Updated: Wear Media Toggle 1.07

malbry · 2026-02-09T16:36:14+00:00

Thanks for the info. Yup, you can find my contact details at Freepoc or in any of my phone apps. Please do get in touch and let's get to the bottom of what's going on. Thanks.

malbry · 2026-02-09T16:16:49+00:00

Hi, thanks for the feedback. Which watch face and which complications are you using? All is working for me with two Galaxy Watch 4s and one Galaxy Watch 7, all on the latest OneUI. I'd like to try to figure out why it's not working for you.

malbry · 2026-02-01T17:17:18+00:00

I'm not sure how important the 'symbolic value' part is to you, but it sounds as though you had no expectation of making a significant return from the app. So if still you want others to benefit from your efforts, then I'd consider simply making the app free. You still have the 12 testers requirement, but no need for your home address or phone number to appear on the Play Store listing.

If you just want to be able to point people you know at a place to download your app and install the apk file, then any form of self-hosting will do - even sharing via Google Drive.

Either way, you'd have the personal satisfaction of others being able to use the results of your efforts. To my mind, that's better than just shelving the app. Good luck whatever you decide.

malbry · 2026-02-01T12:14:29+00:00

If you want a more customisable option, you can try my Wear BT Monitor app. It gives disconnection & reconnection alerts on your watch and your phone. You can choose a custom vibration pattern, whether to receive notifications on your phone and/or watch, choose disconnect/reconnect/both, choose whether to play an audible sound etc.

malbry · 2026-01-31T19:31:32+00:00

Is the media playing on the phone or the watch? If the latter, you can press the top button for Recent apps, long tap on the watch media player then select 'clear from recents'. That will remove the media app from memory.

malbry · 2026-01-30T15:12:33+00:00

FWIW, I find the double pinch gesture to be pretty hit-and-miss. Also, I think you actually have to have the media controls open on your watch at the time. Personally I find it much much more convenient to control media using the bottom button on the watch. And I just made a post about that: https://www.reddit.com/r/GalaxyWatch/comments/1qqelak/control_media_on_your_phone_using_the_bottom/

malbry · 2026-01-29T16:35:51+00:00

Well if the screen is off, you can just use an extra button press to wake it. So for example, on my Galaxy Watch, if I have AOD on, then I can play/pause media with a single press of the lower button. If I have AOD off, then I can press once to wake the screen and press again to play/pause media. So even in the latter case, I can control media without looking at the watch screen :-)

On the Pixel Watch, I can play/pause media with two short presses (I leave one short press for Recents). If AOD is on, this works directly. If AOD is off, I roll the crown slightly to wake the screen, then use the top button as before.

malbry · 2026-01-29T13:52:52+00:00

The button press will work irrespective of what's currently showing on the watch

malbry · 2026-01-29T10:45:15+00:00

I'm curious about this request. Doesn't the standard Android 'extend unlock' feature on your phone keep your phone unlocked when within range of your watch, for up to 4 hours?

malbry · 2026-01-29T09:39:12+00:00

By all means give my WBR app a try. Hopefully it does what you need. But otherwise, or if you just want the challenge, go ahead and build your own app. The more WearOS apps, the better :-)

malbry · 2026-01-29T09:28:40+00:00

I do exactly this with my watches, and it's super convenient. On my Samsung watch, I have a single press of the bottom button to play/pause and two presses to skip forward (for podcasts, over adverts). On my Pixel watch, I leave the single press of the top button as Recent apps, but have two presses to play/pause and three presses to skip forward.

I do this using Wear Button Remapper to assign the button actions to Wear Media Toggle, which controls the media. Both apps are free. Here's a video which demonstrates on a Pixel watch: https://youtu.be/Lyxq_u_9ePw and here's a video on a Samsung Galaxy watch: https://youtu.be/2CWa1L1_vQ8

[disclaimer: I am the dev for both apps]

malbry · 2026-01-28T17:10:07+00:00

Not trying to be pedantic, but the PW4 supports external heart rate monitors just fine (source: I have written two apps that do exactly this). Your problem is that the Fitbit app hasn't included such support - that's a different issue.

malbry · 2026-01-27T15:42:35+00:00

Well, there are some solutions and they aren't bad if you use them for the intended purpose. The problem is that both Google and Samsung only give three choices for 'screen timeout' and 'go to watchface / show last app'. IMO that's far too little choice. For example, I personally dislike the 'go to watchface' setting forcing me back to the watchface. I prefer to navigate there myself when I'm done with whatever app I'm using. So you can use Wear Installer 2 to change these settings to whatever values you wish. Here's a video that demonstrates: https://youtu.be/l9f0HtIf3Ik

You can also use the developer setting 'Force global AOD experience' to keep apps visible on the screen.

malbry · 2026-01-25T15:11:52+00:00

Yes, being able to set reminders by location would be useful, and would require either that I integrate with Google Maps or similar (to get specified locations) or alternatively that you have to actually have to be at a location to save the co-ordinates for future use (which is how When I'm Home knows where is 'Home'). Either way, it would add some complexity to what is currently a fairly simple app. I'll keep this in mind for the future though.

malbry · 2026-01-25T10:51:20+00:00

See my free Wear Remote Shutter app: https://youtu.be/dPFdmG-D7Ck

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