Fenix 7X Sapphire Solar Constantly connecting and disconnecting

I asked about this issue on Reddit. Apparently not all Fenix 7 users who use the watch with Pixel 6 or Pixel 6 Pro phone are affected. At the same time, apparently, there are users of other Garmin devices that seem to have similar issues.

One person told me to make sure that on my phone I don't have any 2.4 GHz WiFi networks because apparently when phone uses 2.4 GHz WiFi that interferes with Bluetooth and causes this issue. That's an interesting idea! I tried using only 5 GHz WiFi networks and so far I haven't reproduced the issue in a few days. That doesn't prove anything but sounds promising. I am going to switch back to a 2.4 GHz WiFi and see if the problem is back.

I think this might be a relatively recent Garmin Connect issue rather than Fenix 7 issue, however I think Fenix 7 is much more likely to trigger this issue because of it's higher volume of synced data. I've noticed that even when it syncs successfully that takes a fairly long time. Even when there is nothing to sync, the sync takes about a minute as indicated by the app. Furthermore I strongly suspect that the app is trying to communicate with the cloud over the network at the same time as it communicates with the watch over Bluetooth, which is probably why it is likely to run into interference. Probably some models of phones have stronger WiFi radio or slightly different timing of how the network stack works, which makes the interference more likely. 

I suspect that Garmin Connect is no longer caching the data the way it used in the past, which has changed the network communication pattern, probably, as a result of new Fenix 7 functionality such as editing the watch settings on the phone. Coincidentally I often see a significant lag when editing the watch settings on the phone, which tells me that there is some network traffic while I am doing that. And often editing watch settings on the app outright fails telling me that the operation is currently unavailable. Then when I try again that succeeds. That points to a compromised design, and I think that flaky editing of watch settings in the app is related to syncing issues and the watch disconnecting and reconnecting. 

I can happily report, that the problem (constant connection/disconnection) have disappeared in my case but I do not know what fixed it... anyway here is a "log" of when the problem occured and what I was doing. Please note that I could fix the problem only by restarting my phone.

6th May - 7:00 am synchronization ok, 9:00 am problem occurred when entering the connect app
7th May - all day ok, but at 8:37 pm problem occurred
8th May - all day ok
9th May - 6:55 am problem occurred when manual synchronization was running about 12s after start
10th May - all day ok
11th May - 7:00 am problem occurred when I opened the connect app and at 7:15 pm again when I entered the connect app
12th May - all day ok, connect app not opened because I thought that it is related and I wanted to test this theory
13th May - 9:20 am watch update to 8.18 + I have turned on watch alerts, also phone update (Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra), all day ok
14th May - phone restart, all day ok, connect app not opened
15th May - all day ok, connect app not opened
16th May - all day ok, connect app not opened
17th May - all day ok, connect app not opened
18th May - all day ok, connect app not opened
19th May - 10:00 am watch update to 8.21, all day ok, at this point I started opening the connect app again regularly, because the problem did not occur for 4+ days.
20th May - all day ok, connect app opened regularly
21th May - all day ok, connect app opened regularly
22th May - all day ok, connect app opened regularly
23th May - all day ok, connect app opened regularly
24th May - all day ok, connect app opened regularly
25th May - ok to this point, connect app opened regularly

silentvoyager said:

I think this might be a relatively recent Garmin Connect issue rather than Fenix 7 issue

I should also mention that I have just looked at recent Garmin Connect user reviews in the Android App Store. There are actually quite a few user reviews that mention recent Bluetooth issues e.g. the device constantly disconnecting without mentioning what Garmin device they have. That yet again points to Garmin Connect app being the root cause. 

Not the first time there's issues with connect <=> watch connection.....

I have been struggling with this with the Forerunner 235 already, later with Fenix 5 it became more stable. But every now and then issues rise. In my experience it is mostly due to rather new/unknown Android phones. That is one of the reasons why i stick to my 4yr old Huawei and don't go fancy new. Issue seems less apparent with iOS as there's lesser variability with their hardware. With Android there's a plethora of hardware and software implementations and it is quite a thing for manufacturers like Garmin to keep up. As pixel has the Tensor chip, it can be the reason why there's issues with that specific phone as it's rather new and nothing like known soc's.

ramon_73 said:

As pixel has the Tensor chip, it can be the reason why there's issues with that specific phone as it's rather new and nothing like known soc's.

If you read the comments everyone said their Pixels worked fine with Fenix 5/6 and the problem started with upgrade to Fenix 7. The same phone works reliably with all other Bluetooth devices.

Anyway, I wanted to mention that I haven't had any disconnecting issues in the last couple of weeks. Either the problem was fixed in 8.21 (I know it wasn't in 8.18 and the last time I had it on May 13th) or perhaps my workaround had helped. The workaround was to make sure to not use 2.4 GHz WiFi networks. 

I have a Google Pixel 6 Pro and I was using my Garmin Fenix 6 Saphire for a few months without any issues.

Some weeks ago, possibly after a Garmin Connect, or watch firmware, it stopped connecting to phone and only with a few tries (restarts, reinstalls, etc) I was able to connect the same.

I'm trying to use it on a Samsung Galaxy A52 for a few days and the same issue persists.

Having the same problems here: Garmin Fenix 7 Saphire (latest available firmware) + Samsung Galaxy S20+ 5G.

The answer from Garmin in the thread just not matches the problem:

1/ It is not limited to Samsung phones

2/ U cannot find any reports with the same thing happening with other Garmin devices on same phone.

Please advise

Another user with phone and watch forgetting about each other on a regular basis....

Hi Chris - re bluetooth connectivity, I am also having problems. My phone and watch lose bluetooth connectivity with Garmin Connect daily and I have to repair manually.

Phone: Samsung S22U running Android 12 and OneUI 4.1, Garmin Connect 4.56

Watch: Garmin Fenix 6X Pro Sapphire running v22.10

When the problem happens, when the watch and phone have previously been connected and synced OK, at some point during the day the watch and phone become disconnected. The watch reports Status: Waiting for Phone. The phone does not list the watch in connected bluetooth devices, nor the available bluetooth devices. The watch disappears from the Garmin Connect app as a syncable connected device. Garmin Connect does know that I have a watch and asks if I want to connect it.

I can restore the situation by repairing the watch i.e. doing "add device" in Garmin Connect, and Pair Phone on the watch.

It loses connection again a few hours or a day later. No real pattern or significant trigger event as far as I can see.

Since your watch is losing Bluetooth connection and you must manually intervene and go through the entire Bluetooth process again to re-connect your watch to your smartphone, please reach out to Outdoor Product Support in your region to exchange your watch.