Wear OS: 9 top tips, tricks, and tweaks to get you started

Get to know that fancy new watch of yours

After years of neglect, there's finally reason to be excited about Wear OS again. While the Galaxy Watch4 and Galaxy Watch4 Classic are leading the Wear OS pack today, we're eagerly looking forward to new wearable hardware from both Samsung and Google itself — and many of the best smartwatches running Wear OS are in line to get the fancy new Wear OS 3 software in the near future.

If you've caught the wearable bug and bought yourself a Wear OS device, you've come to the right place. Here are 10 things to try with your new watch.

1. Change your watch face

Changing the watch face on your Wear OS device is easy: just hold your finger down on the watch's home screen for a couple of seconds, then swipe right and left to navigate through available watch faces. It works the same on both the Samsung Galaxy Watch4 and pre-Wear OS 3 watches (if you have a Wear OS watch that's not the Watch4 or Watch4 Classic right now, that's yours).

You can also change your watch's face from your phone. For the Galaxy Watch4, you'll do that from the Galaxy Wearable app: just tap Watch faces. For other Wear OS devices, open the Wear OS app and tap More next to WATCH FACES.

2. Get some new watch faces

Don't like any of your watch's pre-installed watch face options? No worries—you've got access to a practically unlimited selection of additional faces. Just open the Google Play Store on your watch and scroll down to Watch faces. Tap a watch face to see more information and some screenshots of the face in action. If you like what you see, install it. You can change your watch face with the steps described above.

If you'd prefer not to do all that work on a screen the size of a 50-cent piece, you can browse watch faces from your phone, too. Open the Play Store and tap Apps at the bottom. Go to Categories and tap Watch faces. You can install faces from their listings on your phone, no futzing with the watch required.

3. Install watch apps from your phone

Like watch faces, you can browse and install Wear OS apps to your watch from the Play Store on other devices, too. Open the Play Store on your phone and tap Apps at the bottom of the screen. Then, under Categories, go to Watch apps. If you're looking for something specific, you can tap the magnifying glass in the top right corner to search for it. Otherwise, browse and install apps the way you normally would.

4. Customize your hardware buttons

You're able to change what the buttons on your Wear OS watch do, but the actions you can assign to them, and how you'll set those actions, vary depending on your watch model.

On the Samsung Galaxy Watch4 series, open your watch's Settings, scroll down and select Advanced features, then Customize keys. A single press always navigates home, but you can assign different functions to both a double press and a long press. Double presses open apps; long presses can either open your voice assistant or call up the power menu.

The bottom key only has two functions: you can set a single press to either navigate back in the watch's UI or open a list of your recent apps.

On other Wear OS watches, go to Settings, then Personalization, then Customize hardware keys. Tap a button, then choose which app you'd like it to open.

5. Make contactless payments with Google Pay

Assuming your Wear OS watch has NFC—and it almost certainly does—you can use it to pay at stores that accept Google Pay.

Setup is about the same on all Wear OS watches, but if you're using a watch that didn't come with Pay pre-installed (namely, the Galaxy Watch4), you'll need to install it from the Play Store. You can do that from the watch itself or from the Play Store on your phone.

To use Google Pay, your watch will need a screen lock set—but Wear OS typically only asks for your PIN or pattern the first time you interact with your watch after putting it on. If you take your watch off, you'll need to unlock it again to use Pay.

To add a card to your watch, open the app, then tap the big plus (+) icon. You'll be prompted to continue on your phone, which will walk you through the steps.

When you're ready to make a purchase, open the Google Pay app on your watch (you can assign Google Pay to a hardware button using the steps described in the previous section) and hold it near the payment terminal. Your payment will be charged to whichever card you have selected.

6. Have your watch silence your phone

Wearing a device that lights up and vibrates when you get a notification makes your phone's beeps and buzzes for the same notifications a little redundant. Wear OS has a handy feature that lets it automatically silence notifications on your phone while your watch is on your wrist, saving you some unwanted noise. Notifications on your phone resume when you take the watch off. Again, though, accessing the feature is different on the Galaxy Watch4 than on other Wear OS watches.

To let your Watch4 silence your phone while you're wearing the watch, go to your watch's Settings, then Notifications, then flip the toggle for Mute notifications on phone on. You can find the setting in the same place on the watch itself and in the Galaxy Wearable app.

On every other Wear OS watch, the setting is only accessible in the Wear OS app on your phone. Open the app, then, under SETTINGS, tap Notifications, then Silence phone while wearing watch. There are separate toggles for muting calls and muting other notifications; make the selection that works for you.

7. Find your lost phone

If you find yourself constantly misplacing your phone, this one's for you: you can use your Wear OS watch to make your phone ring.

The process is only slightly different between the Galaxy Watch4 and other Wear OS watches. Swipe down from your watch's home screen to access the quick settings menu; on the Watch4, the Find my phone icon is a rectangle with a magnifying glass in it. On other Wear OS devices, it looks like a ringing smartphone. Tap it, and if your phone is connected to your watch, it'll ring.

8. Manage your battery life

Each Wear OS watches has various battery-saving modes and features. The Mobvoi TicWatch Pro 3 Ultra GPS, for example, has a low-power LCD display over its primary screen that lets it display the time while consuming next to no battery. Fossil watches have branded Smart Battery power profiles, while the Galaxy Watch4's "power saving" mode restricts a bunch of features with one toggle.

It'll be worthwhile to familiarize yourself with your particular watch's battery saving modes, but there are a handful of things you can do on any Wear OS watch to extend its battery life.

• Turn off the always-on display. Keeping those pixels lit up consumes battery.
  • On the Galaxy Watch4, go to Settings → Display. Turn Always On Display off.
  • On other Wear OS devices, go to Settings → Display. Turn Always-on screen off.
• Disable raise to wake. The feature can cause your watch's screen to light up when you're not looking at it, which uses power.
  • On the Galaxy Watch4, go to Settings → Display. Turn Raise wrist to wake off.
  • On other Wear OS devices, go to Settings → Gestures. Turn Tilt-to-wake off.
• Turn off unnecessary notifications. Notifications you don't want to be delivered on your watch are not only distracting, but they also waste battery.
  • On the Galaxy Watch4, most apps can't send notifications by default; you can allow or disallow notifications on a per-app basis in the Galaxy Wearable app on your phone. Go to Watch settings → Notifications. Here, you'll see a list of all your apps and whether they can send notifications to your watch. Make sure only the ones you want are enabled.
  • Other Wear OS watches allow more notifications by default. You can toggle which apps will notify on your watch in the Wear OS app on your phone. Under SETTINGS, tap Notifications → Change watch notifications. Turn off notifications for all the apps you don't need buzzing your wrist.

9. Listen to music without your phone

Wear OS lets you connect earbuds or headphones directly to your watch so you can listen to music without having to carry your phone. Connecting your headphones will be a slightly different process depending on the type of watch you're using.

To connect headphones or earbuds to a Samsung Galaxy Watch4, go to Settings → Connections → Bluetooth. If they're in pairing mode, your headphones will appear under Available devices. Tap their name to connect. (If your headphones don't show up in the list, try tapping Scan on your watch to tell it to look for them again.)

On other Wear OS watches, you'll need to go to Settings → Connectivity → Bluetooth → Available devices. You should see your headphones in the list of available devices, provided they're in pairing mode.

Similarly, phone-free listening will work a little differently depending on whether your watch has LTE connectivity and which streaming app you're using. Watches with mobile data will be able to use apps like Spotify and YouTube Music normally, but to listen without your phone on Wear OS watches that don't have mobile data access, you'll need to download music to take with you.

To download music on Spotify, navigate to an album, playlist, or podcast you want to save to your watch and tap Download to watch. Your downloaded media can be found in Downloads, to the right of Spotify's home screen.

YouTube Music works almost the same: tap any song, album, or playlist, and you'll have options to either play or download it. Downloaded media is front and center at the top of the app's home screen.

9. Get hands-free help from the Google Assistant

The Google Assistant has been a Wear OS feature for forever, but it's only very recently come to the Galaxy Watch4 series—which still makes up every device running Wear OS 3.

To enable the Assistant on your Watch4, search for Assistant in the Play Store on your watch. Install (or update) it, then open the app to complete setup. You can toggle hey Google detection in Settings → Google, or assign the Assistant to your watch's top button in Settings → Advanced features → Customize keys.

Things are simpler on other Wear OS watches, where Assistant is pre-installed: just press and hold your watch's power button to talk to it. To enable or disable hotword detection on your watch, hold the power button to open the Google Assistant, then scroll down to Settings. The next screen will show a toggle for hey Google listening. (If holding your watch's power button doesn't bring up the Assistant, go to Settings → Personalization → Assistant access and make sure Press and hold power button for Assistant is turned on.)

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For more accessories, check out our guide to the best wireless earbuds. If you're looking for a new smartwatch and want to wait a little bit longer, you'll want to check out all the Pixel Watch details.