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Screen unresponsive, gaps in data, synch issues with Garmin Connect

Dennis
over 1 year ago

Dear support,

I want to raise my concern over a few issues that I experience with my Vivoactive 5 watch.

1. Sometimes the watch screen becomes unresponsive. Tapping the screen, pushing the buttons or making the wrist gesture does not help in waking up the screen. The sensor on the back is still functioning while this happens. After a while the screen becomes responsive again. This issue has a duration of a couple of minutes.

2. Synchronization issues with Garmin Connect app. Almost every day there are gaps in my data in the Garmin Connect app, which makes it hard to make the watch useful. The watch itself did register the data, so no idea why the Garmin Connect app doesn't show the data. Below you find some examples where the watch does register, but the app has gaps in the data. Also it's not consistent, so for example Heartrate isn't synced, but Stress is. 

      

As you can see in the pictures above, where I was unfortunately ill, the Garmin Connect app doesn't show any data from 0:00 till around 03:00, but the watch itself has the data. Manually syncing does not solve the issue. Turning bluetooth on and off doesn't solve the issue.

3. GAPS in data, both on watch and Garmin Connect app. Almost daily there's also gaps in the data both on the watch and in the Garmin Connect app. It varies from a few minutes to multiple hours. During that time the watch was 'responsive' as I received notifications.

 This picture was taken at 21:30, and you can clearly see there is a gap between 20:30 and 20:45-ish. This is just a small gap, there have been bigger gaps than this example.

While searching the forums and internet I've encountered multiple topics about these issues from other users. 

For example:

Screen turned black not responsive - but still functioning? - vivoactive 5 Series - Health & Wellness - Garmin Forums

Hi, my Garmin vivoactive 5 screen has gone black but it is still making vibrating noises when I touch the top button. - vivoactive 5 Series - Health & Wellness - Garmin Forums

Vivoactive 5 screen turned black but still functioning? : r/Garmin (reddit.com)

I've deleted all Garmin apps from my phone and reinstalled them. I've reset my watch multiple times, even set it back to factory settings, but nothing helped. As the other users are mentioning in their topics A REPLACEMENT WATCH DIDN'T SOLVE THE ISSUE, so please don't tell me to contact my local Garmin support. These are issues which should be acknowledged by the Garmin team and fixed as soon as possible as the main function of the watch is now faulty. Please give me an update on where we stand with these issues and what the timeline is in which you expect to solve these issues. Thank you.

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to Garmin-Inder

    Hi ,

    I've contacted local support again and have asked them whether this is a hardware or software problem. They've proposed to examine my watch to see if there's anything wrong with it, and it might result in a replacement watch. The replacement watch is possibly a refurbished watch or a brand new one as stated in the email I got from them. 

    I'm very hesitant to send my watch over to Garmin as multiple people online have stated that it didn't resolve their issues (getting a new watch). The problems I experience don't occur EVERY day, but sometimes twice a day. I find it hard to believe with so many people all over the world experiencing one of these problems with their watches, that it's all hardware related. The quality control in the factory must be worse then. 

    I'm lost in what to do, as my trust in Garmin watches and software has dropped enormously unfortunately.

  • 0 over 1 year ago

    Hi all, 

    how are your watches doing?

    Mine started to have problem 3 from the OP as well. And it stopped tracking sleep this night for the second time in a week. But the first time this week it also stopped tracking everything else and the time was not correct when waking up. 

    I woke up at 5.28 and the watch said it was 4.50…. So it’s not working as a watch either?? It didn’t track sleep, HRV etc. But it did track everything else. And after a hard rest it lost all heart rate data, BB and stress data it recorded only on the second stress screen there it says it tracked hours of stress.. it’s only invisible on the graph. It did remember my steps….. Is it because of leap day? Or do I have the same problems as more people have with the VA 5 and Venu 3?

    At my hospital appointment next week my specialist wanted to look at my heart rate data. But this watch is highly unreliable like this. I wish I’d bought another watch brand. I’m having problems almost every day and it’s taking so much time to troubleshoot every time! I only have this watch 6 weeks, this is really a bad experience. It is getting more problems every day. And now it’s not giving me a correct time either. How can I trust Garmin?? 

    here you see it stopped recording everything after a hard reset but the watch still says I recorded stress for the night .


    this was the time according to my watch, but it was 5.28 in reality

    This is not good for my morning mood. Since I got this watch it’s giving problems almost every morning  but since this week they got pretty severe as you can see. 

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to Esther

    Hi Esther,

    I'm sorry to hear you're experiencing even more problems with your Vivoactive 5 nowadays. To answer your question; I was fed up with all the problems with my watch so I went back to the store I bought it from. Unfortunately I was outside the window in which I could've returned the watch for refund, so I left it there for repair. It's been there for two weeks now, still haven't heard a solution. 

    I want to think we are just very unlucky and have faulty watches, because I can't imagine that with so many Vivoactive 5's sold over the world everyone is experiencing these problems. Or they buy the watch and let it just sit on their wrist and do nothing with the data.

    I'm very curious if the repair department (from Coolblue) will find anything. I highly doubt it as it's not consistent and various problems.

    Are you able to bring it back to the shop for a replacement or repair?

    I'm back with my old Venu now, and it's doing it's job for now. 

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to Dennis

    Hi Dennis,

    I completely understand you’ve send the watch back. I hope they will refund you.. I guess dynabyte won’t find the problem either (I think Coolblue also works with dynwbyte?) indeed, because it’s intermittent. I really hope it will get sorted soon for you. Edit to add I of course mean dynafix :-D

    im outside the return window as well, since two weeks. But I bought it at Bol and I’ve reported the problems I had within the return window. So they said if problems continued I can return it. I bought a smartwatch because my hospital specialist asked me to. But I can’t trust the results anymore. It’s not even getting the time right, it’s a watch! And if I send it back I can’t see my data in connect app on my phone anymore. My appointment is after the weekend. I regret not following her advice for an Apple Watch. 

    I also bought a lot of watch straps.. so it would be very frustrating if I can’t use them anymore. 

    I’m not sure if we all have a faulty unit. Reddit is starting to get filled up with comments as well about problems with Venu 3, Lily 2 and VivoActive 5. I think it’s the software. The sleep tracking problems I started to have are also prescribed by Lily 2 owners and the latest Fenix owners. Even the wrong time is a bug that happens for years (found this on the forum). It seems like software bugs travelled from older software to the new watches software? For me the biggest problems started this week. So if this happens to more users then there will be more faulty units popping up soon.. 

    The syncing bugs are also well known for years. They got resolved and then came back again. For android and iOS users. 

    I bought this as a health watch, but this last week it took sleep away when I noticed it didn’t tracked sleep when I had to go out to use the restroom. And fiddling with it constantly to make it work again is making me very stressed. Now I can’t even trust it when I want to know the time. So I think I’ll send it back as well after my appointment.


    Also hard resetting constantly makes the body battery useless, it either drops around 20 points or rises around 20 points after a hard reset. 

    I’ve also contacted support and they looked into my account and she didn’t see any syncing  issues or other problems. So she didn’t even bother to look closely apparently. They proposed to send in my watch before this latest answer about “nothings wrong”.

    Can you write the outcome here, when you hear back from coolblue? I’m very curious. 

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to Esther

    Hi Esther, just a quick reply. Bear in mind that an Apple watch needs to be charged daily, which is a complete deal breaker for me. Other than that, it just works as intended, so I get your sentiment. 

    I've got a new watch from Coolblue yesterday. Set it up with an screenprotector overnight so this will be the first full day. Very curious how this watch will behave. Unfortunately the sales person wasn't able to look into the repair report, so I've to contact customer support to find out what they've concluded and why they offered me a new watch. To be continued. Have a great weekend! 

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to Dennis

    Hi Dennis,

    Thank you for your update!

    yes that’s why I’ve bought the Garmin watch. Despite my specialist recommending an Apple Watch. And also because the vivoactive is round. Such a short battery life is not really acceptable for a watch..

    I had one night again where it worked as advertised. But last night it didn’t record any sleep again. I’m reading this problem about so many watches. Even the super expensive ones. So I’ve completely lost trust in the software Garmin makes. There’s also a new update for the VivoActive. I’m so scared to download it, there’s also nothing about bug fixes regarding the unresponsive screen some people have. And definitely not about sleep tracking problems. 

    Everything else works fine again, I only had problems on leap day with time etc. No freezing etc. And hr etc gets tracked. So I guess this sleep tracking problem is software related. So odd because sleep tracking worked normally for 5 weeks or so! 

    And then there are all the bugs in the connect app. Through the forum I have support now about that, not with the Dutch support, they haven’t responded anymore.

    I really hope your new watch works well! Please let me know here, also when you hear back from Coolblue why you got a new device, I really hope they will let you know! :) 

    Have a good weekend! 

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to Esther

    Hello garmin fellows. Esther, iit is a software related. How do i know? I ve had tactix amoled with sleep gaps . Before i had fenix 7 and no problems. Talking with g support i exchanged my tactix so 3 weeks i returned to my fenix 7( beta tester by the way) . Fenix 7 was ok with no sleeps gaps in hr readings untiill beta 16.17.. it became same as tactix.. gaps at night between 2-3 am( i am on utc +2 if this info helps). I tried all the forum here solutions… no fix for it. Meanwhile my tactix arrived and 2 days ok than… same as old one.. gaps at night. Still have them. Not a info where to look at logs in watch files directory to try to investigate. Just hoping that the new official 16  firmware will fix both my watches. 

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to Esther

    Hi, I've had the dotted line recently too, and it's been when I've had the watch charging, so I suspect it's an estimated line. So for me it was body battery, and given that I wasn't wearing the watch, it guessed where I should be during the time I wasn't wearing it. 

    Not sure if that's the same thing you had, but I've also had the sensor being a bit funky so I guess it could be either :/ 

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to Martin3s

    so you are in a different time zone? I’m in the Netherlands. For me the gaps always happen at midnight exactly. That’s really interesting because I was wondering if people in different timelines have the gaps at different times. 

    Do you also have this problem intermittent? So not every night? 

    For me it got worse with a connect app update in February. So I still wonder if it’s something with the servers/ syncing. 

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to Mikey

    yes the dotted line is an estimated line. 

    I have those too when charging the watch and when showering. But the gaps I have are happening during the night. Then I’m wearing the watch. I got the dotted lines at night when I tried to get it to sync, so I did several hard resets and deleted the connect app and reinstalled it etc. So during those dotted lines my watch was not connected with Bluetooth. the problem gaps are the ones that start at midnight. It’s not syncing data then for sometimes a few minutes and sometimes a few hours. Always starting at midnight, while it synced everything up until midnight.