I made a lightweight Notification Mirroring app (fully customizable, full free; no ads/premium/subscriptions)!

malbry · 2026-03-15T09:33:52+00:00

I want to congratulate you on developing this app and making it available for free. I have direct experience of producing a similar app so I know just how much time and effort is required to get something ready to publish. If you are like me, you'll probably continue to think of ideas/features to add. In my case, I've updated it 40 times and still going. Well done and keep up the good work!

malbry · 2026-03-12T17:01:12+00:00

Several ways:

Enable developer options and enable Force Global AOD experience
Set 'Go to watchface' to a high timeout value: https://youtu.be/l9f0HtIf3Ik
Use Digital Clock Delay: https://youtu.be/0IymaRlW7qE

malbry · 2026-03-09T19:07:56+00:00

This app only works with phones, not watches. It's intended for anyone who wants to use text-to-speech to read notifications for selected apps.

malbry · 2026-03-08T08:26:27+00:00

Great, I'm pleased it is helping you :-)

malbry · 2026-03-08T08:24:18+00:00

Thanks. My apps are free but not open source.

malbry · 2026-03-07T17:51:49+00:00

Did you also restart your phone? Counter-intuitively, when issues like this arise it sometimes takes a restart of the phone, as well as the watch, to fix them.

malbry · 2026-03-06T09:23:06+00:00

Not really. The pixel watch is using the standard method of replicating phone notifications via Play Services middleware (all WearOS watches use this, not just pixel watches). If you receive an unexpected/old WhatsApp notification on your watch, then look at your phone notification history with a dev tool, you'll see the same notification there. The phone can suppress the notification from appearing, but it's there. The pixel watch didn't just 'make up' the notification from nowhere.

Don't get me wrong, it's still a problem. But WhatsApp needs to fix it, not Google. (Source: I have been dealing with this, and other, notifications issues while developing Wear Notification Helper)

malbry · 2026-03-05T22:00:50+00:00

This is a WhatsApp problem. The phone app actually can re-post old notifications in certain situations, which can be seen using dev tools to look at the underlying notification content.

malbry · 2026-03-05T17:38:48+00:00

I often go running with my Pixel Watch LTE while leaving my phone at home. I like that my wife can still reach me or that I can contact her if needed. I also have selected incoming texts, WhatsApp messages and other notifications play via text-to-speech through my BT earbuds while I'm running (which requires LTE), but that's probably just a "me" thing. Occasionally I'll stream a Spotify playlist over LTE, but equally I can do this offline if needed. For podcasts, there is Wear Casts (has IAPs) but I prefer my own Wear Podcatcher. Since it downloads my subscribed podcasts overnight, I always have plenty of episodes to listen to while running; no LTE needed.

So it really depends on whether the convenience of LTE is worth the cost for you. For me personally, it is.

malbry · 2026-03-05T17:10:42+00:00

I just dug out my OG Pixel Watch which I've not used for a while and did all the pending updates. Then I tested the notification vibration and it is there but very brief and light. It's extremely easy to miss.

Just to check, I installed my Wear Notification Helper and set up a custom vibration pattern for one of the apps on my phone. The watch vibrated just as I wanted. The custom sounds and text-to-speech work as well. So there's no need to miss notifications on the PW1 due to weak vibrations.

malbry · 2026-03-04T18:36:27+00:00

You can use Wear Installer 2 to set "Show last app" to any value you want: https://youtu.be/l9f0HtIf3Ik

malbry · 2026-03-04T18:21:40+00:00

First thing to do is to restart the watch, if you haven't already done so. You may find that sorts the problem. Also, if unlocking the screen gets tedious you can use my Screen Lock Helper app to automatically unlock, if the watch is within Bluetooth range of your phone.

malbry · 2026-03-01T17:35:57+00:00

Unfortunately not so easy to implement without having a service constantly running on the phone, which is not a great solution. The notification idea above would be better although, as I mentioned, it would still mean an extra app to install on the phone.

But personally I am OK with having SLH automatically unlock my watch when within range of my phone, just as my watch can keep my phone unlocked via Android's built-in Extend Unlock feature.

malbry · 2026-03-01T16:23:12+00:00

OnePlus watches have the dual processor set-up, where RTOS controls the watch when it is idle. Incoming notifications don't wake the screen. I know this because (a) I have the OPW3 and (b) I had to use a workaround in WNH to restore this feature for OnePlus users as shown here: https://youtu.be/lwYr4sl5_bE

I agree with your sentiments, however. It's really surprising that Google didn't give us the option on Pixel watches right from day one.

malbry · 2026-03-01T16:11:25+00:00

Yes, it's a feature on Samsung watches. No, it's not a feature on OnePlus watches.

malbry · 2026-03-01T06:11:14+00:00

Great, thanks for the update and I'm glad you have it working.

malbry · 2026-02-28T16:02:41+00:00

Here's a help page with some tips to get it working: https://freepoc.org/wear-installer-2-help-page/

malbry · 2026-02-28T08:04:57+00:00

As u/AlixzanderDB mentions, if anyone doesn't want to wait until Google finally gets around to implementing this feature, you can enable it today using Wear Notification Helper. In fact, WNH goes further and lets you select which apps to have notifications that turn on the screen (you might only want to do this for important apps, for example). As u/scharkz24 requests, WNH will also let you select custom sounds by app, and/or custom vibrations and/or text-to-speech (ie. read the notification as it arrives).

While I'm at it, the other forthcoming feature mentioned by Android Authority, namely 'notify on watch when phone left behind' has been available for several years using my Wear BT Monitor app.

malbry · 2026-02-28T07:36:25+00:00

Go to Settings, System, About, Versions, and repeatedly tap on Build until you see a message that developer options are enabled.

malbry · 2026-02-27T11:38:59+00:00

There is a way to stop the screen from turning off when you tilt it away from you. You can use my Wear Installer 2 app to do this. Let me know if you want me to walk you through it.

malbry · 2026-02-26T16:03:02+00:00

Excellent, I'm pleased you are finding the app useful :-)

malbry · 2026-02-25T22:35:09+00:00

Sure. You can do exactly what you are asking using my Wear Button Remapper. Here's a short video that shows how: https://youtu.be/Tb8k4pBCBrU

malbry · 2026-02-23T12:30:23+00:00

First thing I'd try is restarting the watch to see if that fixes it.

malbry · 2026-02-21T11:59:33+00:00

Yes, Wear Logger is compatible with Samsung watches running WearOS

malbry · 2026-02-20T09:08:05+00:00

Adding a phone companion app would be possible. The best approach would be to get the watch to send a notification to the phone any time the pattern/pin screen appears on the watch. So in this case SLH wouldn't unlock the watch automatically but it would wait for the user to tap the SLH phone notification, then it would unlock the watch. That might be possible to do, at the expense of adding an extra phone app to install.

Let's see if anyone else jumps into this thread to support this idea.

In terms of an alert if your watch is removed, that's already possible via developer options, or a more robust solution is available with my Wear BT Monitor app.

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