Samsung Pay Locks You Out???! (New Gear S3 User Experience)

[SMD]

Hi!

Got a brand new Gear S3 frontier with my S7 Edge. Loving it. Except to use Samsung pay you have to use a PIN when you take the watch off to regain access to the watch. Makes sense. That's good security I suppose so you don't get your watch stolen and someone else puts it on and can use it for payments. But, on just day 2 now and my watch is CONSTANTLY locking itself even thought it's still on my wrist! Whenever I move around I'm guessing the watch moves a bit and maybe it registers as detaching from my wrist??? I don't know. All I know is that I have to use a PIN to regain access to my watch pretty much every time I glance at it if I'm moving around, and yet the watch has been on the whole time.

Is this normal behavior? If so, I think it's awful. Yes, it should require a PIN if you take the watch off, but why is it so crazy sensitive that it keeps locking itself even when it's on my wrist?!

Any ideas???

 

[optimummind]

Hi!

Got a brand new Gear S3 frontier with my S7 Edge. Loving it. Except to use Samsung pay you have to use a PIN when you take the watch off to regain access to the watch. Makes sense. That's good security I suppose so you don't get your watch stolen and someone else puts it on and can use it for payments. But, on just day 2 now and my watch is CONSTANTLY locking itself even thought it's still on my wrist! Whenever I move around I'm guessing the watch moves a bit and maybe it registers as detaching from my wrist??? I don't know. All I know is that I have to use a PIN to regain access to my watch pretty much every time I glance at it if I'm moving around, and yet the watch has been on the whole time.

Is this normal behavior? If so, I think it's awful. Yes, it should require a PIN if you take the watch off, but why is it so crazy sensitive that it keeps locking itself even when it's on my wrist?!

Any ideas???

In the past 2 days I've had my Gear S3, I've not experienced such issues. Maybe you're wearing the strap too loose?

 

[strikeIII]

Haven't had that issue with mine. But yeah maybe you're wearing too loose.

 

[SMD]

Haven't had that issue with mine. But yeah maybe you're wearing too loose.

Okay. I just tightened it one more notch. We'll see. Hope that's all it was. Either way, I feel like it should be a little less sensitive. As in once it's off a wrist for more than a few seconds then maybe lock it.

 

[daves221]

Maybe try restarting your watch too. Mine doesn't do that at all. Screen lock only comes on after I've removed it. I wear it fairly snug but not too tight.

Do you notice the screen going off while it's on your wrist? Mine goes off when i take it off.. That could be one way to check if the watch thinks it's off at although you may have to sneak a glance without moving your wrist..

 

[pinkivy98]

Yep, happened all the time with my s2 which had a metal band because it was not snug on my wrist. It was annoying to keep putting the pin in so often so I uninstalled samsung pay on the watch. When I got the s3 I kept the original band because I can tighten it to fit without moving on my wrist so the watch does not ask for a pin unless I take it off.

 

[jkaraska]

Happening to me too! My band is on super tight. Is this a glitch that's affecting a few s3 watches?

 

[SMD]

Maybe try restarting your watch too. Mine doesn't do that at all. Screen lock only comes on after I've removed it. I wear it fairly snug but not too tight.

Do you notice the screen going off while it's on your wrist? Mine goes off when i take it off.. That could be one way to check if the watch thinks it's off at although you may have to sneak a glance without moving your wrist..

The watch face stays on. It's not detaching completely for more than a split second but even that split second is enough to trigger the lock and I think that's dumb. Tightening my band did help reduce the frequency of it locking up for sure. BUT, as others have pointed out it'd be nice to be able to wear a band (like a metal band) loosely because right now you can't or it'll keep locking up. One of several things I think could be fixed easily by Samsung.

 

[daves221]

Mine isn't tight at all and no issues. I can easily fit my pinkie under the watch right where the band meets the watch..watch can slide on my wrist easily.. Only locks when I take it off.

 

[SMD]

Mine isn't tight at all and no issues. I can easily fit my pinkie under the watch right where the band meets the watch..watch can slide on my wrist easily.. Only locks when I take it off.

Interesting. Not my experience at all. Granted, I can also fit my pinkie in that same area. So while it's tight and doesn't wiggle, it's not uncomfortably tight. Either way, if I decide to get a metal band which tends to wear loose, I can see it being a bigger issue.

 

[Katsumoto760]

I seem to be having the same issue... do you have any tattoos on your wrist or are they kind of hairy?

 

[SMD]

I seem to be having the same issue... do you have any tattoos on your wrist or are they kind of hairy?

No tattoos, normal arm hair I guess nothing crazy. It happens to me about 5-10 times a day depending on how active I am. Very annoying. At the very least does anyone know if there's a way to disable that PIN so that maybe Samsung Pay won't work, but the cards and info would remain stored at least on the app so that if I wanted to enable it I could easily. Right now you have to delete all cards to disable that PIN and to enable them again you have to go through the whole bank verification process for some credit cards.

I really wish Samsung would lock the watch if it becomes disengaged for more than 1/2 second. Maybe 2 seconds. As is it's super annoying to me.

 

[daves221]

Just curious.. Do the heartbeat readings seem normal? Reason I ask is that the other day, I took a manual heartbeat reading and the watch asked me to clean the sensor.. It couldn't get a good reading. I jiggled it a little, eg reseated the watch, (sensor was not dirty) and it was fine. I know there are variances in the readings based on skin tone, veins, etc but would think that if you are getting consistently decent quality heartbeat readings, the lockout should not be occurring. (Eg if the watch is locking out, some heartbeat readings would be impacted too). Stupid question, but that plastic is off the back of the watch, the sensor is clean, etc? I don't know the frequency of the light emitted from the sensor, but are you outside in bright (daylight) when the lockouts occur? Based on how I've observed mine to work, I don't think it's related to strap tightness if you are wearing it in any normal range of tightness.

 

[Richard Servello]

Never had mine ask for a password once after putting it on. It only asks if I take it off and put it back on.

 

[Paul Paradis]

Inactivity will trigger it. Left it on for two hours without triggering the face, and it kicked in the password.

 

[PookiePrancer]

I swap a metal band every now and then. It's fairly loose, never any issues.

 

[rinkeedink]

No issues with metal or silicone bands here on S3 Classic. I wear band snug.

 

[eMDeeBee]

Hey Samsung, I hope that you are reading this. Here's a suggestion. Instead of PIN-locking the entire device just to protect one app, why not give us the option to keep the device unlocked and just PIN-lock that one app? I agree with others that the Samsung pay PIN comes on way too often.

Here's another suggestion. If you are going to include a feature on the device, make it work. The S3 Frontier includes an altimeter. It reads -107 feet right now, even though I am on the 8th floor of an office building in the Chicago area. This is my second S3 that has a bad altimeter, so I can safely say it's a design defect. And don't even tell me that a factory reset is going to fix that! That's the standard answer, coming from "support" reps who don't even know what an altimeter is. "ah, altimeter you say, huh. Let me check on dat" . . . five minutes later. "You do factory reset. It will fix dat." Ah. no . . .

 

[SMD]

Hey Samsung, I hope that you are reading this. Here's a suggestion. Instead of PIN-locking the entire device just to protect one app, why not give us the option to keep the device unlocked and just PIN-lock that one app? I agree with others that the Samsung pay PIN comes on way too often.

Here's another suggestion. If you are going to include a feature on the device, make it work. The S3 Frontier includes an altimeter. It reads -107 feet right now, even though I am on the 8th floor of an office building in the Chicago area. This is my second S3 that has a bad altimeter, so I can safely say it's a design defect. And don't even tell me that a factory reset is going to fix that! That's the standard answer, coming from "support" reps who don't even know what an altimeter is. "ah, altimeter you say, huh. Let me check on dat" . . . five minutes later. "You do factory reset. It will fix dat." Ah. no . . .

Couldn't agree with you more about the PIN for only the Samsung Pay app. As the OP, it's been a while but I ended up removing Samsung Pay from my watch because it was too annoying to have it lock me out several times a day. I wish I could test other watches to see if mine is overly sensitive or something to detecting that it's detached. I wish we could set a user defined amount of time before it locks, like even 3 seconds, as that would solve everything. I have to have my watch so tight to not trigger the PIN lock at least a couple times a day. So annoying.

You can't even disable the PIN without deleting all the cards which stinks because it's a pain to reconnect them as it involves contacting all the various banks. The PIN should just apply to the app, not the whole watch!

I hope they fix it, but I have to say, I'm not sure they care.

 

[SMD]

Hey Samsung, I hope that you are reading this. Here's a suggestion. Instead of PIN-locking the entire device just to protect one app, why not give us the option to keep the device unlocked and just PIN-lock that one app? I agree with others that the Samsung pay PIN comes on way too often.

Here's another suggestion. If you are going to include a feature on the device, make it work. The S3 Frontier includes an altimeter. It reads -107 feet right now, even though I am on the 8th floor of an office building in the Chicago area. This is my second S3 that has a bad altimeter, so I can safely say it's a design defect. And don't even tell me that a factory reset is going to fix that! That's the standard answer, coming from "support" reps who don't even know what an altimeter is. "ah, altimeter you say, huh. Let me check on dat" . . . five minutes later. "You do factory reset. It will fix dat." Ah. no . . .

SOLVED!!!!!!!

Unbelievable! I just read the solution in another thread but in the recent update, they added a setting to make it so the PIN doesn't have to lock you out of the entire watch! Just go to settings>security>screen lock>usage> and then select "payments" instead of "screen and payments"! I'm floored and so thankful for that post. Today I wore my watch one notch too tight just to see if I could, and sure enough it never locked, but I literally have my watch outline on my wrist after taking it off because it was so tight. Never again! Hell yeah!

I guess if I had one grip it would be that Samsung needs to put these changes in their changelog so that users can see what's actually been added and fixed instead of just the general big stuff. It's often the little things that make the biggest difference in my opinion.