Since smartwatches have smaller screens than smartphones, they need to make every pixel count. Even the Samsung Galaxy Watch Ultra 2 has to use its visual space wisely. Although these devices tell you when you receive new notifications, some methods are so concise that they boil down to simple colors and shapes.
Depending on your phone’s background (more on that later), you might see an orange dot on the left side of your Galaxy Watch’s screen, where 9 o’clock would be on an analog watch. This sometimes imperceptible orange circle means you have unread notifications. It doesn’t matter how many you have; the point won’t go away until you’ve read them all. The only exception is when the dot turns red. When this happens, you will receive an urgent notification and should probably read it as soon as possible. To read notifications, swipe right on your Galaxy Watch screen.
Although Samsung primarily documents the notification dots and their functions in the “One UI Watch for Tizen” section of the Samsung developers website, don’t let that scare you away. Earlier this month, Samsung stopped providing software support for the Galaxy Watch 4 series, ending support for Tizen. However, new Samsung Galaxy Watch models still have orange indicators, so if you currently own a Watch 4, you don’t have to worry about learning a new notification system when you eventually trade in your aging device for a new one.
What to do if the orange dot bothers you
Depending on your Galaxy Watch settings, you might be flooded with notifications. When this happens, the orange dot does not disappear. Technically, you can get rid of it by scrolling through your notifications, but it will seem to reappear a few minutes later. If this happens, you may want to disable the setting completely.
Although you need to sync your Galaxy Watch with your phone, you can still perform many tasks on the smartwatch alone, like turning off its notification settings. Here’s how to turn off the orange and red dot on your smartwatch:
- Open the “Settings” menu.
- Tap “Display.”
- Scroll to “Notification Indicator” and tap it to turn it off.
However, if you find your Galaxy Watch’s screen a little too restrictive, you can use your Galaxy Wearable instead and follow these steps:
- Open the app.
- Select “Watch Settings”.
- Tap “Notifications”.
- Scroll down and select “Advanced notification settings”.
- Tap “Notification Indicator” to turn it off.
Once you turn off the notification indicator, you won’t have to worry about dots messing up your UI screen. However, you won’t know if you have any messages – urgent or not – until you check. Alternatively, you can always choose a wallpaper that hides the dots. Maybe something that hides the orange indicator but makes the red visible so you don’t get flooded with notifications but still know when your Galaxy Watch wants to share important information.
