Detailed description of the problem:
On average 6 nights a week, the communication between the watch and the app fails. This of course impacts smart alarms which I really really miss.
Steps to reproduce:
Unknown, random events
Version of Sleep as Android:
Premium version 20210616 (22433)
Sleep Garmin
Sleep tracking from watch version 20201106
Watch / Phaser Starter for Sleep as Android version 1.0
Garmin Fenix 5 Plus with Sleep as Android app version 20210607
Problems have started in November 2020 (once a week on average)
Have gotten worse in February 2021 (5 - 6 times a week)
I have contacted support 3 times, first two times I was left aside for lack of time. Contacted them again today, have received a first answer.
I have checked all the battery optimization settings for my Samsung S10e with Android 11. Whitelisted all Sleep as Android app, bluetooth, … I’ve verified it 4 times already and except not everything is listed in FAQ or Documentation, I’m positive I’ve done everything necessary.
If you have any idea of what it could be, or need any further information, please let me know.
Thanks in advance
Hi and thanks for your report.
There is a large bug in the Garmin communication API, when the Garmin Connect Mobile app clogs up the communication between our app and the watch.
At the point where the miscommunication happens (ie. the communication starts happening only one-way), a message from the Garmin SDK starts popping up in the logs, saying “FAILURE_DURING_TRANSFER” and I’ve traced it down to a bug in the Garmin SDK, which has been confirmed by the Garmin developers. I’ve reported it here but it’s been almost five years during which they repeatedly confirmed it and said they’re looking into it, but didn’t fix it.
We’ve done every possible and impossible workaround we could think of to mitigate effects of this bug, but it still seems to show up time to time.
In that case, we’ve found out that force stopping and then starting the Garmin Connect Mobile app will refresh the comm queue and then it should work normally.
So that’s what I would recommend currently as a (slightly cumbersome) workaround. Force stop and restart the Garmin Connect Mobile app before sleep tracking.
Jiri
Ant there I was focusing my attention on my Samsung device!
Thanks for the explanation! I will start doing so.
Is there anything I can do to support your bug report to give it weight?
Thanks again
I’ve upvoted the ticket at the Garmin forum
@Donald_R_Lhoest big thanks… very much appreciated…
Follow up: I’ve tried the workaround to no avail, I could not see any improvement doing so.
I’m also reaching out to Garmin to see what they could do.
Thanks 
Got an answer from Garmin, while I assumed they would try to pass the blame to Urbandroid, they do make a point regarding their sleep tracker, what do you think, is that something to investigate or do you have an answer to that?
Hello Donald,
We understand you are having some issues with the sleep with Android 3rd party app installed to your fenix 5 Plus.
My recommendation would be to uninstall the sleep app through Garmin Connect and then reinstall to see if it starts working better for you.
Looking at your Garmin Connect account, the normal sleep tracking that we facilitate looks to be syncing over properly and is not having issues cutting out in the middle of the night.
Based on the issue you were describing, the issue is isolated to the 3rd party app that is installed. Since we did not develop the app, support for issues with 3rd party apps requires the user to reach out to the developer if you are experiencing issues with the intended use and features offered by the app then the developer should be able to go over the issue with you.
Below is a link to our Connect iQ website showing the app download page for “Sleep with Android” and on that page there is a contact developer section where you can explain your issue and the developer should respond in a reasonable amount of time.
Also yes, Android would not support the issue since the app is through our Connect iQ app store and was not developed by and was developed by a content provider called Urbandroid.
Let me know if you have any questions, and I hope this helps!
Cody
Garmin Golf
Garmin International
Hello folks ,
thank you for your feedback. There is a large bug in the Garmin communication API which Garmin refuses to fix for years. Occasionally the Garmin Connect Mobile app clogs up the communication between our app and the watch. In that case, we’ve found out that force stopping and then starting the Garmin Connect Mobile app will refresh the comm queue and then it should work normally.
We tried to contact Garmin on this several times but they just ignore this issue. So our patience just run out now and we have moved to a quite nasty but hopefully fuctional workaround.
We’ve just finished an update of the Garmin integration which uses a different method of communication between the app and the watch, which is apparently working much better than the direct method we used before. We use both of those methods simultaneously and if the old one fails, we switch to the new method. From our tests, this has good results and we haven’t had any missed data in any night we’ve been testing with this.
On Vivoactive 3, we’re also seeing around 15% battery drain per 8h of tracking (with HR/HRV on).
If you want to try this, you’re going to need two things - a new Garmin addon for phone, and a new watch app. Both of these are currently labeled as beta and not published for general availability. So to try it, please follow the steps below.
- Get beta of the phone addon:
- Register for beta testing of the Sleep as Android Garmin addon here >> https://play.google.com/apps/testing/com.urbandroid.sleep.garmin
- Make sure the beta update gets downloaded on your phone.
- Get the updated watch app
- First uninstall the Sleep app from your watch using the Garmin Connect app ( Garmin Connect > tap on your watch > Activities & App Management > Activities & Apps > Sleep > Uninstall )
- Download the .prg file for your watch model in the list here: https://sleep.urbandroid.org/garmin-beta-watch-app.
- Connect your watch to your computer via USB. Put the .prg file on your watch in /GARMIN/APPS folder (just like you would put it on a USB drive).
- Run Sleep on your watch!
Please let me know any thoughts or feedback you’d have about this.