Fenix 3 Bluetooth Pairing Fails

Samsung Galaxy S3 pairs (painfully) with Fenix3, but they must be paired every time when BT is turned off, and on again.

And usually you have to try several times that they pairs again....

Now pairing works. :rolleyes:
I did following:

-remove Garmin connect from phone (Galaxy S3)
-Reboot the phone
-re-install Garmin Connect to the phone
-reboot Fenix

And do the pairing procedure as manual says.

Now pairing works. :rolleyes:
I did following:

-remove Garmin connect from phone (Galaxy S3)
-Reboot the phone
-re-install Garmin Connect to the phone
-reboot Fenix

And do the pairing procedure as manual says.

Glad to hear it is working for you!

We would like to stress that the Fenix 3 is not designed to pair in the Bluetooth settings of your phone. Users must start the pairing in Garmin Connect Mobile in order to see the pairing work properly. Thank you all for your patience!

Glad to hear it is working for you!

We would like to stress that the Fenix 3 is not designed to pair in the Bluetooth settings of your phone. Users must start the pairing in Garmin Connect Mobile in order to see the pairing work properly. Thank you all for your patience!

It's not working anymore. Again i must pair devices every time manually by Connect.
There's something wrong with the Connect's software i think.

This was working well before the last update to Garmin Connect....albeit having to re-pair after disconnecting BT overnight....NOW I have to clear cache, remove all trace of F3 from phone, re-boot watch, not use phones BT system to connect but use Connect? So using android BT system to see watch and pair, the Garmin Connect app will not find the watch...so I'm connected cause I can see the IQ app data from the phone, but the Garmin Connect app cannot list the device!!!!

Man, com'on Garmin, get this right...I save battery by switching off BT overnight and it worked well before Connect update to 2.11.2........after initial pairing the phone should hook up to the watch effortlessly EVERY time you want to re-connect!

Also I see that settings to enable Smart Notifications have changed......what happened to the list generated that I could choose notifications for? Seems like a DOWNGRADE to me!


UPDATE: Uninstalled, found previous version, installed, same issues no list of smart notifications apps, un-installed, removed all trace of BT settings, re-installed latest version, same issues, then re-started phone, re-started watch, and LO and Behold, list of apps for smart notifications appears! ????

Hopefully I don't have to do this EVERYTIME I disconnect BT and then re-connect!

And now phone and F3 won't pair at all!!

"can't connect" says Connect. Timeout each time.

I'm having all these issue with iOS as well.
Garmin, I hope you are working hard on a fix to connectivity issues. Apple is going to eat your lunch. $500 for your product and nothing but frustrations so far. If you are only good at GPS then maybe stick to it. I've owned my unit for one day and already having buyer's remorse.
Software (specifically BT connectivity) should be 101 in 2015.
Please get it straight and send us an update ASAP.

I've had a Fenix 1 for years and although I like many things about the watch for hiking, running, cycling, etc. I've become frustrated with the poor stability of the watch and especially about it's unreliable connectivity over bluetooth to both iOS and Android phones. In recent firmware versions the watch will sometimes reboot itself during runs, unpredictably stop tracking during hikes, and it has never been able to maintain bluetooth connectivity with the Garmin Connect application on any of my phones.

I recently got an Apple Watch and had hoped that the fitness functionality on that would be enough for it to replace my Fenix 1 for basic running and cycling tracking but at least with the initial release of the Apple watch its feature set just isn't up to the task even if I carry the phone along with me to provide GPS/location services. I expect Apple will address the shortcomings pretty quickly and once third party developers have access to an SDK that lets them build native apps for the watch (hopefully in June after WWDC) there will likely be a lot of capable options available for the Apple watch within the limitations of the device battery life and lack of internal GPS.

In the meantime I picked up a Fenix 3 yesterday with the hope that Garmin would have addressed the problems I had seen with stability and bluetooth connectivity on the Fenix 1. I haven't had a chance to take the watch out for any serious activities yet and I've had it for less than 24 hours so I don't know about overall functionality and stability but already I'm having painfully familiar issues with bluetooth connectivity. Although the watch paired just fine with my iPhone when I initially set it up, this morning when I woke up it had lost connectivity with the iPhone even though I had left both devices running with bluetooth on in their chargers next to each other overnight. Despite a lot of fiddling with the Garmin Connect app and attempting to re-pair the devices, they refuse to connect today.

How is it that Garmin just can't get bluetooth right after years of trying? Or is it that they just can't write reliable iOS or Android apps for their watches to connect to? If Garmin can't fix
this quickly the Apple watch is going to eat their lunch in this market for all but hardcore users just the way smartphones did for car-based GPS devices.

I think I'm going to be returning my Fenix 3 to REI for a refund. $550 for another Fenix watch that still can't do bluetooth connectivity reliably is just too much money. Garmin never fixed this issue for the Fenix 1 so I don't have much hope that they'll fix this for the Fenix 3 either. I wish I did but fool me once with the Fenix 1, shame on Garmin, fool me twice, shame on me.

I must say that overall i'm very pleased with Fenix 3 as a sportwatch. The Bluetooth issue(s) is only problem/annoying thing with fenix 3.
Pairing must do manually each time, but it still works by that way. Thanks for that, anyway ;)
I still think problem is in Garmin Connect app. And that the pairing is done via it.

Why pairing isn't done via phones BT-settings as usual? What is the reason?
Because i believe that is the main problem here.

Garmin...Hu-huu???