Glitchy Gesture Activation

I’m having some issues with activation of the screen in gesture mode.

Intermittently, particularly when it’s been a while since I last looked at the watch, when I turn my wrist to activate the watch, it will only activate extremely briefly- a flicker really. Even pressing buttons or tapping the screen has the same effect. It can be difficult to activate the watch when this happens- usually takes a number of attempts before the screen comes on and stays on. At other times it works as I would expect.

I’ve updated the firmware, restarted, and then reset to factory settings all to no avail. I wonder if this is a hardware fault with gesture detection.

Has anyone else had similar issues?

Thanks.

Top Replies

All Replies

0 Travisimo over 3 years ago in reply to Brian-ADR

Brian, I think the plan is for Garmin to replace watches that are experiencing this issue, but the problem is that they are waiting on a stock refresh. Thankfully, it is not something that stops the watch from functioning or we would be in a much bigger pickle. As it stands, I'm patiently awaiting a replacement, but I want to make sure they have isolated the problem and that a replacement doesn't also have the same issue. I am confident they will make it right, but it is definitely taking longer than I had hoped.

Anecdotally, I think the perceived connection between the issue appearing and battery life may be a weak one. I have been watching to see if there's a correlation on my watch, but there does not appear to be one. At first, it was definitely happening when the watch was below 60% battery life, but the last couple of days, the watch has not done it one time and my battery level has been dropping from 50% to 25%. Strangely, the issue only happens for me when I am at my workplace... I have not been able to get it to happen at home so that I can record a video of it along with some observations on how button combinations etc affect it.

0 Brian-ADR over 3 years ago in reply to Travisimo

I've had it happen at 80% so I'm not sure it's battery related either. Any ideas I have about it would just be guessing...it happened this morning twice then I just swam laps and all my laps tracked perfectly so not sure it's related to that issue either. It's frustrating for me but it's not a deal breaker especially because it doesn't happen if AOD is on which is how I have my workout profiles set up. I haven't heard any news on what their plan is to fix it (replacement or firmware fix) but I'm sure they'll eventually figure something out for us.

0 Travisimo over 3 years ago

I was able to record a video of my Epix with the gesture issue.

0 2946235 over 3 years ago in reply to Brian-ADR

Unfortunately Brian I think you are spot on. If this was an easy fix then we would already have it. Now wondering whether should have gone for the Femix 7 now which is disappointing as I am quite enjoying the watch apart from its glitches

0 DCeremuga over 3 years ago in reply to Travisimo

Now I have the issue. On a fresh start, my watch seems to display properly, but then the "Bright On-Time" with gesture gets shorter and shorter until I only get a second of my watch face before it dims. I have it set to 15 seconds

0 jaamgans over 3 years ago in reply to Travisimo

Does that happen just on that watch face or on all watch faces. Am curious as not using that watch face and not having that issue.

0 johan6504 over 3 years ago

I am loosing my vrist activation as well and the pool swim is not working. Reset doesnt make any difference. It feels like more and more features are affected... Wonder if this is hardware or software?

0 TobiasLj over 3 years ago in reply to johan6504

johan6504 said:
I am loosing my vrist activation as well

Loosing as in it doesn't work? Since 7.35 I notice that I sometimes need to twist my arm one or two times extra with more force for the display to activate. Before 7.35 it always worked without any problems. Sometimes activated unintentionally but better that then not activating at all.
This may not be a problem during daily wear but on a trail run or MTB ride you may only have a window of seconds to read the display and if it doesn't turn on full brightness (I have AOD during activities but it dims) you may have to wait minutes for the next chance to look at the watch.

0 3065227 over 3 years ago in reply to jaamgans

jaamgans — it is not specific to that watch face. I have this issue many times a day, and it occurs across many different watch faces.

0 ChrisM over 3 years ago

I have a similar issue. The display will turn on and off very quickly and then turn off. The only way I can turn the display back on is to hold the "menu" button for a few seconds. While holding the "menu" button the display flickers on and off then turns back on. It usually happens when I move my arm/hand a lot, like washing my hands. There were a few times where it would act up while I swipe from different displays too often. I've had this with the preset faces and SC8 face. I'm now using the AOD.