He thought he would set up a pattern to unlock and (bless him) thought he needed to use all 9 of the dots for the pattern. Anyway he almost instantly forgot the pattern and has now locked the watch.
We have tried all combinations of hard re-set and seem to be going around in circles! Even now that the phone has been re-set it still requires the forgotten pattern. We know the pin but have no way of entering that as an alternative. We are then prompted to use google to verify the account and unlock the phone but it seems no combination of "G"-mail addresses will do it. On his phone it simply says there has been an error and please try again. On my wife's (who is head of security) we at least get to the point where we can put her email address and password in but then as before we are told there has been an error please try again.
Any ideas as to how we can get his watch unlocked please?
On the plus side it's very, very secure! Perhaps a little too much so! If I don't get into it soon I will be hitting it multiple times with a hammer very soon!
Unfortunately it wasn't as simple as a hard reset. The "watch" (sorry for the wrong wording) still required the physical pattern even after being reset. Probably because he is a child it required either the physical pattern on the watch or someone to sign in and verify the reset from a google account associated with it. It wouldn't do it through our sons G-Mail account for age related reasons. So we appeared to be completely stuck.
In the end we did manage to verify it and to unlock it but we had to go in 1st through my wife's google account as she is the adult who has control of the kids devices. Once in her account we could link through to our sons account and verify that the watch was his and unlock it! All very complicated and with absolutely no direct guidance from Samsung whatsoever. I was genuinely minutes away from taking a hammer to it when my wife got in!
All is well. The watch is working as new again and as you say the moral of the story is, never set a pattern as a pin. They are way too easy to forget. Especially if you are an impatient 12 year old!
He will need to do a factory reset on his phone. Press both buttons on the watch until you see Samsung, then click on the top button several times, and a menu will pop up, use the top button to scroll down until you see recovery, and press and hold the top button until you see a bunch of menu list, use the bottom button to scroll until you get to factory reset, click on the top button, use the bottom button to click on yes, and click on restart. This will reset the watch. You can now pair the watch to the phone like it's new
You appear to be using the word "phone" and "watch" interchangeably. Did you reset the watch or the phone? To factory reset the watch, follow the instructions by @Stevekim24, that will erase the pattern and pin, and you will have to set it up again. You can restore the watch backup; patterns and PINs are not stored with the backup, they exist on the device only.
Also, never use a pattern, they are the easiest method to forget.
Unfortunately it wasn't as simple as a hard reset. The "watch" (sorry for the wrong wording) still required the physical pattern even after being reset. Probably because he is a child it required either the physical pattern on the watch or someone to sign in and verify the reset from a google account associated with it. It wouldn't do it through our sons G-Mail account for age related reasons. So we appeared to be completely stuck.
In the end we did manage to verify it and to unlock it but we had to go in 1st through my wife's google account as she is the adult who has control of the kids devices. Once in her account we could link through to our sons account and verify that the watch was his and unlock it! All very complicated and with absolutely no direct guidance from Samsung whatsoever. I was genuinely minutes away from taking a hammer to it when my wife got in!
All is well. The watch is working as new again and as you say the moral of the story is, never set a pattern as a pin. They are way too easy to forget. Especially if you are an impatient 12 year old!
