[Sean Smith23]

Hi All,
So i got a galaxy-watch for Christmas. It took me nearly all of Christmas day to get it to pair with my phone (a Nokia-8 - and i tried my wife's Sony Experia with the same trouble). Eventually i got it to pair, but it is flaky, it disconnects sometimes even if the phone is in my pocket. When i leave the phone behind, the Bluetooth does not auto-reconnect, and i have to 'forget' the WiFi every time i want to connect to it.

So far, i'm thinking this is a heap of rubbish and i will be returning it - am i missing something? I've updated the watch to the latest version, and reset it a number of times,even clearing out the phone apps and reinstalling them.

It's a real shame because it's a great looking watch. I'm guessing the software on it is rubbish.

Anyone had a similar experience and managed to fix it?

Cheers,

Sean

[ZOMMBIE1]

Just got two of them, one LTE and one Bluetooth and haven't experienced any of those issues

[skatergirl]

Not sure this will help, but here is a list of compatible phones.

https://forums.androidcentral.com/e?...token=mpyTfDxr

[Greymire]

Also make sure you do the button procedure for resets. The reset in the settings is not a full reset. I have see others have issues, mainly with Huawei phones it seems.

[NIckkr]

... I'm guessing the software on it is rubbish.



Sean

No , it's not rubbish and neither is the watch. The watch works perfectly with the latest Samsung phones and certain compatible other brand devices. Haven't checked but are both your devices on the compatability list?

[Sean Smith23]

My phone isn't on that list, i had made the assumption that any modern relatively high-spec smartphone would work. Very depressing reading. Should have got an iphone i think.

[skatergirl]

My phone isn't on that list, i had made the assumption that any modern relatively high-spec smartphone would work. Very depressing reading. Should have got an iphone i think.

Have you called Samsung or your carrier just to make sure?

[Sean Smith23]

I'll call them in the next few days - but i'm having lots of problems with connectivity and it ruins the experience. This is one or the problems with Android it seems. Apple is stupidly over-priced and vindictive, but it works. It seems to me that if i have run a high-enough version of Android, with a decent enough spec-phone, this should just work - it's only Bluetooth and WiFi i'm having trouble with. The watch is lovely which is a shame.

[Greymire]

My phone isn't on that list, i had made the assumption that any modern relatively high-spec smartphone would work. Very depressing reading. Should have got an iphone i think.

A lot of times phones not on the list work fine. They only list phones that they have tested. They can't test every phone. I am not sure what is causing the problem. I have had the occasional disconnect (very rare). I would call Samsung as stated above. And do the reset via the buttons if you have not tried it. It will be the first thing they will want you to try.

My phone was not on the list-though it may be now) because it was new but it works fine. I did need to return one but it was a battery issue. This one is great.

[Sean Smith23]

what do you mean 'reset by the buttons' - is this a hardware reset of some sort?

never-mind, i found it - i'll try this (though it's a pain as it took me nearly a day to get it to pair with my phone at all!)

[Greymire]

what do you mean 'reset by the buttons' - is this a hardware reset of some sort?

never-mind, i found it - i'll try this (though it's a pain as it took me nearly a day to get it to pair with my phone at all!)

Ya. It is a pain. They had me do it like three times with my watch with battery issues. It sucks restoring everything again also. They had me Uninstall and reinstall the galaxy app. That always paired me right away. I did do the full reset on this watch once. A stupid Christmas watch face drained my phone by 59% in a few hours and I couldn't get it to Uninstall. I would hit a button and it came back. Reset and made sure it didn't restore. LOL

And yes, I think it is a hardware and software reset. I believe the reset in the settings just is software. I am not certain though. Samsung told me it was not the same as the settings reset.

[Greymire]

Good luck man. It really is decent if you get it going.

[NIckkr]

My phone isn't on that list, i had made the assumption that any modern relatively high-spec smartphone would work. Very depressing reading. Should have got an iphone i think.

An easy assumtion to make. A "weakness" of Android is that implementation of Android differs slightly from manufacturer to manufacturer.
As someone else pointed out, Samsung can only test (probably not very thoroughly) a relatively small number of competitors phones. But compatibility between their own products will be (should be) 100%. Also my expectation would be that SAMSUNG Health app would run faultlessly on a Samsung device and synch error free with a Samsung watch tethered to it. This I have found to be the case. A revelation coming from a Fitbit which had all sorts of issues.

So, with all due respect, if you go off brand compatibility is likely to be on "best endeavours" and unfortunately is a risk YOU have taken whether consciously or not.

So my original point was that its a bit unfair to call the watch and its operating system "rubbish".

As you point out an Apple watch will work faultlessly with an iPhone and similarly the integration, compatbility, and functionality between my Galaxy watch and my S9+ phone is faultless..

[skatergirl]

I do agree with Nlckkr that Samsung products will work best together. But I will say, through my own recent experience with this LTE watch, that has yet to be connected to my plan and activated, Samsung did a very poor job with informing customers of this problematic activation process. And in this case, I will give the kudos to Apple, because Samsung has not shown regard for its customers in this matter and has polluted its own eco system. I have been trying to get my LTE watch activated on Verizon since Saturday. It is now Thursday. For a brief minute, I actually thought about going to the iPhone, since Samsung continues to disappoint.

SeanSmith 23, I think your bluetooth Galaxy watch should work with any Android OS 5 and above. Call Samsung 1(800) 726-7864

[Greymire]

I do agree with Nlckkr that Samsung products will work best together. But I will say, through my own recent experience with this LTE watch, that has yet to be connected to my plan and activated, Samsung did a very poor job with informing customers of this problematic activation process. And in this case, I will give the kudos to Apple, because Samsung has not shown regard for its customers in this matter and has polluted its own eco system. I have been trying to get my LTE watch activated on Verizon since Saturday. It is now Thursday. For a brief minute, I actually thought about going to the iPhone, since Samsung continues to disappoint.

SeanSmith 23, I think your bluetooth Galaxy watch should work with any Android OS 5 and above. Call Samsung 1(800) 726-7864

I agree and disagree. Let's not forget that you can at least use the Galaxy Watch with other phones. With Apple you are limited to Apple only. I really like the Apple watch but despise the iPhone and it's lack of customization. There are a few nice things about iPhone but it took me less than a year with one to realize I need back on Android as soon as possible. I do have an iPad and I love it but I hate their phones.

[Sean Smith23]

I did the hard reset - it's still rubbish. This is on Samsung - when i paid for this watch, at no point did it suggest that it would only work with a Samsung Phone. From the box 'Use with a smartphone running Android 5.0 or higher & 1.5GB RAM' - this should work on my phone(Android 8.1, 4GB RAM) but doesn't - this is crap, and definitely has me wishing i had an iPhone (or admittedly a Samsung phone). I'll call the helpline when Christmas dies down a bit - and keep my receipt in case it needs to be returned.

Thanks everyone for the comments - it really helped.

[Peter621022]

I bumped into something that may help. I visited a friend that had trouble connecting her brand new Huawei phone to her older Nissan car audio system. This may seem of topic but something tells me it may not be.
I was able to solve her problem by adding an option to the APN type setting on her phone.
You can find this setting by going into settings, connections, mobile networks, access point names, tap on the provider name to access the APN settings for your provider and scroll down to access point type (translating from Dutch, so it might actually be slightly different on your phone).
To help my friend I added the dun option, which should be obsolete on modern devices but it helped (source: https://tamingthedroid.com/apn-type).
Adding options to the APN type on your phone tells your phone which protocols can be used for making a connection with another device, e.g. for Bluetooth tethering.
My Samsung Note 8 connects flawlessly with my Galaxy watch. The APN type says "default, supl" (without the " " but with the comma, which is used to separate the options).
I think it is worth checking the APN type settings on your phone and set it to the settings mentioned if it is different.
For my Note 8 I can remove either of them without it failing to connect to my watch, but that may depend on the hardware / firmware.
So .... try and see what happens?

[Sean Smith23]

will do - thanks a lot.

[Peter621022]

Or.... did you try the solution mentioned in this article?
https://eu.community.samsung.com/t5/...ch/td-p/685414

[Greymire]

Also, you may have done this, but go into settings, apps and notifications, then app info. Make sure Galaxy Watch Plugin is listed in apps. I have seen two people have issues because this app was never installed.

[Sean Smith23]

yea - it's installed - thanks for the suggestion

[Sean Smith23]

tried this - didn't seem to help, auto-connect app doesn't seem to do anything useful for me. I also added the dun setting to the APN on the phone - but (Sucks to be me) no luck - i'll keep playing with it and call Samsung helpline next week (they appear to be still on holiday where i am).

Thanks again.

[11B1P]

I agree and disagree too. I thought changing the name to Galaxy Watch meant the watch would be compatible with more Android phones as well. But I also stop and think, you're using a Nokia 8. Isn't it possible Nokia has imposed some limitations in the phone, even with the specs you stated? I agree with others, the watch and Tizen is not rubbish. My Samsung Gear S3 works perfectly with my Samsung Galaxy S7. Kinda like an apple iphone working perfectly with an apple watch...

[skatergirl]

In my quest in getting this watch activated, getting closer but still not activating on the Verizon network, the last rep I spoke with has Apple products and she said there have been as many fails in activating Apple watches as Samsung watches. So, Apple might not be the answer to connectivity problems either.

Anyway, my device is finally legal through Verizon, but now it is not activating on the network. It's been more than an hour since we set it to activate. The rep just called me back. She is going to call me in another two hours. She said she has never seen it take more than three hours to activate once it is set to do so. We will see.

[Greymire]

In my quest in getting this watch activated, getting closer but still not activating on the Verizon network, the last rep I spoke with has Apple products and she said there have been as many fails in activating Apple watches as Samsung watches. So, Apple might not be the answer to connectivity problems either.

Anyway, my device is finally legal through Verizon, but now it is not activating on the network. It's been more than an hour since we set it to activate. The rep just called me back. She is going to call me in another two hours. She said she has never seen it take more than three hours to activate once it is set to do so. We will see.

Good luck. I hope you get it going quickly.