Community developers have ported Samsung Galaxy Watch apps and watch faces to other Wear OS watches, including the Pixel Watch. Here are some of the most useful ported apps.
A word of caution: since these are unofficial ports made by third-party developers, some might not work perfectly, or at all, on your device. That depends on how old the port is and whether it has been upgraded recently. Some might work now, but could break in a future update. We’ll provide links, including from our sister site XDA’s forums, but it’s up to you to try them and look for alternatives if they don’t work.
Compass
Samsung’s navigation tool lands on non-Samsung watches
Samsung’s Compass app is one of the many apps that have been ported to other watches, including the Pixel Watch. It does what the name suggests: it uses the watch’s sensors to show which direction you are facing, presented in the style of Samsung’s watch software.
Because it relies on the watch’s hardware to read heading data, it only makes sense on watches with a compass sensor, so check your model’s specifications before installing. For a Pixel Watch owner, the appeal is a different take on a basic but practical tool, without switching hardware. You already have compass functionality on the Pixel Watch, but if you’re used to the Galaxy Watch’s version, having as many ported apps as possible can make the transition easier.
As you might expect, these ported builds aren’t intended for Galaxy Watches, because some features may not work correctly there — some workarounds are needed for them to work on other watches, and in the process, native Samsung support is lost. Galaxy owners already have the originals, so the target audience is people wearing other Wear OS watches who like what Samsung ships.
Installing it means sideloading, the same process used for any APK that does not come from the Play Store. In practice, that involves turning on developer options on the watch, connecting to a computer over ADB, and pushing the file across. It isn’t difficult for anyone who’s done it before, but it does require some comfort with command-line tools. Nothing here comes with support from Google, Samsung, or the watch maker, so you’re largely on your own to solve any problems.
Gallery
A photo viewer Google left off the Pixel Watch
The Gallery port is arguably the most useful of the three, because it fills a gap Google left open. Google does not include a gallery app or a file explorer on the Pixel Watch, while Samsung includes a gallery on the Galaxy Watch. For anyone who wants to view photos on their wrist, or uses watch faces that display a picture, a native viewer is a real convenience.
Popular ports of the Gallery app come with a footnote and provide an ADB command that grants the app broad storage access: adb shell appops set –uid com.samsung.android.gallery.watch MANAGE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE allow. That permission lets an app see all files in shared storage, which a gallery needs to find photos. Granting it from a computer over ADB is the recommended workaround, and without it the app presumably cannot see what is stored on the watch.
A known limitation is also listed: pop-ups don’t open when the ported apps are closed. It is a small annoyance rather than a dealbreaker, but it is a reminder that these are conversions of software written for a different device, not apps built for the Pixel Watch. Other options can fill the same gap. Open-source file managers such as AnExplorer and WearFiles are already available for the Pixel Watch. Samsung’s gallery, though, is purpose-built for a watch screen, and for people who want that specific experience, this port is currently the way to get it.
Watch faces
Cross-brand porting has a long history on Wear OS
The third part of the project covers watch faces ported from Samsung’s Galaxy Watch lineup to other Wear OS watches. That’s probably the main reason anyone looks for ports from other watches — they like the watch faces and want to give them a spin on their own watches.
The same ground rules apply as for the apps. The faces were tested on a handful of watches, may not work on all of them, and some features might not work.
Moving faces between brands is nothing new. After the original Pixel Watch launched in 2022, Google packaged its 18 default watch faces as an APK that could be sideloaded onto Galaxy Watch 4 and Watch 5 models running Wear OS 3. More recently, another community member ported the Pixel Watch 4 faces to Galaxy watches, noting that compatibility covers the Galaxy Watch 6 and older but not the Watch 7, Ultra, and 8 series, which launched with Wear OS 6. Traffic runs both ways, and each wave follows the same pattern: when one maker’s faces look good, someone finds a way to run them on another maker’s hardware.
For Pixel Watch owners, the practical benefit is variety. Google’s own faces are well regarded, but they are a closed set, and a port from Samsung adds designs that would otherwise be out of reach. The usual caveats still apply. These are community builds, sideloaded without official support and with few official troubleshooting options. Anyone trying them should expect occasional troubleshooting and check which watch the developer actually tested before installing.
Ported Samsung apps give Pixel Watches new tricks
These ports are small, experimental, and sideload-only, but they show how far a motivated community can stretch Wear OS. Treat them as hobbyist tools and expect rough edges.
