There are two ways to restart a Garmin watch. You can do a force restart if the smartwatch is unresponsive or use the power button to give the watch a fresh start in 10 to 30 seconds.
Restarting your Gamin watch helps to fix software glitches, close conflicting apps, improve responsiveness, and enhance GPS accuracy.
Force Restart
If your Garmin watch has frozen, failed to charge, or is completely unresponsive, it’s likely because of a software glitch, which can affect the overall performance of the watch and potentially result in incorrect data.
Force restart fixes bugs, closes background apps, and optimizes the smartwatch for better performance.
- Press and hold the Light button for 10 seconds.
- Release the button once the watch powers off.
- Press and hold down the Light button again.
- Wait until the Garmin logo appears on the screen.
Use the Power Button
To restart your Garmin watch manually:
- Press and hold the Light button to open the controls menu.
- Navigate to the power icon and select the power option to go to the Power Off screen.
- Select “Yes” to turn off the watch.
- Wait 5 to 15 second for the watch to shut down.
- Press and hold the Light button until the Garmin logo appears on the screen.
Why Is It Important to Restart a Garmin Watch?
It’s important to restart a Garmin watch because it helps to:
- Improve GPS accuracy by recalibrating the built-in sensors.
- Clear cached data and temporary files and frees up memory and system resources for better performance.
- Fix software glitches, which tend to cause occasional freezing of the watch.
It doesn’t matter if your Garmin watch is new or if you’ve had it with you for a while. You should restart it at least once a week to improve system uptime and performance. After all, you want to focus more on productivity, not on Garmin problems.
Is Restarting a Garmin the Same as Resetting It?
Restarting and resetting a smartwatch doesn’t mean the same thing.
To restart means to reboot. In this case, the watch shuts down and starts up again. Your profile information stays the same and you don’t lose any health, fitness, and activity data.
If you reset a Garmin watch, the system operation erases (or clears) all your data and the smartwatch restores to default. You’ll have to go through the setup process all over again to resume using the watch.
