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Stock band causing skin irritation. What's being done?

It's been a year since I've had my Garmin Vivoactive 3. I've tried scrubbing the band with rubbing alcohol, my wrist with rubbing alcohol. I've tried changing the types of hand soap and body wash I use. I don't wear it in the shower and I rarely wear it while I'm swimming. I remove it overnight while it needs to charge approximately every 3 to 5 days. I can't think of anything else I could possibly do to resolve this issue with the stock band. This seems to have affected several users throughout the past year. (most of those posts have been closed and no additional replies can be posted)

There's a spot on the side of my wrist that is red and irritated. it almost looks as if its a sunburn. The skin is red, itchy, and is flaky. It's only on one spot on my wrist where the band is solid. The slotted portion of the band on the other side of the watch face does not cause any skin irritation. Neither does the HR portion cause any irritation. It's just one small spot from the band that's causing this issue.

I owned the Vivosmart HR before this and never had a single issue with the stock band.

Loosening the band doesn't fix the issue. The skin irritation is still there. Switching wrists is not a viable solution as I don't want the same skin irritation on both my wrists. I'd like to know what Garmin will be doing to provide excellent customer service.

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0 Former Member over 5 years ago in reply to Former Member

I have had to stop wearing the watch because of the irritation, and the rash is improving, also applying cream, but still very visible.

+1 Former Member over 5 years ago in reply to Former Member

I called them and they were also VERY good to me. Sent me a nylon strap for free and rash is gone. Excellent care!

0 Former Member over 4 years ago in reply to Former Member

I have the same problem. Picture above. This is driving me crazy.

0 Former Member over 4 years ago in reply to Former Member

Yeah, I also have the same problem. I got in touch with Garmin in Italy and they were no help, they misunderstood and replied that "some people have a reaction to nickel and certain metals". When I replied restating again I was talking about the strap and not the watch itself I got no response.

Essentially they do not care. I have resorted to only wearing the watch half the time and never when sleeping which is a waste of money in my eyes as sleep tracking was one of the reasons I purchased it in the first place.

0 Former Member over 4 years ago

I have a 735xt and I'm having the same issues from what seems to be similar circumstances. I have a few watches one reasonably expensive Swiss watch with alligator strap, a pretty cheap Seiko 5 with a fabric Nato strap, Huawei watch with a probably fake leather strap and a Casio G Shock with a strap material similar to the Garmin but only the Garmin gives me a rash. It was intented to be my everyday watch and activity/fitness tracker but I've had to stop wearing it which is a shame as other than this issue it's perfect for the above uses. Sorry this doesn't really help but you are not alone on this issue.

+1 seilogramp over 4 years ago in reply to Former Member

Please see this thread with response from Garmin. Burn on arm from watch

0 Former Member over 4 years ago in reply to seilogramp

Three members of my family - my daughter myself and my Mum all suffer from band reactions. Ive had garmins for years and never had this problem before or with any other watch. My daughter suffers most and both she and my Mum can no longer wear devices bought recently - I have a Fenix 5 my daughter a vivoactive 4 and my Mum we just bought her a vivosmart - so all different devices and none cheap!!

0 Former Member over 4 years ago in reply to Former Member

Have had success for the past few months by scrubbing the watch, strap AND wrist every night in the shower with soap and an old toothbrush.

0 Former Member over 4 years ago

I had a similar issue with my Garmin VivoActive 3M with rose gold hardware. To cut a long story short, I found Garmin Customer services to be excellent in helping me to resolve my problem. It appears that I do have an issue with nickel, so with hindsight, the rose gold buckle wasn't a good selection for me. Garmin replaced my strap with a leather one with silver hardware and my skin rash healed up. I didn't want to train regularly in the leather strap, so I used a redundant buckle from a broken watch strap (Forerunner 305) and simply swapped over the VivoActive 3M's rose gold coloured buckle and pin and replaced it with the silver hardware. I also gave the silicon strap a really good clean as some users had reported allergic reactions to the strap.

I'm happy to report that these two actions seem to have fixed my watch skin rash issues.