Pixel 8a: Android 16 and Venu 3 14.15: TOXIC COMBINATION

DO NOT UPGRADE to Android 16 or take any upgrades to your Venu 3 if your watch and Connect app are working fine. Mine were working fine on Android 15, but either the upgrade to Android 16 OR the latest/most recent Venu 3 update has caused frequent disconnects. 3 or 4 times per day I'll need to re-add my Venu 3 to the Connect app. It'll just be completely missing when I open the app. I can have the app open and sitting right next to my watch, and I'll get the "phone disconnected" message on my wrist.

So far I've:

Cleared app cache

Cleared all app data

Turned off all possible battery optimizations for the app

Turned off any bluetooth power saving settings in the phone

Soft reset my Venu 3

None of this has helped. On top of that, there's no way to get Voice Assistant working.

I like this watch when it works, but I'm still in the return window. I think I'm going to do so.

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0 ghost666 1 day ago in reply to 2920480

The problem is the very poor Bluetooth module that Garmin used in the Venu 3. The issues already started with Android 15, because on 14 everything worked perfectly. I keep wondering how Garmin could put such a weak module into a fairly expensive watch. After all, much cheaper Garmin watches never had these kinds of problems that the Venu 3 is experiencing now. Frequent disconnections are one thing, but how can it be explained that notifications often don’t even reach the watch when the phone is lying just 3 meters away in a straight line. On the Forerunner 955 there was no issue with range, even at 30 meters in open space.