Gesture mode

It definitely is...you should just set the "AOD off" and "Gesture on" during "General use".

https://www8.garmin.com/manuals/webhelp/GUID-E5C62F3F-DCE3-4197-8CA5-E419B2A55D12/EN-US/GUID-C9A5E731-8826-4AD0-8087-F6E2EAC625D6.html

Also, you don't need to press the top left button to turn off the screen...it will turn off automatically.

Is that what you already did and it's not working as it should?

This is a really old post and the firmware and how AOD works has changed from when the watch was first launched.

Wrist gesture can only be changed from the settings where you get 3 profiles where you can specify how wrist gesture works: during activity, general use & sleep. Menu - Settings - System - display and then go into each of the 3 profiles and specify whether you want wrist gesture on/off (for me its on, on & off).

AOD on/off: Like wrist gesture you get the 2 options under display as to set if on/off (sleep is auto-off) - mine is on for activity off for general

However you can also set how it will work for each sport activity - unless specified they will use the default - i.e. what you have set above, or you can go into an activity and specify an exception as to how it would normally work via using different power modes  i.e. menu - activities & apps - activity - activity settings - power mode and select the one you have set up so AOD is off/on as required. Default mode will show your system setting. So might be an idea to set up 2 power modes one with AOD on, and one with AOD off, so you can then use set which ever one based on how you system is currently set. i.e. I like my screen always on for running and most of my activities but don't for hiking. So for hiking I select a power mode I have created which has AOD off (called it AOD off to make it easy to pick).

How to create power modes/edit them: menu - power manager - power modes. press to edit or scroll down to get new option 

Thank you for the quick reply

Just to confirm though, when I am in General Use activity, I cannot turn on ONLY the Gesture mode with the AOD off?

If you go to Settings -> System -> Display -> General Use, you should be able to toggle Always on Display and Wrist Gesture. So you can have AOD off with/without gesture mode. 

If by "disable the AOD from the top left button" you meant you toggled the "Display" option from the controls menu (accessed by holding the top left button), you should know that this "Display" option is different than the Always on Display. Turning the Display off via the controls menu turns off the display unless it is touched or a button pressed. This is meant to prevent accidental screen wakes entirely. If you want to turn off the AOD only, do not use the Display controls menu and instead go into the settings as described above a toggle off Always on Display under General Use.

OK! THANKS!

I did not realize that the AOD from the "top left botton" was different from the AOD from teh system menu.

I got it figured out