Chosen Solution

My Vivoactive won’t pair with my phone via bluetooth

First check that both devices being paired have their bluetooth systems activated; make sure the GarminConnect app is allowed to access the bluetooth capabilities of the phone. (Check the bluetooth tab in the settings app of your smartphone) Once you’ve completed these steps and are still unable to pair the devices, check out the phone pairing subsection of our troubleshooting page here: Garmin Vivoactive Troubleshooting

Hi ! I had the same problem and this fixed it! Go to your Garmin connect app Click on the icon on the upper left! Select settings Go to the absolute bottom of the page! The you can enable the connector help ( is it recommended that you disable then enable you Bluetooth on you phone before enabling the connector help!) ( I Don’t know If the name is connector help but in French it’s “aide de connection à l’appareil…) I hope I helped some of you guys! If you have problem pairing your device, do as Erica Milford! My solution is for connection issues only ( I think)

OK heres the answer - its not intuitive at alkl and drove me crazy!! There is a pairing option on the watch - if you dont activate it and use the other links etc on the app and even the phone without bringing up pairing IT WONT PAIR. It must pair to sync so focus on that! Go on the wrist watch HR, press the button, slide to Bluetooth, switch it on and THEN look for pairing and activate it on the phone Seriously this will sort it - whoever wrote the program for this needs shooting - its not intuitive at all

Same problem. I have a Galaxy S5 mini and after 2 months of flawless performance I lost the Bluetooth connection.

  • I uninstalled the app, powered down the phone, switched it on again, re-installed the app (historic data still there).
  • Next I went into the Bluetooth settings on my phone. I unticked the “only visible to paired devices” box and hit SCAN - it found the Vivoactive HR device and asked for a PIN number.
  • I then went into the Bluetooth settings on the watch (as described above) and selected “Pair mobile device” - a 6 digit PIN number appeared on the screen which I typed into the phone and miraculously the phone now recognises the watch.
  • I manually synced the watch and was prompted to allow alerts from Garmin device. All data now up to date. Thanks everyone - the above all helped to get me to a solution.

When you have issues with the bluetooth connection, here are the steps that should be followed. I always start by going to the app and tapping on the menu icon in the top left which looks like three lines. (iOS has a “more” button bottom right). Scroll down and tap the “Garmin Devices” option. If the bluetooth is turned off on the phone this page would prompt you to turn it on. It would show you for instance weather the vivoactive was “connected”, “not connected”, or “no devices paired”. It obviously needs to be connected. If it is not connected that means the phone still remembers the pairing but is not communicating with the watch. Try turning on and off the bluetooth on the phone. Try powering on and off the phone and the watch. Try putting the watch in to pairing mode. For the vivoactive that is right button>swipe right>settings>bluetooth>pair mobile device. It should say “searching for garin connect mobile” if it is in the pairing mode.
If the above fails it would then be necessary to unpair and repair the connection. Start by removing the watch from the Garmin Connect app. In the Garmin Devices page, press and hold on where it says “vivoactive not connected” then tap on “remove device” and confirm the action (iOS is different you don’t press and hold just tap on it and then tap on the three dots in the upper right corner of the next page).Then make sure the phone no longer remembers the connection in the phone’s bluetooth settings menu. Then turn off the bluetooth and clear the cache for the app if on Android and for the phone if on iOS. For android this would be in the app manager>connect>storage and iOS would be holding the Home and Power buttons (iphone 7 it’s down volume and power) till the screen goes blank and displays and apple logo. It is important to release the buttons as soon as you see the apple logo.Once the cache has been cleared turn the bluetooth back on and go to the Garmin Devices page in the Garmin Connect app.Tap on add a device at the bottom of the page and chose “browse all compatible devices” at the bottom of the list. Then chose “vivo” and then “vivoactive”.It should then prompt you to put the watch in pairing mode. Follow the previously mentioned steps for that.If all goes well it should prompt you for the pin. This must be entered correctly in 60 seconds on android and 30 seconds on iOS. Things to bear in mind: Android 6 and above require the location permission to be turned on for the app to have access to the bluetooth radio. This includes the global location settings and the app location setting. If you experiance frequent disconnects or the watch fails to reconnect with the phone after you walk away and come back try “update connection” this is a new option that was introduce for Android only with the app version 3.11. If you go to the Garmin Devices page and hold your finger down on the watch in question while it is in the “connected” state. It will pop up with a list of options. As previously mentioned this is where you can remove the watch but you can also “update connection”. This will pair the watch to the phones bluetooth settings menu while it is still paired to the app. Sometimes it is necessary to reboot the phone after doing this so the watch will connect back up to the app. For iOS users, if you experience issues after an iOS update try clearing the cache first.

With iOS I have found if you close the Garmin Connect app that is running in the background by pressing the home button twice and swiping up to actually close the app the Bluetooth connection is disabled. I tested it out and have no issues with my phone randomly unpairing unless I am out of range. Hope this helps!! BTW I have the most up to date iOS on the iPhone 6Plus Best, Dave

Trying to pair my VivoactiveHR to my andriod without luck. I check my phone setting and the bluetooth is allowing access to the app (and yes I do have the bluetooth button turned on as well), but my Garmin watch keeps saying pairing failed “Try Again” or “Cancel” after searching for the Garmin Connect Mobile without success. At one point it said “Pairing” for about 30 minutes but my phone couldn’t find the Vivoactive, so I restarted both the watch and my phone several times. I’ll click try again, my phone says “Setting up Device…” but is continuously pending. No luck pairing. Any useful tips? Update (06/09/2016) I was about to figure out the solution to the problem I was having. So I uninstalled the app on my phone, re-installed it. I did a manual re-start of my watch. Started from scratch. Then I turned off all the bluetooth device anywhere around me; apparently when you FIRST sync the two together, other bluetooth devices result in interference. I then went to my Samsung’s bluetooth setting and allowed my phone to sync with the Vivoactive. After doing that, I went to the app, clicked pair, went to my watch and clicked pair with mobile device, and they eventually found each other and synced properly.

Simple solution -

  1. Delete the app on your phone.
  2. If the app asks you if you want keep your data saved to date say yes.
  3. Download the app again.
  4. Log in again and bingo!

Just solved mine, vivoactive HR not syncing coming up with network error. Deleted watch from app, then deleted app from phone, left ten minutes downloaded Garmin connect from apps store, run through set up again watch now working and syncing, let’s hope it continues.

After restoring my Note 3, my phone and Vivoactive HR would not pair. The solution for me was to push and hold the right button on the front for of the Vivoactive HR two or three seconds. Next, on the phone, go to - “settings” - “Bluetooth” - “Pair Mobile Device”. In Bluetooth settings, under “Paired devices”, you should see the Vivoactive HR. Next you’ll be asked to enter the passphrase; enter the code displayed on the watch. Run the Connect app, entering your account info. Skip the pairing the device, it should be listed once the app loads. Hope this helps.

These instructions are for vívoactive HR (4.00 firmware) stuck on Completing Setup screen on Garmin Connect Mobile (GCM) for iOS. Long press right button on vívoactive HR to open menu, then select Settings, then select Bluetooth.If a menu shows Status: Connected, then vívoactive HR is already paired to a device.On iOS device, open Settings app, then select Bluetooth, then check if vívoactive HR is listed under My Devices If its status is Connected, then you’re already paired with the vívoactive HR.Try adding the device again in GCM app.If it still fails to be added in GCM, go back to the Bluetooth Settings in iOS, then select the info (i) button for vívoactive HR, then select Forget This Device.Long press left button on vívoactive HR and select Power Off.Once powered off, press left button on vívoactive HR again to power it on.Once it powers back on, long press right button on vívoactive HR to open menu, then select Settings, then select Bluetooth, then Pair Mobile Device.On GCM app, try adding the device again. iOS device should prompt for a 6 digit PIN that is displayed on the vívoactive HR display. After you enter this PIN, it should only take a few moments to finalize pairing the device. NOTE: You may want to try pairing away from other devices as they may cause interference.

After my second pairing process from scratch and after my vivo active hr did its second automatic software update - the watch is running and syncing like a dream. Deleted app and downloaded it again. If the app aks you if you want keep your data saved to date say yes. And wait for second softw update. Hope its works for you too

Hi, I have had the bluetooth connection fail to connect to my iphone 5s. To solve the problem, I did the following

  1. Click on the right button and swipe left to access ‘Settings’
  2. In Settings, swipe left twice to access ‘Bluetooth’.
  3. In Bluetooth, swipe left twice to access ‘Pair Mobile Device’.
  4. Open your Iphone Bluetooth and then open Gamin Connect and go to ‘Devices’.
  5. Click on ‘Pair Mobile Device’. You should then be asked for a PIN. Enter the PIN. The device should now be paired. If your Vivoactive says “Paired” (as mine did) and won’t let you pair with your phone, go to “Restore Defaults” in the watch Settings and reset. Then try and pair devices again. Since I managed to pair the phone and the watch, the Bluetooth has functioned.

I found a good solution - delete the App on the Iphone and then reinstall it, and re-pair the device as new. Because the unsynced data is on the device and the rest is on the Garmin account, you don’t loose any history. My issue was my vivofit 3 stopped pairing after a few weeks of international travel. I had paired it overseas, and when I got home it wouldnt re-pair to change the time to local time. I deleted the app from the phone, and managed to re-pair it as a new device. Worked!!

I solved the problem by resetting the Vivoactive HR to factory default, then when it comes back up starting to find Garmin Connect Mobile, my phone pick up the signal in a flash, now it is paired properly.

Okay!! Mine could find the watch in the app when paring to the phone, but it never displayed the code or got anywhere. So, then I, Turned off the Bluetooth on the Vivo active 4, before I started the pairing. It worked!!! This is the only thing that solved it for me, and I tried everything else. Before this I: Restarted the watch and phone.Tried connecting to my watch from the Bluetooth settings on my android.Removed all my devices from Garmin connect app.And then I turned off the Bluetooth on the watch, and started paring, and it worked. I wish I did the last step, before I removed all of my devices…