How to Customize Android Wear

Swapping new watch faces is something every Android watch owner likes to do. With some workarounds, you can have a cool customized watch face for your wear. So, let us show you how to customize Android wear.

The first option for you to customize Android wear is to select from several third party apps such as Android Wear Faces Creator or 1000 + Watch Faces which can be downloaded to change the watch face of your wearable. You can just keep changing them as you want. This way of customizing your wearable doesn’t need any coding.

Also, WatchFacePro lets you create your own designs. There are some limitations to this app but overall it provides you with enough information to design a personalized face for your watch. Android Developer Tools can also help you design a watch face from scratch. The instructions are quite lengthy.

However, if you want to broaden your perspective and become more creative with the watch faces on your wearable then you will have to sideload an APK and you can then customize Android wear. If you already have one then with a PC you can complete the steps easily.

Download Apk to Customize Android Wear

  • Download and complete the installation of Android Developer Tools on your computer. You will require the adb command line tool. This ensures that the set up done is perfect and your watch and computer can communicate with each other perfectly.
  • Enable developer mode on your watch just as you would have done on your Android phone. Go to Settings > About section > Now tap the Build Number section until the watch prompts you whether you are a developer.
  • In the Settings menu, head to the newly accessible Developer Options section and enable ADB Debugging.
  • Take the watch face APK that you need to sideload and then change its file extension from .apk to .zip.
  • The zip file should be extracted and then the actual APK file should be dug in for. It should be quite easy to find in res/raw.
  • If you have, then connect your watch to the computer through USB.

How to Customize Android Wear

The above steps remain the same for almost all the operating platforms but after this, there are certain changes that could happen. If you have OS X or Linux for your platform, then the instructions would be the same and the only change that would have to be made is to replace the "Macintosh HD" with the name of your Terminal and boot disk with the desired command line app.

For Windows:

  • Type cmd in search and open the command to ensure everything is in place. Now type in adb devices to check if your computer can see the watch, you will get the serial number with the device beside it.
  • Type ‘adb install’ but don’t press enter.
  • Now after this, add the location of the APK that you want to sideload – you can either do it manually or just drag the APK file in the command prompt window.
  • Once done, hit enter and the adb will continue with its work. The process of side loading would take just a minute. It will take some time before it is done.

For OS X:

Go to Terminal and connect the watch to the computer through USB.

  • Type ‘./adb install’ but don’t press enter.
  • Now after this, add the location of the APK that you want to sideload – you can either do it manually or just drag the APK file in the command prompt window.
  • Once it is done, just press enter and wait for the process to be completed.

The way to customize Android wear might be a bit lengthy but the steps are quite simple. Once the watch face is installed, just select in on your watch, just press and hold to get to the selection screen or select it in the Android Wear app. The app will show its name however an image app may not be seen so if you sideload many watch faces you could have problems locating the difference between them. However, an Android Wear device won’t face any problems as such.

It may be easy for an Android developer to customize Android wear, but for someone who is not acquainted with coding, they should stick to third-party apps.

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