R
Robert Nazarian
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The Android Wear 5.0.1 update brings a slew of enhancements, and one of them happens to be the ability to capture screenshots from your smartwatch. Before the update, you needed to connect your watch to your desktop and use ADB commands, but now it’s so much easier. Unfortunately, it’s a little convoluted, but it gets the job done until Google hopefully enhances it in a future update.
1) You need to make sure that you have Android Wear 5.0.1 or higher on your smartwatch. Head into Settings followed by About. Look under the Software Version. It needs to read 5.0.1 or higher. If you don’t have 5.0.1 or higher, these instructions don’t pertain to you until you get the update. If you do have 5.0.1 or higher, move on to step 2.
2) You will need Developer Options enabled on both your phone and watch. The procedure is essentially the same for both devices, but I will walk you through the watch side of things. Head into Settings, followed by About. Scroll down until you see the Build Number. Now tap on that a bunch of times until it says that you are now a developer. If you go back one screen, you will now see Developer Options as a choice. Now do the same thing on your phone. The screenshots below are from the LG G Watch. Note: The second screenshot below already has Developer Options since I had enabled it prior to doing this guide.
3) Now you need to make sure that have the latest version of the Android Wear app, which is 1.0.5.1630507 or higher. To check to see if you do, open the Android Wear app, and tap on the Three Dot menu at the top right. Now choose About and check the number under Version. If it’s not 1.0.5.1630507 or higher, then go to our previous post to download the APK and install it.
4) You should now have the option called, Take Wearable Screenshot, in your Android Wear app. You can see it by tapping the three dot menu on the main screen of the Android Wear app.
Unfortunately it might not show up right away after enabling the Developer Options on both the phone and watch. It took over a day to show up using the G Watch and the HTC Desire Eye. To see if it was quicker on my G Watch R, I enabled the Developer Options before I actually received the update on the watch itself, and it was instantaneous. So your mileage may vary depending on the situation.5) If you have the option, you’re obviously ready to capture screenshots. I suggest having the menu open and ready on your phone so you can quickly tap it. Now just navigate to wherever you want to capture a screenshot on your watch. When you’re ready, tap on Take Wearable Screenshot on your phone. When using the G Watch, I noticed the display goes dark right way. However it doesn’t on the G Watch R.
6) Now here is where things are a little convoluted. Once your screenshot is captured, which should only take a second or two, you will see a notification on your phone that says, “Wearable Screenshot Finished.”
Tap on that notification and you will be given an opportunity to share it via a number of apps depending on what you have installed on your phone. You will most likely see Gmail, Drive, and you could see Dropbox or other cloud storage options. There is no way to automatically save the file to your device.
Unfortunately you don’t have control for the name of the file. It will simply be called screen.png. This means that if you’re using a cloud storage option like Dropbox, you will need to change the name of the file before uploading subsequent screenshots. I have been using Dropbox, and what I do is keep the folder open on my desktop, and quickly change the name of the file before capturing and uploading the next screenshot. It’s strange that it’s this way, but I am sure Google will make this a lot better in a future update.You will also notice is that all screenshots will be square, but images from round watches will have a circle in it.
The other thing I need mention is things appear to be broken on the G Watch R. You will notice that the top right is cutoff in the image below.
However, you can still capture better looking screenshots by actually waiting a little longer. What I found is that if you capture the image just when the display starts to dim, you have your best shot. If you count 8 seconds slowly and tap Take Wearable Screenshot on the 8th second, you will get better results. Still not perfect, but a lot better. I am sure LG and/or Google will fix this issue.
I hope this guide helped you. Please let me know if I left anything out in the comments below, and be sure to check out our other Android Wear guides for more tips and tricks.
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