Galaxy Watch 4 Notifications - Showing Clock Over Notification

[lschoen]

9/14/21 Update: after reviewing the feedback of many others, intermittently blurring the screen is clearly an intentional software function that has existed since the GW3 (but curiously, not on the GWA2). I am hoping the following feature request makes it to Samsung: please remove this feature and allow us to protect our own privacy through use of a combination of existing features: AOD, lift to wake, wake on notification, and individual notification control. Comment below if you agree. Thank you!

Original post:

Hi all,

Received my GW4 last week and have been using it every day. Curious issue: sometimes (but not every time) when a notification is received, I look at the watch and it quickly blurs the notification and displays a generic, digital clock over the top. I have to hit a button to go back to the notification. There doesn't seem to be any discernible pattern to when this happens-- happens in any app, any time; even happens for one Whatsapp message, then not for another message immediately following. I even tried a factory reset and am still seeing the issue. Anyone else seeing this?

Settings: screen always on-YES, wake for notification-YES, lift to wake-NO, screen timeout-30.

[Danishere]

I absolutely HATE this feature!
I use the AOD and also receive notifications. If I glance at a notification when it arrives but don't touch the watch and then carry on with my day, this ugly screen will appear and doesn't seem to time-out. It just stays there until I clear the notification. The result of this is any time I glance at my watch all I see is this ugly digital clock.
If I'd have known about this issue before buying the watch then I genuinely wouldn't have bought it, nor will I buy any future Samsung watches unless this feature can be turned off.
In my opinion this feature alone ruins the user experience and I just HATE this feature...

[eugk]

This "feature" is the absolute worst thing about the watch. I use it primarily for notifications and half the time the notification is obscured by the digital clock. I too would not have bought this watch if I knew about this annoyance. The Tikwatch Pro 3 GPS I had before this didn't have this frustrating "feature", with much longer battery life to boot.

[Cjaffe]

I agree with others.  Please change this behavior.

[Thommy79]

Please Samsung. You've got great watches, but this blurred screen is absolutely annoying and useless to most users. Either get rid of it completely or make it something one can switch off.

I'm annoyed by it every time I get a notification.

Thank you.

[Omniman]

Had the same problem with watchmaker.

Solved it by turning on permission for background activity on the app.

[Benzfan33]

How do you do that? 

[Omniman]

Wear-clock settings-apps-watchmaker-allow background activity switch.

[socram]

There is no such switch in my apps-section for the app 🙁

[Omniman]

 should be there...

[socram]

Thanks, unfortunately the app (marine commander) does not show up there. I therefore checked the app section in the watch settings and it can't be switched on there. Thanks for your screenshot anyway!