Galaxy Watch + Android Messages

[Anonymous]

I have a Samsung S9 and new Galaxy Watch.  Does anyone know of a way to use Android Messages on the watch?  The watch keeps telling me I have to use Samsung Messages to be able to retreive them.  I get notifications and can see the messages I sent, but I can't look at the "history" of Android Messages. 

Anyway to fix this?  I need a SMS application I can use on my Windows 10 PC and Samsung doesn't.  (I tried Flow and it's not ready for primetime).

[MikeS3]

I may be wrong with this but I think one of the main problems with the watch not supporting many apps is because it isn't actually Android.  I think the watch software is called Tizen which is Samsung's software.  So while you may be able to get notifications for certain apps on your watch the actual app may not be available because it isn't supported.  Dumb idea really.  Android in general needs to become more like Apple unfortunately and just roll out a system where no matter what phone/watch you have everything is basically the same software.  My biggest gripe with Android is messaging.  On my $1000 S20 I sometimes can't send messages because my service is bad in certain areas...yet Apple can send over wifi like it's nothing.  And here we are on Android all using different messaging apps that just don't work or can barely send clear pictures sometimes.  There should be some kind of system in Android to make messaging equivalent to Apple and if that means all Android phones must use Android/Google messages then just do it already.  I think everybody would be happier if messaging just worked better.

[VaTrailRider]

I'm guessing this is a Samsung thing....my Android will make phone calls and texts over Wi-Fi just fine.  There is a setting I turned on to do so, and once enabled, it works perfectly.

[Anonymous]

need it, but I don't think its available yet

[user90MSwfVBaZ]

I currently have a Galaxy S10 and the Galaxy watch, and the below worked for me so that I could at least get the notifications, unfortunately you cant start sending a message from the watch and use Android messages, at least I haven't found a way to do so as of yet. 

In my case, I had this working previously but forgot and when the watch updated it reset somehow. Took me a bit to remember what I did. Also to mention in my case Android Messages within the wear app on my phone was disabled and grayed out and wouldn't allow me to enable it. 

Try this and see if it works for any of you guys;

1. Go to your app drawer
2. Open the Samsung messages app
3. Set the Samsung messages app as the default app (don't sync messages if it asks, not needed)
4. Go back into the watch app on your phone, and look for Android messages; For me at this point I was able to re-enable the notifications and the app was no longer grayed out.
5. Go back into your app drawer and open Android Messages and set back to the default messaging app
6. Test

For me at this point I was able to get the Android Messages notifications showing back up on my watch and they actually open in the Android Messages app. This also still functioned properly disconnected from the phone via bluetooth.

Like I said above, I haven't figured out a way to keep the app open, and even if you check the recent apps on your watch, it wont show the Android messages app, but hopefully at this point you can reply and see everything as normal.

Hope this helps someone. 

[user99wyfAIrQN]

@Anonymous  This sounded promising. But for me, changing back to Android messages (Step 5) stopped notifications from showing up on the phone. Is it still working for you?

[Umbro]

Does this solution only work with Samsung phones?

What about Google Pixel or other none Samsung phones?

Samsung needs to let people use whatever SMS app they want on their watch instead of copying Apple.  

Creating a wall garden.  

[shoxter]

i was just about to buy a Galaxy Watch 3 until I looked up that Google Messages can't be used with the watch.

Given that I want to be able to use RCS, having to use Samsung Messages is a deal killer for me.