Garmin has confirmed it will issue a fix for an issue that caused smartwatch vibrations for notifications to stop working after the latest Garmin Connect app update for Android. The company acknowledged the problem following widespread user complaints on its official forum and said a corrective update is on the way.
The issue began with version 5.18 of the Garmin Connect app, released on October 8 via the Google Play Store. Users noticed that their watches no longer vibrated when receiving notifications, even though messages still appeared normally. The change was unannounced, leaving many customers puzzled by the sudden loss of vibration alerts.
Previously, Garmin watches vibrated for incoming notifications regardless of a smartphone’s Do Not Disturb (DND) status. However, the new update synchronized the DND mode between Android phones and Garmin wearables. As a result, when a user’s phone entered DND mode, the watch also stopped vibrating. The change affected multiple models, including the popular vivoactive 6.
“This explains why some users were reporting a lack of vibration for notifications on their watch, despite still being able to view messages as expected in the notifications center,” Garmin wrote in a support response shared by one forum user. The company’s customer support team confirmed that the behavior was unintended.
Garmin said the change will be reversed in an upcoming Garmin Connect update for Android, though it did not specify a release date. The company assured users that it is working to restore the previous functionality to ensure consistent notification performance across all compatible devices.