The Pixel Watch isn’t exactly known for being super open. You’re mostly stuck with Google’s own apps and services, and certain things only work with Pixel phones. However, there are plenty of great open-source apps available to download. Here are five to get you started.
One of the Pixel Watch’s strengths is the long list of excellent pre-installed watch faces. Many of them can be fully customized with complications, which is the Wear OS term for bits of information you can add to faces, like weather, steps, date, battery, and a lot more.
Complications Suite is an open-source app that adds even more complications to your toolbox. Things like date countdowns, more date choices, shortcuts to system settings, flashlight, moonrise and moonset, time zones, and tons more. It’s an easy way to make Pixel watch faces even better.
I’m a long-time user of Google Tasks, but I must admit I don’t like it as much as I used to. Tasks.org is one of the best alternatives out there, and it happens to be open-source. As an added bonus, you can easily transfer existing Google Tasks data over to Tasks.org.
My favorite feature of Tasks.org is something Google recently removed from Google Keep: location-based reminders. This allows me to set up tasks for things that I need to do at a specific location. And even cooler than that is the ability to create full lists for specific locations as well.
There is no shortage of 2FA authenticator apps available for Android devices, but not many have Wear OS companion apps. Luckily, one of the very few that does is an open-source app called Stratum (formerly known as Authenticator Pro).
Stratum isn’t flashy—it does everything you would expect from an authenticator app. The fact that it’s on your wrist, though, makes all the difference. It’s super handy to log into a website on your PC and not pull out your phone, or log into an app on your phone without switching apps.
If you’re like me, you probably don’t have much reason for a file explorer on a watch. That being said, there are a few watch faces that can use photos. However, unlike Samsung with the Galaxy Watch, Google does not include a gallery app or file explorer on the Pixel Watch.
For those rare occasions when you may want to browse through the internal file manager on your Pixel Watch—yes, it has one, just like a phone—AnExplorer is a nice open-source option. It can also be used to easily transfer photos and other files from your phone to your watch, and vice versa.
AnExplorer is great, but to be honest, it’s overkill for my purposes. I don’t typically need to browse through files on my watch, but I do occasionally transfer files to my watch from my phone. WearFiles is an open-source app that focuses on this one thing and greatly simplifies it.
In the past, when I've wanted to sideload an app on a Wear OS device, I’d use a handy app called GeminiMan. The app uses wireless debugging to transfer an APK file to a watch and install it all in one go. It works, but the setup is cumbersome. WearFiles makes this process much easier—no pairing code required—but it’s also for photos and other types of files. I just wish I had found it sooner.
Unfortunately, finding watch apps is not as simple as finding phone apps. You’re either searching on a small wrist screen, or you have to know how to do advanced searches on the Play Store website. There are plenty of great Wear OS apps that simply never get the attention they deserve because of this. Hopefully, I’ve helped you find a few open source gems.
Pixel devices aren’t generally known for having tons of options for people to play around with. That doesn’t mean there aren’t some goodies tucked away in the settings. Here are a few Pixel Watch features you should enable right now.