🕒 Ditch your smartphone, not its functionalities.
This guide will help with transitioning to using a smartwatch as your primary device, independant from needing a smartphone. Starting with the Galaxy Watch 5, but open to adding other watches.
Using a smartwatch as a standalone device gives you essential functionalities without the temptation to dive into endless social media feeds or aimless gaming.
- Complete Independence from Smartphone: The smartwatch should be able to function without needing to sync to your phone.
- Essential Features only: Prioritize features that you'll actually use and that enhance, rather than detract from, your life.
- Ease of Use: The use of the watch should be as simple and immediate as possible.
- Long Battery Life: As long as possible
There are non-brand watches that just require a sim card, but I have not tested those. The Galaxy Smart watch that has an eSim unfortunatly does need initial setting up on a smartphone.
:Note The Galaxy Watch does not let you hotspot from it.
Here's a checklist of features that should ideally be supported by the smartwatch to make it a viable standalone device:
- 🎵 Online Music Services (e.g., Spotify)
- 🗺️ Map with GPS Location
- 📱 SMS
- 📞 Phone Calls
- 💬 Facebook Messenger
- 💼 Slack
- 📒 Notetaking
Not essential: Health features and notifications.
Here's the current status of Essential features for the Galaxy Watch 5:
- Spotify
- Map with GPS Location
- SMS
- Phone Calls
- Facebook Messenger
- Slack
- Notetaking
Spotify is available on Google Play Store. Can be a bit confusing to use, but does allow you to use spotify connect and to like tracks.
Google Maps.
Has Native Support
Has Native Support
Currently unavailable (Could be sideloaded options - I need to investigate)
Available on Google Play store; needs one-time setup via phone app
Currently unavailable (Could be sideloaded options - I need to investigate)
Gmail works.
Google Keep works very well.
- Disable all the Phone notifications in the phone's Galaxy Wearables settings.
- Hide status updates on the top of the screen. Go to settings, Advanced features, Staus indicators, select 'Hide after 2 seconds'.
- Clearing Cache - In the bootloader there is a Recovery option and within that is the wipe cache option. Be careful!
Feel free to contribute by submitting pull requests or by adding issues for additional smartwatches you'd like to see covered.
Hope that helps! Feel free to modify as you see fit. Cheers! 🌿