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  • GrapheneOS not letting my Galaxy Watch work?

I have recently purchased a Galaxy Watch 6 LTE to use with my GrapheneOS phone that does not have any of the Google Services apps to be downloaded from the "Apps" container. Let´s call them GPS.

I proceeded to download the following apps frmo Aurora Store
Samsung Wearables, manually gave it all the available permissions.
WearOS (Requested by Samsung Wearables). This app installed in Chinese for some weird reason

It did not work I learnt I needed GPS for it to work, so I tried on a second profile where I had GPS apps, it did not work.
I learnt it had to be on owner profile. Went on Owner profile, Installed GPS, initiated Wearable App, connected the watch, accepted all Samsung´s terms and conditions, including optional ones, accepted google conditions, excluding diagnostics and All worked fine, watch was perfectly connected.

I learnt that my Watch had stored an Esim from the previous owner, in an attempt to respect its privacy, I went ahead and reset the watch to remove that esim/phone plan. Here is where everything went down
After the reset, I went on my phone, opened Wearable up, attempted to connect the watch to it. Connected the watch by confirming the pin number on both my devices (phone and watch). Accepted only the required Samsung´s Terms and Conditions, accepted Google terms and conditions. ERROR message received. Here is were my nightmare starts.

I thought maybe there is some conflicting data on the apps so I tried all the following:

Clearing cache and data of Samsung Wearable App and begin set up again
Clearing cache and data, uninstall and reinstall of Samsung Wearable App ....
Clearing cache and data, uninstall and reinstall of Google Apps ....
Restart my phone after re-installing wearable and GPS...
Downloaded Wearable app from Aurora Store
Downloaded Wearable app from Google Play Store
Manually turning on all permissions for Wearable , Same with GPS
Manually turning off all Wearable Permissions, then accepting them upon installation, same with GPS
Reset the phone after going to Play Store, Google Play Services, and every single Google app manually, settings>permissions>nearby devices & location
Accept all Samsung Optional Data & Google optional Data upon set up..
Attempt set up with both Location On and Off..
Factory reset the watch from boot menu...
Update the watch from the watch itself by connecting it to the wifi and try to pair it again
Did the UNTHINKABLE Registered a google account on my Pixel phone in case that meant anything
Registered a Samsung account but haven´t used it yet.

Tried the phone on a spare normal Android Samsung phone:
Installed Wearable from AuroraStore
Paired the Watch
Everything worked perfectly
Tried again on my Pixel with GOS, not working.

I do not understand two things: 1. Why it worked perfectly in the beginning and then after the watch reset to try remove the previous data plan everything broke. Did I update the phone in between these two things? Can´t remember but don´t think so there are no updates to be done.

ANY HELP APPRECIATED I WANT TO USE MY BLOODY WATCH ALREADY

    other8026 locked the discussion .
    other8026 unlocked the discussion .

    @MkKvcs @p0well34 @towersail @de0u
    Continuing the thread here guys, rewritten all the info organised in one post. There is only 2 things I missed, and that is 1. At the beginning I had developer mode ON from the day before and forgot to turn it off. Unsure that´s relevant but just in case it´s important info for devs.

    1. Today a friend of mine called me and the call appeared on the watch, found it quite surprising, due to the nature of the issue.

    Also, @matchboxbananasynergy not sure if that´s relevant to the bluetooth issue from this post to help devs with wearables work.
    https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/11383-request-for-testing-and-feedback-with-bluetooth-on-android-14-qpr2-grapheneos/224

      ForeverGOS Also, @matchboxbananasynergy not sure if that´s relevant to the bluetooth issue from this post to help devs with wearables work.
      https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/11383-request-for-testing-and-feedback-with-bluetooth-on-android-14-qpr2-grapheneos/224

      I was about to ask about this. Is your phone up to date? I think this issue only affected a few releases earlier this month. You should be on 2024042200 or 2024042100.

          ForeverGOS I have a faint memory of reading somewhere that it may be necessary to explicitly un-pair the watch from the phone. But that's all I remember (I don't have one of those watches).

            ForeverGOS Should be fine with that version.

            I see you mentioned that you bought the watch off someone else. Are you sure it doesn't have anything wrong with it?

                ForeverGOS

                other8026 I see you mentioned that you bought the watch off someone else.

                Ahh, this is a smart observation.

                Is the watch still tied to the previous owner's Samsung account?

                It is conceivable the watch and app worked together despite being on someone else's account; but then wiping the esim has disrupted things ... because stop working after a thief tries to reset watch stuff?

                I don't mean the watch has been stolen, but that the original owner has not removed the watch from their account so the the Samsung 'theft' stuff trips in.

                      YA657 @other8026
                      Sure its all good, as I mention on my post, I have been able to connect it to my other phone and it worked perfectly.
                      The other phone is a normal Android Samsung.

                          ForeverGOS oh, that's right. Forgot that part.

                          Based on what you've said so far, it sounds like you've done all the things that I've seen on here. I don't have a smart watch myself, so I can only go by what I've read here. I know Samsung watches work with GrapheneOS. There are multiple people here on the forum who've said as much, though I'm not sure what the difference is here.

                          I know you've tried many things, but did you remove it like de0u suggested? Are you letting the app establish the connection instead of doing so via the settings?

                              other8026 To be honest I am unsure what does @de0u exactly mean. I went to bluetooth, clicked on the watch > forget.

                              Not sure if that´s what he means, if so I did it. However bear in mind, the phone never really shows that its connected to my phone, it kind of struggles establishing a bluetooth connection with my phone for some reason, but it does establish it with the other normal android phone.

                              PS: I thought of giving GPS all the permissions, including the notifications one that only launcher has to test, but Iam afraid doing that ruins the whole purpuse of using GOS? Help here if possible pls

                                  ForeverGOS I thought of giving GPS all the permissions, including the notifications one that only launcher has to test

                                  The device & app notifications permission will be necessary when you use the watch to receive notifications, but I doubt that the app not having that permission would cause it to not connect.

                                  ForeverGOS Iam afraid doing that ruins the whole purpuse of using GOS?

                                  Some people might think so, but I personally don't. The "point" of GrapheneOS isn't to be a de-Googled OS. Though even if you do grant all of those permissions, Google still gets way less information about you since none of their apps are privileged.

                                      ForeverGOS To be honest I am unsure what does @de0u exactly mean. I went to bluetooth, clicked on the watch > forget.

                                      To be honest, I'm not sure what I meant either! I looked around a bit and so far have not found the post I remember reading, and, again, I don't have one of these devices. So I guess I am suggesting telling the phone to forget the pairing with the watch, telling the watch to forget the pairing with the phone, and, if there is a way to tell any cloud account to remove the watch from the account, doing that as well. But please understand that this is very-low-quality advice.

                                        That's very strange. Galaxy watches should work with GOS under the following conditions:

                                        1. Galaxy Wearable and the required Watch Manager are installed in the owner profile
                                        2. Sandboxed Google Play Services is installed in the same owner profile
                                        3. Nearby devices permission for Google Play services is granted (Apps > Google Play Services > Settings > Nearby devices > Allow)
                                        4. Allow any required permissions within the Galaxy Wearable and required Watch Manager apps

                                        With the above, my Galaxy Watch 6 classic BT works great with my Pixel 8 running GOS build 2024042200. It could be due to the fact that you have an LTE model, and perhaps some additional setting tweaks are required for establishing LTE connectivity.

                                          Vagabond8630
                                          Thanks for your comment, I´d like to say that your comment was kind of the solution to the issue. I happened to reflect on your words and tried everything from scratch. However, this time I uninstalled GPS from ALL users. Also, I did not only uninstall Wearable but also the Wearable Plugin 6. Began everything from scratch, then it worked!

                                          I however encounter two issues now

                                          1. GOS does not allow wearable to send me notifications to my watch, the "Device and app notifications" menu will not allow me to "allow notification access to Galaxy Watch 6 Manager" "Restricted setting for your security, this setting is currently unavailavble" How can I Fix that?

                                          2. Sideloaded Molly to the watch, but I neither receive notifications nor can actually use the app properly since its too big for the screen. Is there a way to resize the app instead of the whole watch like I already did?

                                          Thank you

                                              11 days later

                                              Just thought I'd stop by to thank everyone who participated in this thread and the previous one. I've had my Pixel 8 Pro with GOS from day one since January, and I've had a Watch 4 Classic for years now. It's literally been dead-weight and just apparel (I've been using it turned off for months) until right now. I hate the solution, since I wanted to keep the owner profile de-googled entirely, but at least it's an f'ing solution.

                                              Now I'd really like to know how much can be undone without breaking the watch connection....but I'm kinda not willing to try and experiment at the moment.

                                                ForeverGOS

                                                GOS does not allow wearable to send me notifications to my watch, the "Device and app notifications" menu will not allow me to "allow notification access to Galaxy Watch 6 Manager" "Restricted setting for your security, this setting is currently unavailavble" How can I Fix that?

                                                I've never seen that before, so I have no idea, sorry. That must be frustrating that notifications doesn't work, as that's the main use case for a smart watch. Did you allow notification permissions for all of the following apps?

                                                1. Galaxy Watch6 Manager
                                                2. Galaxy Wearable
                                                3. Google Play services

                                                Sideloaded Molly to the watch, but I neither receive notifications nor can actually use the app properly since its too big for the screen. Is there a way to resize the app instead of the whole watch like I already did?

                                                I use pure Signal and just use the available actions that come up on Signal notifications, but I assume sideloaded apks will not adjust to the watch screen size unless the app is specifically written for WearOS. If your first issue gets sorted out, you should theoretically not have to sideload any apps, although I do sincerely wish for a WearOS app for Signal/Molly.

                                                  JAvila I hate the solution, since I wanted to keep the owner profile de-googled entirely, but at least it's an f'ing solution

                                                  Yeah, I'm with you there. I wish I didn't have to install GPS on my owner profile, but I'm living with it, as it allows me to use my watch.

                                                  I also didn't have the best experiences with battery drain from Signal's websockets back when I was using another degoogled ROM without any GPS-equivalent when I didn't have a Pixel, so I'm taking solace in the fact that having sandboxed GPS on my profile means I don't have to worry about excessive battery drain.