Bug? Epix Gen 2 Disconnecting and Reconnecting to Bluetooth often

From the manual:

Turning On and Off Phone Connection Alerts
You can set the epix watch to alert you when your paired phone connects and disconnects using Bluetooth
technology.
NOTE: Phone connection alerts are turned off by default.
1 Hold MENU.
2 Select Connectivity > Phone > Alerts.

I think the problem is the alerts. If you are not directly interacting with the connect app or a synch is in progress, the phone will disconnect. You can turn off those notifications.

Turning off alerts seems like addressing the symptom not the disease, unless, as you say, the watch is MEANT to connect-disconnect sometimes multiple times in a minute when other apps have connections that just stay on

kind of depends on the specifics and location of the watch and the phone, etc - are you seeing these connect/disconnects when the watch and phone are next to each other, nearby one another, etc - ? I assume that's what you're seeing. BUT - if the watch and phone lose their BT connection for distance reasons - you go in another part of the house, or for whatever reason separate the watch & phone from each other to the extent that the BT signal is lost, then yes of course in that scenario you'll see disconnects. Tell us more about your exact situation.
I don't use Android but I've read that you need to ensure the BT permissions and such are set with Android so the phone doesn't shut down the connection on its own to save battery and such. You might Google up Android Bluetooth permissions and the like to see what's what there. Good luck.

The phone can be next to the watch or any distance up to a couple of rooms away. Nothing to do with distance. It isn't permissions because when it connects it connects. It's just a matter of persistence of the connection.

I suspect that being a watch where battery power management is critical the watch cuts the Bluetooth radio to conserve power but the rapidity of the connection/ disconnection is weird. If it IS a feature not a bug then a simple icon showing connection status+ an explanation in the manual would be better than the current notification+ forum search 

8869413 said:

I suspect that being a watch where battery power management is critical the watch cuts the Bluetooth radio to conserve power but the rapidity of the connection/ disconnection is weird.

It could similarly be argued that being a phone where battery power management is critical that the battery cuts the Bluetooth to conserve power thereby triggering the alert on the watch.

8869413 said:

It's just a matter of persistence of the connection.

Correct. Your watch does not need a persistent connection to the phone, so power saving features implemented by both the phone and watch manufacturers is to seek to disconnect unwanted or unused connections that consume battery life. Streaming to headphones, which do require a persistent connection, works. 

So, the only problem that you do appear to have is the bother of the notifications. It's up to you to solve the actual problem that you have. If you want a persistent connection between the watch and phone, you can keep GCM active and open on your phone and keep them close, they may remain connected....