Gear s3 won't automatically reconnect to bluetooth when back in range.

[Chris_N]

Hello wonder if you can help.

I have just purchased a Gear s3 and I have it paired and connected to my iPhone 6. The watch works perfect until I become out of Bluetooth range and thus my watch will lose connection, which is as expected. The problem comes when I’m back in Bluetooth range i.e. back with my phone the gear s3 will not automatically reconnect like other devices I have left it 30mins plus and it still won’t automatically reconnect. I have to manually keep turning Bluetooth on and off on both the watch and phone and then clicking on both the Bluetooth connections on my phone (Gear S3(DC10) & Gear S3(DC10) LE) to try and get it to reconnect eventually after going through this process multiple times it will finally connect again. Any help will be appreciated as I can’t keep doing this every time I’m away from my phone. Thanks In advance.

[greaet]

Quoting my own post. This worked for me. 

Remove Gear Wearable app and Gear S Plugin from battery optimization. Works fine for me now. It reconnects when the device is in range. 

Tried after restarting the phone - connected

Turned off bluetooth and turned it back on - connected. There is a slight delay but nothing irritating as not reconnecting at all

[jicem]

And it reconnects by itself each time ?

Me, when i'm back in range, nothing happens until 1. Turn bluetooth off then on . 2 go to bluetooth and tap connect.

Both work

[Ann55]

Yes Greaet it worked and no problems since.   thanks for the advice

[AntonioJB]

I have tried all the options described here and still do not reconnect.
A few days ago I updated the phone (Nokia 7plus) on Pie and also the samsung app. I took advantage of and restored all the systems (again). But it is still the same.
The phone if reconnected with other devices without problems, just does not do it with my gear s3.
I begin to give up the truth.

[AntonioJB]

A curious fact, if I turn off the bluetooth of the mobile and turn it on if it reconnects .... but if I restart the clock it does not.
If I go away, it loses and it does not reconnect.

[giq]

So an update on day later.

After cleaning out bluetooth cache, I was able to connect my Galaxy S8 with Gear S3 again. Yay, it worked. Until the next day, when it didn't!

I've been frustrated enough to just give up. My frustration grew even more, while I've been listening to Spotify on S8 and streaming via BT to a kitchen speaker during a breakfast. It was interrupting playback seconds after phone screen went black. That gave me a hint. Went into battery optimisation settings in S8 and disabled any optimisation for Spotify. That made it work again, properly as it should. 

Just did the same with Gear S Plugin and Galaxy Wearable apps. Disabled battery optimisation for both. Turned BT off and on again in Gear S3. And it works again.

So, to recap: I did these steps to get it working back again. 

1.  S8 -> Settings -> Find Bluetooth app (not the Bluetooth settings, it's the app you need)
2. On the Bluetooth app tap Storage -> tap Clean 
3. On the Bluetooth app tap Battery -> ensure background operation is allowed
4. S8 -> Settings -> Find Gear S Plugin app
5. On Gear S Plugin app tap Battery -> ensure background operation is allowed
6. Tap Battery optimalisation -> Find Gear S Plugin on the screen  (you might need to switch to All applications on the dropdown) -> Disable battery optmalisation for Gear S Plugin
7.  On the same screen find Galaxy Wearable -> Disable battery optmalisation for Galaxy Wearable 
8. S3 -> Settings -> Connections -> Bluetooth -> disable and enable again, or enable if it was disabled. (Not sure why and when it got disabled!)
9. S8 -> open Galaxy Wearable and connect to your S3 again.
10. voila!

Not sure if every step is needed, I feel you could get away without some of these. I've spent enough time trying to get S3 to connect to S8 after recent updates that I just don't care. It works and that's what counts. 

[Ann55]

Yes - I think the battery optimisation is the main culprit - clearing the cache might temporarily help (didn’t for me) but the b o made the difference.

[AntonioJB]

Hello, this morning Gear S Plugin app has been updated.

It really does not connect itself, but now the clock does something it did not do before.

If I leave the range, it appears disconnected, both in clock and mobile. But if I go back, the clock vibrates again as if it were really connected. Even if I come back closer it trembles as if it were connected, but the disconnected icon still appears and I do not receive notifications.

I think the bluetooch really does connect but do not know hehe.

I hope that it is solved right now.

Regards

[AntonioJB]

Nothing new? We continued like no????

[Pieter77]

Hi, I have the same problem with my iPhone 8. The watch is disconnected very fast/ often, and most of the times I have to really build up the connection again by means of starting the Galaxy watch app (and waiting for reconnection). Sometimes this wont even work, and I really have to remove the watch and justed paired it again. 

Just now, after I restarted my watch. Connection was succesfully restored after -out of range- disconnection. Wonder how many succesful reconnections this will bring.

Update 6 may 2019: Device is still reconnection perfectly after the restart (of my watch) from last week. No manual actions taken since in order to restore connection! Hope this remains! 

Update 7 may 2019: Device not connected anymore. Restarted watch, but did not connect automatically. Started the Galaxy watch app, and device was discoverd en connected again. So, connection was really succesfull for 1 week.