Galaxy Watch 4 needs to have screen lock if you want to use it for payments

[Oceanica]

I can't believe this very annoying feature did not come up in any of the many product reviews I read / watched for the Galaxy Watch 4. As others have remarked, unlike in (say) the Galaxy Active watches where you only the Samsung Pay app required unlocking each time you used it, with the Watch 4 if you enable either Samsung Pay or Google Pay on your watch it will need to have a display lock. If you turn the display lock off, it will wipe the cards on either app and you need to reauthorise them and turn the lock back on. The 'excuse' is oh you only need to unlock it when you put the watch on, which presumably Samsung/Google engineers thought only happens about once a day. But most of us probably take the watch off and put it back on multiple times a day - to charge, to dry if our hands got wet, etc. If you don't use the pay function regularly - and working from home, I really don't - then you're having to unlock the watch multiple times a day just to have the option to very occasionally pay for something with your watch. Just not worth having.

[Doug G]

Older thread, but my experience with setting up my new Watch 4 with Samsung Pay lead me to the experience of having to unlock w/pin each time I wanted to use my watch other than to Pay for something (ie. such as when wanting more details on Weather via my phone or setting a timer.)

I am using a nonSamsung Watch Face (Matteo Dini MD watch face)

But here was my experience:

- yesterday I set up Samsung pay with my card, got it authorized by my bank, all was working fine.

- yesterday, when I put on watch, it ask for pin, once.  Seemed fine (didnt have any reason to come here...yet)

- last night, I got an update (still catching up with updates from having a new watch I presume) and also had watch OFF to charge, over night.

- today (and of which gave me reason to search and find this very thread), when I put on watch, it asked for PIN (ok at this point)

- but then when I raised my wrist later to check on my step counts and it was showing zero. I also noticed a little lock icon (hmmmmm), I touched or swiped and got pin, entered it, then my steps showed.

- I realized I had to unlock my phone each time I wanted to just use my watch (not to pay)!!! I then found this thread.

- then I did the following (stumbled onto it)

1. went to security setting on phone and chose to NOT hide information when watch is locked.

2. Since I just setup Samsung pay, and my focus was for my watch, I never actually used my Samsung S21 to see my card in Samsung Pay swipe/app on my phone. When I attempted to open that (for the first time), it had me answer some security options and add a PIN (for my phone).

Once I finished configuring my Phone for Samsung Pay, it seemed that then my watch never asked me for a PIN to just use my watch. 

My phone always is secure (meaning I have a swipe pattern to get into my phone once screen turns off)

So unsure of peoples latest experience, but until I did the above, my watch asked for PIN upon each attempted use. Which sucked, but once I did the above, that went away.

[Members_vqF6liu]

Don't need to keep entering PIN on my Samsung Galaxy S20 don't see why the watch should be any different, should be a user's choice.

[Members_NnZncjx]

I had a Galaxy Active 2 which unfortunately stopped working after swimming some weeks ago, probably because it lost the waterproof. So I bought a Galaxy Watch 4 and was happy to see that it supports many apps including Google Walled (previously Google Pay), because my bank card is not supported by Samsung Pay. However, having to lock the entire watch and enter the pin even to look at notifications is terrible! Why don't they just ask the pin only when you open the payment apps like they did in old models!?

@Doug G I've tried your solution and it's quite weird because actually it didn't ask for the pin until I took the watch off. Then after I put it back on it started asking the pin every time I turn the screen off. And now, after a while, it's no longer asking again. I'll see how it goes, it is fine for me to enter the pin every time I put on the watch, but I'd prefer entering it every time I have to pay instead.

[Members_GedcllZ]

Hello,

Galaxy watch 6 here, any updates to this bothering issue please ?

locking the whole watch instead of just the payment app is really annoying !