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Issues with Charging/Charger?

toastayy
over 5 years ago
My vivoactive 3 music has been working flawless since I've had it. Over the weekend I left it to charge and realized that the battery full drained and did not charge.

After more inspection, it seems the charger was "woobly" in connection with the battery connection, which means it wasn't making proper connection. When I pressed down on the charger, the contact seems to be more secure and the watch proceeded to charge. When I released pressure, it stopped charging.

It seems that there might be something wrong with either the charger itself (easy fix) or the connection on the watch (not sure about fix?). I went ahead and ordered a different charger from amazon, but was wondering if anyone had any experience with this kind of issue, and can pinpoint where exact the problem is? I've already inspected both contacts on the watch and the charger, and have cleaned them. There was no lint or dirt or anything preventing the charging. It seems the charger is not making a tight enough connection with the watch.

Thanks
  • 0 over 5 years ago
    Very occasionally I've had the charger appear to not charge the watch and simply wiping the contacts on the watch with a cotton cloth fixes it - this used to happen a lot with my old Asus WearOS watch as well so I've never really thought anything of it. It's not a very frequent thing to happen for me though.

    Please report back as to whether your new charger fixes the problem. I've recently bought a non-garmin charger stand for mine from Amazon and so far it works well, the watch clips in to the charger very snugly and wouldn't be easy to knock it loose accidentally!
  • 0 over 5 years ago
    I just got one of those unofficial garmin dock chargers in today and so far it isn't working. It does seem to be a bit more snug, but no charging so far. I've cleaned the contacts with alcohol on both the watch and the charger. Ive bought an official charger from Garmin so waiting for that to come in. If that doesn't fix the issue then I'll be contacting Garmin themselves.

    It's just strange since this occurred abruptly, and there are no signs of wear/tear on the device.
  • 0 over 5 years ago
    Hi,

    My wife's watch had the same issue. In a nutshell -> the replacement watch from Garmin Europe (UK) is going to be delivered by end of the day tomorrow (UPS).

    Longer story: The watch has been working/charging perfectly since end of November 2018 and all of a sudden in the beginning of March stopped to take charge with it's original charging cable. I checked the watch + charging cable and I found no physical damage. Same as in your case, it wasn't making proper connection. When slightly pushed the charger cable in charging was trigered. I was searching on the net and found almost nothing about VA3M charging issues. However, there were some posts about similar issues with Fenix 5. Most of these posts suggested like in PThexton's post the contacts might need some cleaning. Others were about the different type/color charging ports. Some of the watches were replaced and the received units were working properly. After I cleaned the contacts that made no effect, I went ahead and ordered a cable to sort out if it was a cable failure or not. Trying to charge the watch with the new cable made no difference. The next step was to contact Garmin support. First, they offered me to send a new cable, but I explained I already had a replacement one and that could not fix the issue. They created a Garmin service request and provided me with an RMA number. On 16th I sent in the watch from Budapest, Hungary to Garmin in Southampton, UK and on 21st the replacement watch was sent out. Pretty quick turn around time. Now, let's see what we'll get.
  • 0 over 5 years ago
    Hmmm, mine quite often has the same issue, but after some fiddling I can generally get it to work. Wondering if this may be a way to swap out my Spotifyless APAC model for a ROW version!
  • 0 over 4 years ago

    I'm experiencing this same situation right now... I literally have to hold the cable in place, pressing it onto the watch, to get it to charge... frustrating to say the least... did the new cable fix this for you? so ready to take that step if it is a fix!

  • 0 over 4 years ago

    This works, What Garmin should have done. Thanks for DC Rainmaker bringing it to my attention.

    ie=UTF8&psc=1https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07PBW23XJ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to bbrannon

    I got those flat chargers too since supposedly they worked. At first I thought the probelm was solved. They quickly stopped working like the other cables I have. I've now got at least 3 charger cables from different sources that worked for a week or a month and now do not work. Seems to me there is something on the watch contacts not the cable.

  • 0 over 4 years ago in reply to Paddleperson

    I have six of those "flat" chargers supporting five different Vivoactive 3s and 4s. All work without issue. I suspect you are correct with it being the contacts on your watch.

  • 0 over 3 years ago in reply to bbrannon

    It is what Garmin should have done, but it doesn't necessarily work for a bad charge port. I just bought that very item you linked to, the flat chargers, hoping that would fix a bad connection with the charge port. I can't get either of the new charging platforms to work. At all. At least my garmin charge cable finally works after jiggling it a dozen times.