While smartwatches are getting powerful by the day very few are efficient. We usually need to charge smartwatches every other day while there are a few that can go for slightly longer than that. Sports watch manufacturer Garmin is betting on solar energy to help bump the battery life on its smartwatches. The company today launched upgrades to some of the popular smartwatches in its lineup to bring solar charing technology, extending the battery life of these smartwatches. This technology allows these new watches to gain battery life while being on your wrist.
Garmin has introduced the Fenix 6 Pro Solar and Fenix 6S Pro Solar in its Fenix lineup. These new watches have a Garmin Power Glass solar charging lens over their dials that help them gain some battery life when outdoors, the company says in its release. The Fenix 6S smartwatch offers about 9 days of battery life indoors but with “sufficient solar exposure” the battery life gets a bump up to 10 and a half days. The Fenix 6 Pro Solar has a battery life of 14 days indoors which gets bumped up to 16-days with “sufficient solar exposure”. The Fenix 6 series was launched in November last year.
Both these watches also get some new features. These are capable of tracking surfing, mountain biking and indoor climbing. The Fenix 6 series solar editions also include Advanced Sleep Monitoring which gives a detailed sleep breakdown of a user’s light, deep and REM sleep stages along with respiration tracking during sleep. The Fenix 6 series also has an Acclimation Widget that tracks current elevation along with pulse oxygenation and is able to tell how well you are breathing at the current altitude.
Garmin also added new models to its Instinct series in the form of Instinct Solar, Instinct Solar Surf Edition, and Instinct Solar Tactical Edition. The Instinct Solar boasts of 24-day battery life in smartwatch mode which gets bumped up to more than 50 days with “sufficient solar exposure”. The Instinct Solar – Surf Edition comes with specialised surf features such as tide data and a dedicated surfing activity. The Instinct Solar Tactical Edition is equipped with specific features such as compatibility with Night Vision Google and Stealth mode.
The last product launched is the Tactix Delta Solar Edition. This watch is built to military standards and is MIL STD 810 certified. The Tactix Delta Solar Edition has a 21 days battery life indoors which gets bumped up to 24 days outdoors. The Tactix Delta Solar Edition has stealth mode which disables location sharing and wireless connectivity and has a kill switch that wipes all user memory.
The Garmin Instinct Solar series starts at $400 (roughly Rs. 30,000) while the Garmin Fenix 6 solar editions starts at $850 (roughly Rs. 63,800) while the Tactix Delta Solar Edition starts at $1,100 (roughly Rs. 82,500).