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Garmin 235 Rebooting When Starting/Ending Charging

morielly1979
over 3 years ago

Update: March 9, 2022.  It's been over 2 years since I posted this concern.  This problem still happens on my watch and I have learned to live with it.  I still suspect it has something to do with voltage levels.  In order to deal with this issue I now do the following: 

  • Only charge with a portable power bank (Anker 10,000mAh).  I rarely get reboots/data loss when I use this method.
  • Make sure my runs are synced to Garmin connect prior to charging.
  • Only attempt to charge when battery is low.

I'm very tired of buggy Garmin watches (the 235 is my 3rd watch) and, even worse, the complete unresponsiveness of their support team; I'm currently shopping for a different brand for my next watch.

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Hi all: 

I've seen a lot of similar messages issues in the forum, but I have not yet seen a suggestion/fix for this issue:

My watch frequently reboots when it is connected to a computer (or a charging device such as a wall charger or battery charger).  It seems completely random -- I never know when I'm connecting to a charger whether it's going to get restart.

Usually when it restarts I lose data in the phone: 

  • Often the time is wrong when it restarts
  • Often the daily step count is now zeroed
  • Often my recent activities are gone from the watch (but still in Garmin Connect if it had synced previously)
  • Often my heart rate data for the past 4 hours is missing.
  • Often the next GPS fix takes a considerably longer time -- presumably GPS data is lost.

None of the above are guarantee: Sometimes none of these things happen, sometimes all of them happen.

I have a background in electronics, firmware, software, development, etc.  I suspect their charging circuitry has issues and when your input voltage is a little too high it causes the above issue; that's why portable power banks, which may be lower and will be more consistent than a wall charger, can be used to mitigate the issue.  It also explains why a fully charged device is more likely to cause the problem -- because lower charge will draw a higher initial current and dampen the initial voltage spike (assuming a RC filter network).

Can anyone help?  The watch is getting barely usable when I have so little trust in it.

Thanks, 

Mark

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to morielly1979

    Yes, reboots while charging and often as soon as disconnected from charging.  

    Actually had a chat session with Garmin support today where they had me do a 'hard' reboot by holding the power button until watch shut down (without responding to 'power off' question).  Turned back on a couple of minutes later.  Charged ok after hard reboot.  So far, it seems better.  Hope it lasts.   I do not like losing data.        

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to nuckos27

    Any update?  Did the hard reboot improve things? 

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to morielly1979

    No!  Watch is still rebooting by itself when plugged into the charger thru computer.   I ran this morning, synced via the phone app to make sure I saved the data, and then charged the watch.  Watch randomly rebooted while charging, but did charge to 100%.  When I disconnected, the time was off, but synced up once GPS connected.    Disappointing.         

  • 0 over 2 years ago in reply to nuckos27

    That's a drag. I went through the same thing with tech support - hard reset, etc.  It didn't help.  

    As I say above, mine is mostly fine as long as I only attempt to charge when the battery is on the lowish side.  Typically I try to charge when the watch is 30-40%.  It had been a long time since I had seen the reset issue but this morning I tried charging when it was 87% and sure enough:  hard reboot, data loss, date off by 2 days+3 hours, and my next GPS fix took 5 mins.