Garmin Instinct Series Smartwatch Has a Built-in Temperature Sensor

While searching online comparison articles for the Garmin Instinct and the Suunto Traverse, two smart wearable outdoor watches in the same class, I found that the Traverse has an extra built-in temperature sensor and gyroscope compared with the Instinct. That instantly made me lose a lot of confidence in Garmin — without the exploration data of ambient temperature shown directly on the watch face, you lose a bit of the fun of using a smartwatch deep in the mountains and forests or traveling to the snowy north.

So does this outdoor sports smartwatch (called a smart wristwatch in mainland China), the Garmin Instinct series (including the Tactical version), really not have a built-in temperature sensor?

Just as I was about to give up on my old comrade Garmin (I’ve bought two of their handheld satellite navigation devices, one of which I lost while fleeing in the mountains) and defect to Suunto, the Finnish outdoor instrument design company I’ve admired since childhood, I suddenly noticed that a few mainland Chinese articles briefly mentioned that the G.I. has a built-in temperature sensor — which piqued my curiosity.

Later I went directly to Garmin’s corporate website and found that the “Garmin Instinct,” whether the standard version or the Tactical version, indeed has a built-in temperature sensor, contrary to what some online articles say — that it doesn’t support temperature sensing and can only get weather temperature data from a phone.

And what a discovery it was: when I checked the mainland Chinese official site, I even saw that Garmin’s multi-satellite system (multi-national satellite positioning systems) supports as many as 4 groups, which really startled me. Besides the original U.S. GPS, Russian GLONASS, and European Galileo (I’ve participated in several of their creative competitions and have some acquaintance with their staff), it also adds mainland China’s BeiDou satellites.

By comparison, the international versions outside mainland China all look castrated, since on mainland Chinese soil it’s still better to use their internal satellite navigation system. When I traveled to mainland China before, I felt that the Apple iPhone’s satellite positioning accuracy was indeed different — even to call an Uber I had to walk an extra intersection and still might not find the person.