Garmin smartwatches could short circuit, leave blisters

Popular smartwatches sold for more than $600 have been urgently recalled over fears they could leave the wearer with painful skin blisters.

The Garmin Venu 2 Plus and D2 Air X10 smartwatches were recalled by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) on Monday.

The watchdog revealed an issue with an LED attached to the watches’ optical heart rate (OHR) that could cause a localised short-circuit.

“This may lead to heating of the LEDs, which can occur while the smartwatch is in use on a user’s wrist,” the ACCC’s recall notice stated.

“There is a risk of skin irritation or blistering to the area of skin underneath the OHR sensor from the heat of the smartwatch LED.”

Garmin has since addressed the issue with a software update that wearers can apply by syncing their watch to the Garmin Connect app.

Users can check the update has been successfully applied from the About menu, with sensor version software stated as 25.80 or later.

For non-APAC watch models, the software version should also be 15.20 or later, while for APAC models it should read as 13.16 or later.

The affected watches were sold nationally from Garmin’s website and retailers from November 2021 to August 25, 2023. Later models are not impacted.