The charging cable has 4 spring loaded pins to contact the 4 charging posts in the watch. The spring action is designed to maintain contact to the posts so a snug fit is not necessary to charge. Occasionally…
The charging cable has 4 spring loaded pins to contact the 4 posts on the watch. The spring action is designed to keep contact even when the charger fit is not snug. Occasionally, a pin will stick and…
Unfortunately, I bought 2 of these for my kids. Both have charging issues and it is clearly a bad design and/or construction on the connection between cable and device. I have many Garmin devices including…
I have a VA3music and had the same "doesn't charge anymore" issue. I also tried a new charger cord/disk which didn't solve the problem...so I looked at the contacts on the watch with a powerful magnifying glass and noticed the contacts are dome shaped (when new) and had some wear marks and deformed domes. I could actually see where the charger spring probes contacted the dome...there were 2 domes (the 2 on each end of the 4 contact row) that I could see the wear was on the side of the dome. I suspect the spring probe was sliding off of the dome and thus not making electrical contact. To fix (I'm long pass warranty expiration) this I used a small tip soldering iron to put a tiny amount of solder on the dome which essentially made the contact dome shaped again. I plugged into the charge cord and BINGO! the lighting bolt icon appeared. Hope this helps.
I’m having the same charging issue with my vivoactive3. I have to fiddle with it for several minutes to get it into the exact right position for it to charge at all. It’s very annoying and frustrating to the point that it makes me what to try a different brand for my next device. Garmin did a sh*t job designing this charging mechanism.
HI there! Have you reached out to Support just yet? Are you located in the US or CAD? Have you tried cleaning the contacts with rubbing alcohol?
I thought this was a form of reaching out to support. I'm in the US. I do not own rubbing alcohol. Are you going to buy me some and ship it here to fix your shoddy work?
I contacted Garmin Europe HQ (luckily for me it's only 5 miles from my house) and they sent me a new cable which works - however I still get intermittent disconnection of charging. I have tried using rubbing alcohol as I do keep a supply in my cupboard in case of emergencies (such as buying dodgy watches).
I bought toothpicks and rubbing alcohol, and I used those to clean it out. This did nothing at all to help. I've got about 60% battery life left. After that, it'll be dead for good.
Good luck with that my friend. This is a Garmin no man's land of lost souls and ex-customers. My Vivoactive 3 was just out of warranty and went in the bin because of this. This lack of support also puts Garmin at the bottom of the pile in all my future choices, I might as well buy the cheap Chinese stuff from Amazon.
My FitBit works perfectly btw...