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Screen often dimming, sometimes completely black

DarrenPick
over 1 year ago

I am currently having two issues with the display on my new Forerunner 965

  1. Intermittently, my display will dim so much it is unusable outdoors. I can see the screen indoors and when I go to the display brightness settings it does adjust the brightness but the brightest setting is still too dark to be readable outdoors. The only thing I have found to return the display to normal brightness is to power off and on the watch.
    1. the watch can go for a few days between this happening and there is no pattern that I have noticed
    2. it doesn't recover by itself after waiting for > 2 days
  2. Less frequently my watch screen will be completely black. the only way I have found to resolve this is to press and hold the power button for > 30 seconds, wait a while and then power the watch back on.
    1. the watch doesn't automatically cure itself, it was left for over 24hrs once and it remained in the faulty state
    2. there doesn't seem to be any pattern to when this happens, However it has not yet happened during an activity. 

I am currently trying to upload videos and pictures for support to check this out, pretty miffed that I bought this watch for an event later this month and it is highly likely I will not be able to trust the device to be able to use it.

Anyone else having these issues? found. way to cure? some rogue setting hopefully?

  • 0 over 1 year ago

    Sounds like a silly question, but have you done a hard restart, holding the power button until it goes off? Also, and this is a little more scorched earth, have you done a full factory reset?

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to arcalius

    hi, not a silly question at all. yes I have to do the hard restart every time to recover from the completely black screen issue. and yes I have done a factory reset then set it up again.

  • 0 over 1 year ago

    I had the same problem today on a bike ride.  With the sun shining and my glasses on, the screen dimmed after the first few seconds of starting the activity and I found myself looking at a blank screen.  The display would pop on and off at random moments.  When it did turn on, I could see it, but otherwise, it was useless.  I called Garmin support when I got back and opened a case.  They will look into it.  The rep said only one other person had called about it.  It seems pointless to have a watch that dims in the sun and you can't see the display.   The Garmin rep said they would "look into it" but who knows when that will be.  

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to RunJeffRun!

    If it turns back to bright with a gesture, then it is a feature.

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to pxl

    This is the problem though. I think dark-ish is the default when the sun is bright, with the level set by some ambient light sensor. Turning the wrist brightens tthe screen significantly and it’s then very clear. If this gesture stops working, all you’re going to see is a dark screen. 

    I’ve had the activity gesture decide to stop working a few times. The first when I paused my watch at a traffic light. The second when I hot key “back” buttoned back to the watch face to check a glance. Suddenly no gesture recognition while running and so no backlight brightening. Some setting is getting forgotten, and it can be hard to reproduce.

    But it would explain the weird behaviours many are seeing with a dark screen. 

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to pxl

    yes, if the display's "always on" disabled and the "gesture" is on, it works as the poster described :) i noticed it yesterday also on bike, so after the workout, i disabled the gesture for the bike profile. (i dont need display on bike, it is my 2ndary device next to 830)

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to pxl

    the gesture screen brightness is working, but the brightness is too low even then to see the screen outdoors. When I lift my wrist to view the screen and it adjusts to the brighter view, that is actually dimmer than the lowest brightness in the settings when the fault is not present. I have videos of the watch in both the dim screen fault and the black screen fault. 

  • 0 over 1 year ago in reply to DarrenPick

    I wonder if the ambient light sensor isn't working properly. Do you have similar issues out of activities, or in other light conditions? I.e. the baseline brightness of the screen isn't adjusting to the surrounding very well.

  • 0 over 1 year ago

    Same issue here, screen is unreadable in outdoor, the brightness is to low (nothing except for the “flashlight” is rebake, very annoying for an outdoor watch. Please garmin fix the brightness levels

  • 0 over 1 year ago

    Same issue here, screen is unreadable in outdoor, the brightness is to low (nothing except for the “flashlight” is rebake, very annoying for an outdoor watch. Please garmin fix the brightness levels