Tutorials Galaxy Watch

Connect Galaxy Watch to Android Studio over Wi-Fi

Christopher Marquez

Engineer, Developer Relations

Testing your apps on real devices lets you evaluate the total user experience, which is important if the app requires specific hardware, such as sensors or a GPU.

For wearable apps, you can run your apps from Android Studio and test directly on a physical watch, such as the Galaxy Watch4 or later.

This blog describes how to set up Android Studio and your Galaxy Watch, operating on Wear OS powered by Samsung, for testing and debugging apps wirelessly over an Android Debug Bridge (ADB) connection.

To connect your watch to Android Studio over Wi-Fi:

  1. Open the Settings menu on your Galaxy Watch.

  2. In Connections > Wi-Fi, connect the watch to the same Wi-Fi network as your computer.

  3. Next, go to Settings > About watch > Software Information.

  4. Tap on Software version 5 times to enable Developer Mode.

  5. Once the Developer Mode is turned on, open the newly added Developer options menu in Settings.

  6. Enable the following in the Developer options screen:

    • ADB debugging
    • Turn off automatic Wi-Fi
    • Wireless debugging

  7. In the Wireless debugging screen, click Pair new device.

  8. In Android Studio, open the Terminal and enter the command to pair the watch with your computer:

    adb pair ip_address:pairing_port

  9. Enter the Wi-Fi pairing code when prompted.

  10. Then, using the IP address and the connection port, enter the command to connect the watch:

    adb connect ip_address:connection_port

Now, you can run, test, and debug your wearable apps on your Galaxy Watch directly over Wi-Fi. You can verify that your device is connected by running adb devices.


If you have questions or concerns with the steps presented in this blog, you can share your queries on the Samsung Developers Forum. You can also contact us directly through the Samsung Developer Support Portal for more specialized support.

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