Samsung Gear S3 locked for no reason

[AaronP]

Afternoon, I'm after some help from anyone in the know.

I was mountain biking at the weekend usign my watch to track my ride and had my phone in my camelbak. My watch was randomly vibrating during the ride but I was concentrating on not killing myself on the trail so didnt look at the screen. When I got back to the car my watch was showing 'Gear Locked' 'To unlock gear, connect to phone via Bluetooth' message.

I have researched this and this is the message that shows when you remotely lock your watch if its stolen etc.

The problem I have got is that the watch doesnt seem to be in a visible bluetooth state and my phone or Gear app cannot see the watch. Its strange too as my phone does not show my watch in the list of paired devices...

I have spoken to Samsung who have said to take it to a repair centre that is local to me but I have just called them and they dont do wearable repairs, it needs to be an 'experience centre', nearest one to me is the trafford centre and I porbably wont be able to get all the way over there until the weekend.

Anyone got any ideas why 1 - my watch locked itself and 2 - why the phone that it has been paired to for the last 8 months can now not connect to it?

Thanks in advance!

[BandOfBrothers]

Are you able to access the watch in anyway to invoke a factory reset. 

[AaronP]

No, the watch is totally locked.... 😞

[BandOfBrothers · Accepted solution]

Try...

"Turn the Gear S3 off.

Press and hold the Power key until REBOOTING displays at the bottom of the screen.

Press the Power key repeatedly until the Select REBOOT MODE screen displays.

Press the Power key to highlight ' Recovery'.

Press and hold the Home key to select.

Keep holding the Power key until the Gear S3 begins rebooting."

[AaronP]

This has worked!!!!
...At the sacrifice of resetting my gear... and the backup I had on the App has gone...

But it worked, thanks.

However this does pose the question, what is to stop someone doing this with a watch that was remotely locked for the genuine purpose? if it was stolen etc?

[BandOfBrothers]

You're Welcome. 

I would think if the watch is remotely locked then a Hard Reset option wouldn't work. 

[SandieSmith50]

Thank you so much for what is really a simple reminder to "re-boot" when all else fails. The Step-by-Step directions were great too.

[BandOfBrothers]

You're very welcome.