What you need to know
- A Garmin Instinct 3 45mm Solar model leaked on Garmin's Spanish website.
- The Hungarian Garmin page also showed an Instinct 3 reference.
- The Garmin Instinct 2 released in February 2022 in 40mm and 45mm case sizes, making early 2025 a likely Instinct 3 release window.
- The Instinct series is best known for its thick, rugged design and "unlimited" battery life.
A Garmin Instinct 3 listing leaked on the company's official Spanish website, on a page estimating repair costs. The listing is for a black Garmin Instinct 3 45mm Solar, but provides no further details.
Fitness Tracker Test — which leaked the information — also linked to a Reddit post from June 2024 sharing an alleged photo of the Instinct 3. Users responded skeptically, suggesting that the design was faked. Since there weren't any Instinct 3 renders on the Garmin page, we can't be sure.
Gadgets & Wearables also spotted an Instinct 3 reference in Google search results for the official Hungarian Garmin website, with the translated text "Start the new year with a new watch — monitoring your health with care all day. Garmin Instinct 3."
The Garmin Instinct 2 Solar launched in February 2022, followed by the Instinct Crossover Solar hybrid in November 2022 and Instinct 2X Solar in April 2023. Garmin made the 2X Solar. All three used MIP displays with a solar panel overlay to recharge battery life, though the 2X Solar was 50% more efficient than the 2 Solar.
Since then, the Garmin Fenix 8 and Enduro 3 have launched with even better solar recharging efficiency, and we can assume the Instinct 3 will have a similar upgrade. While the last generation technically had "unlimited" battery life with a few hours of sunlight per day, the Instinct 3 should have better GPS battery life and require less time in direct sun for the power boost.
Even without any official leaked information, we can surmise that the Garmin Instinct 3 will have 10ATM water resistance and a thick polymer design. Current models have similar software to the Forerunner series like training load, daily suggested workouts, and recovery time, and the Instinct 3 should get newer features.
Since the Instinct 2X Solar had a built-in flashlight, it's possible Garmin will make that the standard for the Instinct 3 series, too. Likewise, since the Instinct 2X Solar added multi-band GPS over the GPS-only Instinct 2, the Instinct 3 should either have multi-band GPS or all-systems GNSS for better accuracy.
There was also a recent leak that Garmin will add a rucking activity, which would be a perfect fit for the rugged Instinct 3 series; I myself recently dove into rucking and would appreciate better insights from Garmin about muscular load after tough hikes.
My guess is that the Instinct 3 will arrive in early 2025, about three years after its predecessor. The 45mm Instinct 2 and 40mm Instinct 2S launched at $399, with a $50 surcharge for solar. I suspect the Instinct 3 will also ship in 40mm and 45mm case sizes for the same prices, with a 50mm version coming later.
What I desperately want from the Garmin Instinct 3
garminwatches from r/GarminWatches/comments/1dvikkr/instinct_3_leaked
I hope the "leaked Instinct 3" photo above is fake because the Instinct 2 display is probably its biggest weak point. Not because it's a low-resolution MIP, but because of its two-window design that cuts off a huge portion of screen real estate to highlight one random metric.
I'm not a fan of MIP displays in general because they're too dim indoors and strain my eyes, but I tolerate them so long as they're big and colorful enough to display information palatably. The monocolor Instinct 2 display may help it achieve an "unlimited" battery, but it also prevents it from showing much information at once or any fun watch faces. That photo above shows another artificially small display slot and low-res text; let's hope the real Instinct 3 is better.
If Garmin has made its solar panel that much more efficient, then I'd hope it doesn't need to handicap the display that much. Even though MIP seems to be the Instinct series ' trademark, Garmin could even hypothetically release an AMOLED version that's still long-lived and rugged. Either way, I suspect Garmin will still restrict it to breadcrumb navigation, leaving TopoActive maps for the Fenix 8. And that's fine...so long as they give us a little color.
Assuming Garmin sticks with the same two-windowed MIP display as before, I'm sure Instinct 2 fans will still buy the Instinct 3, but it'll limit its appeal with a lot of athletes.
With a proper display, the Instinct series could fit the graphs and charts you see on other Forerunner and Venu models. But that'll only work with another upgrade to the processor. I've found that Garmin has historically given the Instinct series a slower CPU than the other models — possibly so it's more efficient — and that makes navigating through menus a bit annoying. That's another area where I'd love to see an improvement.
With a smarter CPU and more than a few megabytes of storage, the Instinct 3 could add music playlists and support for wireless earbuds, in case you want to take advantage of that extra juice and stream playlists on the go. And we can hope for an upgrade from the Elevate v4 sensor suite to the v5, which would give us an ECG and skin temperature readings at night.
Aside from these reasonable (boring) requests, I don't need too many changes. The Garmin Instinct series is excellent at what it does, and anything fancier is fulfilled by the Enduro 3 or Fenix 8 MIP. But I have one pie-in-the-sky Instinct 3 wish: cellular.
Not counting its Bounce kids watch, Garmin has only released one cellular watch: the Forerunner 945 LTE in 2021. And maybe that means it didn't sell particularly well, scaring Garmin off? But I think the Forerunner series was the wrong place to start for basic LTE safety functions like live-tracking your location for family members, incident detection, and emergency response. The long-lived Instinct series would be a better fit because of its longevity and ability to counteract battery-guzzling LTE with the solar panel, in case your phone dies and you need help out in the wild!
I'm skeptical Garmin will give the Instinct 3 series (or any other series) cellular, but I can dream! Otherwise, the Instinct series is already among the best Garmin watches available today; I'll just have to hope the Instinct 3 lives up to the series' historical quality.
Don't want to wait?
Reasonably assuming the Garmin Instinct 3 Solar does cost $449, that may be too expensive for your budget. So you may want to buy the current-gen Instinct 2X Solar instead, with its military-grade durability, built-in flashlight, incredible battery life, and larger display than the Instinct 2 — all currently $100 off for Black Friday.
