12. Using Your Samsung Galaxy Note 5 with an Android Wear Smartwatch

In this chapter, you discover how to set up your Android Wear smartwatch and use it with your Samsung Galaxy Note 5.

Setting up your Android Wear watch

Choosing settings and installing apps

Navigating the Android Wear watch’s interface

Using the Android Wear watch’s apps

To get the most out of your Galaxy Note 5, you can link it to a Android Wear smartwatch. Android Wear watches are sold by vendors such as Samsung, LG, and Motorola and act as a companion for any Android smartphone, including your Note 5. The Android Wear watch enables you to display essential information, make phone calls, and allow simple interactions with apps without taking your Galaxy Note 5 out of your pocket.

1. Unpack the Android Wear watch and identify its components: the Android Wear watch itself, a charging dock/clip, and the charger.

2. Fully charge your Android Wear watch.

3. Turn the Android Wear watch on by pressing and holding its button for a moment. The button is on the right side of the Android Wear watch.

4. Tap to choose your preferred language on the watch screen.

5. When you see a screen on your watch telling you to install the Android Wear app on your phone, switch to your Note 5 for steps 6–14.

6. Search the Google Play Store for the Android Wear app. When you find it, tap Install.

7. Tap Accept to accept the permissions that the Android Wear app needs to run correctly. After the app installs, run it to start setting up your watch.

8. Tap the right arrow to start setting up your watch.

9. Tap Accept to accept that the Android Wear app will synchronize data between your watch and your Note 5.

10. Tap the name of the watch you want to use. In this example, it is a Samsung Gear Live, listed as “Gear Live 10C9.”

11. When prompted, accept the Bluetooth Pairing PIN on both your Note 5 and your watch. The PIN should be the same on both devices.

12. When your watch and Note 5 are paired over Bluetooth, you see a screen preparing you to configure Android to allow the Android Wear app to have access to notifications. Tap Notification Settings.

13. Check the box to allow the Android Wear app to receive access to Android notifications.

14. Tap OK to verify that you want the Android Wear app to have access to all Android notifications.

1. Tap to launch the Android Wear app.

2. Tap a watch face to change it on your watch.

3. Tap to see all watch faces you have installed and find more.

4. Swipe up to see all voice actions and what apps are launched when the voice action triggers.

1. Your watch shows your agenda.

2. Your watch launches the Google Maps Micro watch app and enables you to get turn-by-turn directions. The Google Maps Micro watch app also launches the Google Maps app on your Note 5, which actually provides the navigation to your watch.

3. Opens the Google Play Music app on your Note 5 and plays music.

4. Sets a timer on your watch.

5. Sets an alarm on your watch.

6. Shows the alarms set on your watch.

7. Shows your heart rate. Tap to choose which watch app launches to show your heart rate.

8. Swipe up for more voice actions.

9. Shows how many steps you have walked with your watch on.

10. Starts a stopwatch on your watch. Tap to select which watch app launches to start the stopwatch.

11. Call a car to pick you up. Install an app such as Lyft to make this voice action available. If you have two apps installed that both handle this function, tap Call a Car to choose the app you prefer to use.

12. Allows you to launch an app to start a bike ride. Install an app such as RunKeeper to make this voice action available. If you have two apps installed that both handle this function, tap Start a Bike Ride to choose the app you prefer to use.

13. Allows you to launch an app to start a run. Install an app such as RunKeeper to make this voice action available. If you have two apps installed that both handle this function, tap Start a Run to choose the app you prefer to use.

14. Allows you to launch an app to start a workout. Install an app such as RunKeeper to make this voice action available. If you have two apps installed that both handle this function, tap Start a Workout to choose the app you prefer to use.

15. Allows you to launch an app to take a note. If you do not install an app to handle this voice action, when you use this feature, the note you dictate is emailed to your Gmail address. Installing an app such as Chaos Control allows this voice action to launch your favorite note-taking app.

16. Tap to browse the Google Play Store for watch apps to handle voice actions and standalone watch apps that provide additional functionality.

1. From the main Android Wear app screen, tap one of the three most recent watch faces to set your watch to use it.

2. Tap More to see all watch faces you have installed.

3. Select a watch face to use.

4. Scroll down to the bottom of the screen and tap Get More Watch Faces to find more watch faces in the Google Play Store.

5. Tap to install a watch face.

6. Once your new watch face has been installed, it automatically downloads to your watch and is visible in the Android Wear app. Tap the watch face to make your watch start using it.

7. Some watch faces have configuration options. If the watch face has settings that you can change that affect the way it works, the Settings icon displays over the watch face. Tap it to adjust the watch face’s settings.

8. Tap to return to the main Android Wear app screen.

1. From the main Android Wear app screen, tap the gear icon to see the settings.

2. Tap to choose which calendars you want to show event cards for on your watch.

3. Tap to choose apps that you no longer want to receive notifications for on your watch. By default, every notification from every app is sent to your watch. Use this setting to select which ones you really care about.

4. Tap the on/off button to mute any alerts, notifications, or any other interruptions on your Note 5 while it is connected to the watch. Having this enabled helps cut down having alerts vibrate your Note 5 and your watch at the same time.

5. Tap to choose whether you want to keep your watch synchronized with your Note 5 over Wi-Fi, via your Google Cloud account. Having this feature turned on allows your watch to stay in-sync even when it is not connected to your Note 5 via Bluetooth.

6. Tap to manage the Together feature. The Together feature works with special Together watch faces and allows you to choose a friend to keep in-sync with and share sketches, photos, stickers, and fitness information.

7. Features that are used by app developers to debug and troubleshoot their apps. You will not need to use these debugging features.

8. Tap the name of your watch to see watch-specific settings.

9. Tap to disconnect your Note 5 from your watch. Tap again to reconnect.

10. Move the switch to the On position to set your watch to keep a low-resolution monochrome version of the screen on at all times, even when it goes to sleep.

11. Move the switch to the On position to set your watch to wake up when it detects you tilting your wrist.

12. Move the switch to the On position to allow a preview of an alert to be displayed on the bottom of the watch screen. If you move the switch to the Off position, there will be no alert previews; however, you can still swipe up to view alerts.

13. Tap to manage the voice actions for your watch.

14. Tap to see how your watch’s battery is performing and how much power each app is taking. Using this screen can help you identify apps that are draining the battery.

15. Tap to see your watch’s memory usage, and how much memory each app is using.

16. Tap to resynchronize apps between your Note and your watch. You don’t normally need to do this, but if you suspect that an app you recently installed on your Note 5 has not installed a mini-app on your watch, you can tap here.

17. Tap to return to the previous screen.

1. In the Android Wear app, tap More next to Essential Watch Apps.

2. Swipe up to see all of the categories of watch apps. The categories are Watch Faces, New Year, Tools, Social, Productivity, Communication, Health & Fitness, Entertainment, Travel & Local, and Games.

3. Tap More to see more apps in a specific category.

4. Tap an app you want to download. Some apps cost money. This example uses Reversi for Wear.

5. Tap Install.

6. Tap Accept to accept any device or information permission the app needs to run. In this example, the app does not need any permissions.

1. While your watch is not being used, the screen becomes low resolution, monochrome, and dimmed to save energy.

2. Lift your arm to view your watch, and the screen turns to full color.

3. Swipe notifications up to read them, and in some cases take actions on them. If you have more than one notification, swipe up repeatedly to read all of them.

4. Tap the preview of the notification to show more of it, and scroll down to read all of it.

5. Swipe the notification to the left to see any actions that you can take on the notification. This includes an option to block the app so that you don’t see notifications from it again.

6. Swipe the notification to the right to dismiss it. To dismiss most apps while using them on your watch, swipe to the right.

7. After you dismiss a notification, if you decide that you didn’t want to, you can quickly swipe up from the bottom of the screen to see a dismiss timer. Tap the timer to undo the dismiss before it runs out.

8. Swipe down from the top of the screen to see options and settings.

9. Tap to toggle through the Notification options. You can choose to be notified on your watch for all notifications, Priority notifications only, or none.

10. Swipe left to see more options.

11. Tap to put your watch in Theater mode. When in Theater mode, the screen remains blank, you receive no notifications, and the action of lifting your arm to look at your watch is deactivated. Press the watch button to exit Theater mode.

12. Swipe left to see more options.

13. Tap to set your watch to Brightness boost for five seconds. Brightness boost sets the screen brightness to the maximum for five seconds to help with bright sunlight or other situations where it is difficult to see the watch screen.

14. Swipe left to see more options.

15. Tap to change your watch’s settings. See the next section for a description of all settings.

1. Tap to manually adjust the brightness of your watch’s screen.

2. Tap to change your watch face.

3. Tap to change the size of the font used on your watch.

4. Swipe up for more settings.

5. Tap to manage what Wi-Fi network your wach conencts to. Your watch automatically connects to the same Wi-Fi network that your Note 5 is conencted to, but you can switch Wi-Fi networks.

6. Tap to pair your watch with Bluetooth devices such as Bluetooth speakers.

7. Tap to toggle Always-on Screen on or off. When this is off, your watch screen no longer switches to the low-resolution mode when it goes to sleep; instead, it turns off completely.

8. Swipe up for more settings.

9. Tap to turn Wrist Gestures on or off.

10. Tap to toggle Airplane mode on or off. When in Airplane mode, your watch is not able to communicate using Bluetooth to your Note 5.

11. Tap to mange whether you want to enable large fonts or the magnification gesture on your watch.

12. Swipe up for more settings.

13. Tap to choose whether you want your watch to automatically lock itself when you take it off your wrist. If this is the first time you are enabling this feature, you are asked to draw an unlock pattern. You need to use this pattern to unlock your watch when you put it back on your wrist.

14. Tap to reset your watch. This puts the watch back to the way it came out of the box, and all your saved information will be lost.

15. Tap to restart your watch. All your information remains untouched; your watch just restarts.

16. Swipe up for more settings.

17. Tap to power off your watch.

18. Tap to see information about your watch, as well as whether there is an update for it.

1. Wake up your watch by lifting your arm. Alternatively, you can tap your watch’s screen to wake it up.

2. After your watch wakes up and the screen turns to full color, say “OK Google.” Alternatively, you can tap the watch screen.

3. Your watch is now listening for a command. Say a command to perform an action or start an app. Use the next section to learn how to use each command and launch watch apps.

1. Say “Settings,” or tap to see the Settings screen.

2. Say “Start app name” to start an app. For example, say “Start Reversi” to start the Reversi app installed earlier in this chapter. Alternatively, you can tap the app icon to start it. Remember that with watch apps like Reversi you must say “Start.” You can also start watch apps by saying “Run” (for example, “Run Reversi”).

3. Say “Start Stopwatch,” or tap to start the Stopwatch watch app.

4. Say “Take a note,” or tap and speak the text of the note, to take a note. For example, you can say “Take a note to drink more water” and a new note is created with the text “Drink more water.” If you have previously installed an app that handles notes, the note is saved to that app. Otherwise, your note is emailed to your Gmail account.

5. Say “Remind me,” or tap and speak the reminder to add. For example, you can say “Remind me to go for a run at 7 a.m.” and a new reminder is created labeled “Go for a run” set for 7:00 a.m. the next day. You can also set recurring reminders. For example, you can say “Remind me to make coffee at 8 a.m. every weekday.”

6. Say “Start a run,” or tap to launch the app you installed to handle your runs. Start running and use the watch app you installed to monitor your run.

7. Say “Show me my steps,” or tap to show how many steps you have walked. Your watch uses its built-in pedometer to keep track of your steps.

8. Say “Show me my heart rate,” or tap to activate your watch’s heart rate monitor. Follow the instructions to allow your watch to take your heart rate.

9. Say “Send text,” or tap and speak the name of the recipient and the text message to send a text message to someone. For example, you can say “Send a text to Jim, see you later” and a new text message is created to Jim with the text “See you later.” If the contact has more than one phone number, you need to say the phone number to use, for example “Send a text to Jim mobile.”

10. Say “Email,” or tap and speak the name of the recipient and message. For example, you can say “Email Jim, you free on Friday?” and a new email will be created to Jim with the body of the message set to “You free on Friday?” If you have more than one person with the same name, and you are not specific, you are prompted to say the person’s full name. If the person has more than one email address, you are prompted to say the one to use (for example, Home or Work).

11. Say “Agenda” or tap to see your agenda for today.

12. Say “Navigate,” or tap and speak the desired destination to start turn-by-turn directions to your desired destination. You can say things like “to a pizza place nearby” or “home” or “work,” or you can speak an address. Turn-by-turn directions start on your Note 5, with a mini version of them being displayed on your watch.

13. Say “Set a timer,” or tap and speak the time the timer must use. For example, you can say “Set a timer for 45 minutes.” The timer starts on your watch.

14. Say “Start stopwatch,” or tap to start the stopwatch app on your watch.

15. Say “Set an alarm,” or tap and speak when the alarm must be set for. For example, you can say “Set an alarm for 6 this evening.” The alarm will be created. Before the alarm is finished being created, you can tap Edit to edit the alarm and even make it recurring by selecting certain days of the week when it must trigger.

16. Say “Show alarms,” or tap to show the alarms that have been set on your watch. You can edit or remove individual alarms by using the touch screen.

17. Say “Call a car,” or tap to launch the car pickup service you installed on your Note 5 that supports Android Wear, such as Lyft.

18. Say “Play music,” or tap to start playing an “I’m feeling lucky” mix on your Note 5. You can also say “Play Depeche Mode” to start playing all songs by Depeche Mode on your Note 5. See the “Play Music from Your Watch” sidebar at the end of this chapter for more information.

19. Say “Settings,” or tap to see your watch’s settings.

20. Say “Start,” or tap and say the name of a watch app you have installed. For example, if you installed an app called Eat24, you would say “Start Eat 24.”