Can’t turn off and silence alarms or timers on Samsung Galaxy Watch? Steps to fix it

The other day, I set an alarm to go off on my Samsung Galaxy Watch to let me know when to stop working and head out the door 30 minutes before I had a doctor’s appointment. And I thought I turned the alarm off.

But then, about 10 minutes later, when I was already in my car and on the road for that appointment, the alarm went off again! Apparently, rather than turn it off, I had snoozed it.

Once again, I hit the “X” to turn it off, and again 10 minutes later, it went off! I was obviously doing something wrong–but what?

I finally figured alarms out, and I am guessing I’m not the only one to experience this issue, so I’m sharing it all with you,

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All about the “Clock” apps

The watch app I use on my Galaxy Watch is the Samsung Alarm app, that’s part of Samsung’s Clock app, including Timer, Stopwatch, and World Clock.

You’ll find these clock apps on all of Samsung’s watches, including older Tizen models like the Active 2 or Samsung Watch 3 and newer Wear OS 3 models like the Watch 5 or 4.

To add confusion to the mix, both Samsung and Google offer an app called Clock. While you cannot install Google’s Clocks apps (Alarm, Timer, Stopwatch) on a Tizen watch, you can install Google Clock apps on a Wear OS 3 watch.

Additionally, you can install Google Clock on all phones, including Samsung phones. But you can only install Samsung Clock on Samsung phones. 

Yeah, it’s really a mess!

How you tell the difference between the Clock apps

Confused about which Clock app you use on your phone and watch? Both work the same as an alarm, timer, stopwatch, and world clock on your phone and watch.

Look at the icons’ color.

• Samsung clock apps are purple with white icons for both the watch and the phone.
• Google watch’s clock apps are white with blue icons. Google’s clock app for the phone is a little different–it’s a blue clock face with a gray or white hour/minute hands.

It’s all about Samsung’s (terrible) design!

Okay, maybe I’m the only one that thinks a giant X on your watch screen means tapping it turns the alarm off. And tapping the “z” inside a clock means snoozing that alarm.

But clearly, Samsung’s design team clearly doesn’t. Not only does tapping the X button not work, but they also overlapped the X and snooze buttons to make things even more confusing!

When I couldn’t get the alarm to turn off, I thought maybe I was tapping on the wrong part of the screen, where the buttons overlap. And consequently, every time I tried turning that darn alarm off, it snoozed instead.

I even checked that user guide that said to tap the X button to stop an alarm and tap the zZ button to snooze it. That’s exactly what I’m doing, and it’s not working–ugh!

Don’t tap an alarm or timer. Slide it 

Although it wasn’t clear to me, there’s a reason Samsung built animation into when an alarm or timer goes off.

For the Wear OS 3 Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 and 5 models, to turn off an alarm, you’re supposed to swipe up along the edge from the X button in a clockwise curve until you reach the top.

If you simply tap the X or press and hold the X, it won’t shut off the alarm. Sometimes, swiping up on a straight line from the X works too–but not always.

You don’t slide up but rather slide the icon to the opposite side for other Samsung Galaxy watch models, like the Active 2 or the Galaxy Watch 3.
 So if you want to turn an alarm off, slide it to the right towards the snooze icon. And to snooze it, slide it to the left towards the X icon.

Okay, now that is really annoying.

There’s got to be a better way to turn off alarms and timers!

And there is–if your Samsung watch includes the physical bezel.

For the Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 Classic model, try turning your watch’s bezel clockwise to stop the alarm or timer. And if you want to snooze an alarm, turn it counterclockwise.

Using my watch’s bezel to turn off or snooze my alarms and timers is much easier than dealing with those on-screen buttons–and it never fails!

So again, turn the bezel clockwise to turn your alarm or timer off and turn it counterclockwise to snooze it. Easy peezy!

Or shake your wrist to dismiss alarms

Another hidden way to turn off an alarm is to enable the Dismiss alerts and calls gesture. With this feature on, all you need to do is rotate your wrist twice to dismiss it.

1. To turn this on, open the Wearable app on your phone or your watch’s Settings app.
2. Choose Advanced Features.
3. Under Gestures, toggle on Dismiss alerts and calls.

One downside of using this feature is that you can unintentionally turn off a morning alarm since it doesn’t require much movement to turn an alarm off.

So if you find that you’re missing your morning wake-up alarm, this feature may be to blame.

Some other things I learned about alarms and timers on my Samsung Galaxy watch

1. Pressing either the Home or Back buttons always snoozes alarms. There doesn’t seem to be a way to change this behavior.
2. Snooze is always 5 minutes. Again, I can’t find any setting option to change this duration. From what I understand, if you have a Galaxy phone and use OneUI, you can adjust your snooze duration and change it in Google Clock app via the app More button > Settings > Snooze length.
3. Samsung sets a 3 time limit on snoozing your alarm. After that, you only have the option to turn it off. Again, I can’t find any way to change this limit.
4. Both timers and alarms that you set up on your watch show up regardless of whether you wear the watch or not.
5. When you add an alarm or timer to your watch, it only works on the watch. It does not sync with your paired phone’s clock app. 
6. Alarms and timers set up on your watch only ring and/or vibrate on your Samsung watch. They don’t ring or vibrate on your phone.
7. Any alarm or timer you set up using your phone’s Clock app (Samsung Clock or Google Clock) should automatically appear on your watch if you install the Clock app on your watch AND phone, then turn on the clock app notifications inside the Wearable app.
   1. To do this, open the Wearable app.
   2. Choose Watch settings > Notifications.
      1. If needed, allow the Galaxy Wearable app and your Samsung watch (by model) to read your notifications.
   3. Toggle on the Clock app.
      1. On Tizen watch models (Samsung Galaxy 3 and below), use the Samsung Clock app if you have a Samsung phone. You cannot install Google Clocks on Tizen watches.
      2. On Wear OS models like the Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 or 4, you can use either Samsung Clock or Google Clock app. You must install the Google Clock app on both your phone and watch to sync alarms, timers, stopwatches, etc.

Samsung Galaxy Watch alarms or timers not working?

If you can’t get your alarms or timers to work on your watch, try these troubleshooting steps and see if they help.

• Create an alarm or timer on your watch, not your phone. To do this, open the Alarm or Timers app on your watch and tap Add on watch or Add. Then set up your alarm or timers conditions and options, i.e., length, days, and desired time. Remember to tap Save to store it on your watch.
• Check that Do Not Disturb, Bedtime or Goodnight, and Theater modes are all off on your watch AND your phone.
• Look at your notification settings in the Wearable app. Choose Watch Settings > Notifications and verify that notifications are on. Then, scroll down to the apps and make sure you toggle on the Clock app.
  • Tap See all notification settings and toggle on Show while using the phone, Show with details, and Turn on the screen.
• Update your watch’s firmware and the Galaxy Wearable app.
• Restart your watch.
• If your phone’s alarms or timers aren’t syncing to your watch, check that you installed the same Clocks app (either Samsung or Google) on both your phone and your watch.