middle of the night.

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