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With update to Lollipop 5.0.1, my VivoActive no longer pairs.

Former Member over 10 years ago

I have only had the VivoActive about 4 days (I got it on Monday about 6 p.m.). Within those 4 days, my HTC One M8 phone was upgraded to Lollipop 5.0.1 and began pairing intermittently. I was trying to figure out what was causing this. It seemed that I had to keep the Garmin Connect Mobile app open on my phone all the time and that if I got more than 30 feet away from my phone, it disconnected. I was questioning the usefulness of the watch if I had to keep my phone right by me all the time although I do take it with me everywhere (but not when working in the garden or walking around my house).

Eventually, I read somewhere to reinstall Garmin Connect Mobile and to turn the phone off and on again. Reinstalling Garmin Connect Mobile only made it impossible to reconnect the watch to the phone, when before the connection was intermittent. Now the Garmin Connect Mobile app icon does not show on my phone, but if I go to the Play Store, I can open the app from there. I also noticed that on the watch's system menu, there was an item called BlueTooth and a couple of swipes later, one called something about pairing. When I tried that item, the app went into black space. I had to uninstall it and install it again to get it running again. At some point, that pairing menu disappeared so that now there is only the menu called BlueTooth.

So I think the problem has to do with Lollipop being installed on my phone. The M8 phone is not on the tested and approved by Garman list, although the M7 phone is. Since the upgrade to 5.0.1 is so recent, my assumption is that Android version 4.306 that I had before may not have been tested and approved, but it was working fine before the upgrade. The specs on the M8 say that it has Bluetooth 4.0 Smart Ready.

Is this something that can be fixed at your end? I can probably use my iPad mini to pair the watch, but then do I have to have it within 30 feet all the time for the watch to work?

Given my limited experience with the watch, I am not sure what to expect or what to try next. Any suggestions? I will speak with HTC tomorrow, but maybe I should be speaking to Google. Maybe Garmin should speak with Google since the watch paired before and was working fine. Maybe your speaking with Google would lead to your knowing how to fix the problem or your having Google fix the problem. I really don't want to have to return the watch. Is anyone else experiencing these problems after an upgrade to Lollypop?

0 Former Member over 10 years ago

So I read a message in the VivoActive Forum called "GPS not connecting and Garmin Connect won't sync after iOS 8.3 update" where they are saying that after the iOS update, one needed to unpair the phone from the watch, do a soft reset on the phone, and then pair the phone with the watch again. So since my phone and watch were already unpaired, I just did the soft reset. In the VivoActive manual (Web Version), the page on pairing says, "Go to www.garminconnect.com/vivoactive on your mobile browser." After the soft reset of my phone, I followed the manual and in that process I was given the choice of 3 devices, two of which were HTC phones including the HTC One M8 that I have (Verizon HTC 6525LVW). Thank you Garmin!! So my phone did pair and the watch seems to be generally working. However, I still do not have the icon for Garmin Connect Mobile showing on my phone, but I can still open the app from the web address above or from the app at the Play store. So I can keep the watch and also keep my HTC One M8 phone. I assume the app not having its icon on my phone will also be resolved soon.

My phone finally paired again after the operating system update! It is now synching. Thank you Garmin for making a file for HTC One M8 a.k.a. HTC 6525LVW!!!

0 Former Member over 10 years ago

I am told to go to iTunes to get the app. Well, under Garmin, there is nothing like Garmin Connect, so this is another dead end.

Garmin Connect is in the app store, you can install it on your iPad Mini same as any other app. However, it is not optimized for iPad display resolutions, only for the smaller iPhone resolutions, so when searching for "Garmin Connect" in the app store on your iPad you have to select to display iPhone apps in the drop-down menu in the upper left corner of the app store. Otherwise only search results for iPad-optimized apps are displayed.

By the way, I also have a HTC One M8 with Lollipop (firmware version 4.16.401.10) and face the same problems as you, both with my Vivosmart and my Vivoactive: once the Vivo device has lost the BT connection it is not able to reconnect on its own, you have to re-pair it with the phone every time. I have the latest firmwares on both devices, 3.10 on the Vivosmart and 2.70 on the Vivoactive, doesn't make a difference. I think it is a problem of the HTC firmware, at least the one mentioned above that we got here in Europe. I also have a Sony Xperia Z3 compact, which got the Lollipop update two weeks ago, and I have zero BT reconnect problems there, the Vivoactive works just fine with that phone.
However, others on this forum report having no problems with HTC One M8 devices and I guess they just got a different firmware update, one where the BT problems have somehow been fixed by HTC, see also this thread.