After a year with my Galaxy Watch 5, I can't say I'm a big fan of the wearable's design, the fact that the round display has a sharp edge, or the Wear OS and One UI Watch software experience. The latter sometimes feels sluggish and poorly optimized for the circular screen design.
Nevertheless, I have been wearing my Galaxy Watch 5 almost constantly, even in my sleep, since I bought it a year ago. Sadly, that might have to change soon, as I feel like my Watch 5 went haywire.
I'm a big fan of Sleep Mode, as it makes it way easier to wear the Galaxy Watch at night and enjoy the benefits of health and sleep tracking without distractions.
In case you need a reminder, Sleep Mode works on a fixed pre-determined schedule and turns off features like Lift to Wake, notifications, and vibrations.
Even better, Sleep Mode prevents the Galaxy Watch BioActive Sensor from lighting up at night and blasting your eyelids with green and white light flashes. Sleep Mode uses IR sensors to track your health, thus preventing the health sensors from shining and becoming a distraction.
And herein lies my problem. Sleep Mode seems to be broken on my Watch 5. The BioActive Sensor has been waking me up every early morning for the past ~two weeks, even with Sleep Mode enabled. And I can't do anything to stop it.
My Galaxy Watch 5 turned against me
Every morning at around 5-6 AM, my Galaxy Watch 5 blasts BioActive sensor lights into my wrist. Since I often sleep with my wrists close to my pillow, this is a huge problem, as the light can easily hit my eyelids and wake me up.
Sleep Mode is still active when this happens. The mode is scheduled to turn off later in the morning. And, curiously, if I take the watch off and put it back on, the BioActive sensor lights turn off without me even touching the screen. It's as if the Watch 5 settles down once it got confirmation that it ruined my morning sleep.
I have tried everything to fix this issue, from checking for updates to turning off “Sync modes with phone,” and even resetting the Galaxy Watch 5. Nothing helped. It almost seems like my Galaxy Watch 5 just went rogue and wants to disturb my sleep.
Maybe it's a sign I will have to switch to the Galaxy Ring later this year. Whatever the case, I will have to stop wearing the Galaxy Watch 5 at night until Samsung fixes this issue — assuming it's not a hardware problem affecting only my Watch 5. Either way, I seem to be looking forward to the Galaxy Ring more and more every day.
Image Credit: Samsung
