Issues Pairing Samsung Galaxy Watch (2018) to GrapheneOS

GoodJobe

Hi everyone,

Just installed GrapheneOS and loving it so far. The only issue I have is I can't get my Samsung Galaxy Watch (2018) to connect to the app. It usually gets stuck on pairing and never finishes. Here are all the things I did that did not work:

Install Galaxy Wearable, Galaxy Watch Plugin, and Samsung Connect Accessory in a separate profile with Play Services through Aurora Store. Gave all apps permissions and gave Play Services location and nearby devices permision. Tried also turning on exploit compatibility for the three Samsung apps.
Install Galaxy Wearable, Galaxy Watch Plugin, and Samsung Connect Accessory in owner profile with Play Services through Aurora Store. Gave all apps permissions and gave Play Services location and nearby devices permision. Tried also turning on exploit compatibility for the three Samsung apps.
Install Galaxy Wearable, Galaxy Watch Plugin, and Samsung Connect Accessory in owner profile with Play Services through Play Store. Gave all apps permissions and gave Play Services location and nearby devices permision. Tried also turning on exploit compatibility for the three Samsung apps.
Did the above step but cleared all storage and cache of Play Services and Play Store. Also uninstalled Play Services on all other user profiles.
Install Galaxy Wearable, Galaxy Watch Plugin, and Samsung Connect Accessory in owner profile without Play Services through Aurora Store. Gave all apps permisions and turned on exploit compatibility.

Every time I attempted, I also unpaired my watch and reinstalled stuff. I don't know what's going on since I see posts in this forum of people getting to pair their watches. Would appreciate any help or discussion.

strife-john-frozen

GoodJobe you probably need to reset the Galaxy Watch before trying to pair it.

Stephan-P

I learned by experience that Samsung stuff is requiring Samsung apps.
You may need to install:

Samsung Internet
Samsung Health
Samsung Wearable
Samsung Watch Manager
Samsung Smart Switch

All these apps are very interdependent: one may not fully function without another. I remember having needed to install Smart Switch as well as Internet (!?) in order to perform updates. After I'd done that, I kept those apps but disabled them. (I should remember to activate them once in a while for update purposes.)

GoodJobe

Stephan-P thanks for this. I'll give this a try in a bit. Did you install from Aurora or the Play Store?

GoodJobe

Stephan-P

Stephan-P Hey there so thanks for the advice. I did install all the 5 apps you mentioned but sadly, it still comes up with the same issue where it gets stuck on the "Finishing pairing..." screen and never finishes the setup. It was worth a shot though.

GoodJobe

Stephan-P Hello again, would just like to say thanks for your help on this. I decided to try again installing the apps you mentioned but this time through the Aurora Store and set up my watch without Play Services. It all worked perfectly and my watch paired to my phone. I think the only issue now for me is getting Samsung Pay to work. Have you had any luck?

Stephan-P

GoodJobe I don't use Aurora, so the regular Playstore would be my advise.

GoodJobe

strife-john-frozen yup already done this. The watch won't let me pair any new phone until I've reset it.

GoodJobe

Update for anyone who comes across this post and willing to help: I have been able to setup the watch without a phone thankfully. So it's just a glorified timepiece at this point. Would like to be able to pair it to my phone though. I just updated my GrapheneOS version to the latest version 2025092700.

Stephan-P

GoodJobe I'm not using many of the Samsung Smart watch features. Too many beeps, pings, buzzes, disruptions.
To me, payments are something between me and my bank.
On a regular Android phone, I would not want Google Pay to process (and follow) my payments. Likewise I do not want Samsung Pay to process (and follow) my payments.
So sorry, I cannot help you there.

lexyo

I made a post where I show how to pair the gear S3 frontier.
What I didn't include there tho was that it also seemed to me that it was getting stuck so when it was at 4/5 dots I went in settings and disabled network permissions. Then I entered, asked me network, so I renabled it and entered the app again which prompted me to install Samsung pairing service... Then from there I had to wait some more and it worked