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Removing Bloatware, how to?

Hey everyone, first post.
I just picked up a Gear S2 classic. I started playing around with it and so far I have a few questions and issues with a couple things. I'm pairing it with my Galaxy S7.
My first and foremost concern is the removal of the stock and bloatware apps. I realize most people may use the fitness aspect of the watch, or its other built-in features, but I won't. All of the pre-installed apps are cluttering the watch for me. For example, I won't be using the email app (I use Gmail solely), Buddy, Find My Phone (I have location turned off), S Health, Running, S Voice (I thoroughly prefer Google), Samsung Pay, World Clock (it's really irritating and pointless to have 4 different clock apps on the watch. They should be lumped into one like on the phone), Messages (unless this can work with Textra), Music Player (I use another music app on my phone, although I do appreciate that this one somehow controls the music once it's started on that app on my phone). This is a make or break point for me as far as keeping or selling the watch.
Next, is the only way to use the Galaxy Apps store to have to sign into your phone with your Samsung account? I absolutely don't want to be connected to the Samsung Cloud. This is the only reason I'm not using Samsung Pay. If I sign into anything on my phone with my Samsung account, it signs my whole phone in and connects me to the darned Samsung Cloud. Many people have their information synced up there even with all sync options off, so I want to avoid this.
Third, some notifications like the ones from Snapchat are not being acknowledged by the watch at all. And yes, all notifications are selected to appear from the Gear App (Snapchat included). And no, I don't have the blacklist setting on.
I appreciate everyone's help with this, thank you so much. As much info as possible would be wonderful.

I am just wondering why you bought this watch if you don't want any of the connected features that come with it? . In any event I don't know of any way to remove pre-installed apps
Sent from my SM-T377P using XDA-Developers mobile app

cwb1231 said:
I am just wondering why you bought this watch if you don't want any of the connected features that come with it? . In any event I don't know of any way to remove pre-installed apps
Sent from my SM-T377P using XDA-Developers mobile app
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I mean, it's supposed to be something like the best smartwatch out there in a lot of ways, and I wanted essentially an extension of my phone on my wrist that could function on its own too. I also have a Moto 360 first gen I play around with here and there, and for a first generation smartwatch, it does well. So far, with the issues outlined above, I can't really say the same about the Gear S2.

Multi Window Dual Active

Is there any rom for s7 that allows both apps on multiwindow to be active at the same time? As default for Android Oreo, only app in focus can be active, the other one would be paused, unless the app is specifically coded to run even if not on focus (like google apps). I heard this works on MIUI, where people can launch and play two instance of Pokemon Go at the same time.

General What can your smartwatch do?

Hello community!
This is an idea gathering exercise.
For a while since I purchased it, I never bothered with my Galaxy Watch4 (my first smartwatch). But as I'm now tinkering with it, I find it quite interesting. Here is a list of what my watch can do:
01. Show me a whole lot of information. I have 3 favorite watch faces, each configured to give me a different set of information. All I have to do is simply change the watch face and they tell me much of what i want to know. Actually, this one watch face tells me pretty much everything I need to know.
02. Navigation on the wrist.
03. Notifications from my phone.
04. Managing phone calls.
05. Wirelessly transfer files among all my devices like watch, phone, laptop and NAS. I use the following two apps for this purpose:
1. File Manager
2. WiFi Pro FTP server
06. Listen to music using Samsung Music app. I haven't had the need to install another music app.
07. Watch videos using the watch companion of this app: Sun Player. You don't need this app on your phone.
08. Stream YouTube videos using NewPipe.
09. Manage my emails. I have installed Microsoft Outlook, Samsung Email, FairEmail and K-9 email apps. But I haven't configured any yet, except for Microsoft Outlook.
10. Browse the internet using Samsung Internet browser.
11. Read PDF using built-in PDF reader of X-Plore File Manager.
12. Read e-books using AIReader.
13. Control the basic functions of my Samsung TV using SmartThings app.
I know I have left out the single biggest thing that most people use a smartwatch for: Health Tracking. I don't use it because much of that is gimmicky stuff and one must not rely on the number game when it comes to health matters. Things like an app reminding one to drink water is one of the most absurd things that people would use.
Some of the apps are Android apps meant for the phone. But they are quite usable on the watch too. I sideload them using one of the following apps:
1. Easy Fire Tools
2. Bugjaeger
The following tutorials illustrate how to sideload apps on watch running Wear OS:
How to Sideload Apps on Samsung Galaxy Watch Wear OS - DroidWin
How to Sideload Apps on Samsung Galaxy Watch Wear OS
In this comprehensive tutorial, we will show you detailed steps to sideload any app on your Samsung Galaxy Watch running Wear OS.
www.droidwin.com
3 Ways to Install Apps or APK on Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 - wearablestouse.com
3 Ways to Install Apps or APK on Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 & 5 - wearablestouse.com
Want to download or sideload apps on your Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 smartwatch? Here's how to install apps and APK on Galaxy Watch 4.
wearablestouse.com
What are the things you use your watch for?
RELATED POSTS
You'll find more info and related links here:
Wear OS - Facts
Hello community! In this post, I am giving you info on some aspects of Wear OS, which you may or may not know. All the details presented are based on my experience with Samsung Galaxy Watch4 (WiFi model), running on Wear OS 3.x. So they may not...
forum.xda-developers.com

Telling time... after all, it is a watch.

see the date, time and weather

Start my car, open the garage door and control all alexa enabled devices plus all of the usual stuff...

It does so many things. But my life is also just fine without it.

TacoDeMuerte said:
Telling time... after all, it is a watch.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have edited the title of the post to now read 'smartwatch'.
AwaKeN said:
see the date, time and weather
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have edited the title of the post to now read 'smartwatch'.
larryk said:
Start my car, open the garage door and control all alexa enabled devices plus all of the usual stuff...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Let me guess: you have setup Alexa or Google Assistant on your phone and use voice commands on your watch. These things are quite impressive, but personally I'm not comfortable in allowing apps to constantly keep listening to my conversations.
Virgo_Guy said:
It does so many things. But my life is also just fine without it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Absolutely. They are just too far from being a necessity. On the contrary, they are more of a distraction and contribute to loss of application of human faculties.

I shut off the listening part in both Alexa and Google Assistant, and just use the buttons to start the app...

General Some observations about watch faces....

During this week, I was playing around with my Watch4, and this post is about some of my observations, and conclusions about the same. Please feel free to correct me if I am wrong with any of them.
There are essentially two categories of 3rd party watch faces:
1. CATEGORY 1: One that uses resources within the watch itself to display information.
The Android phone app for this category of watch faces merely send the store link to the watch face so you can simply install the app from the watch itself. The Android app here has no further role and can be uninstalled from the phone. But I would recommend that they remain installed in the phone because of a specific benefit: you can quickly install these watch faces from the watch because all these appear under 'Apps in Phone' section of Google Play Store app in the watch. So instead of uninstalling, it is better to put them in deep sleep (optimised state) on the phone.
Some of the watch faces in this category are:
​01. amoledwatchfaces​02. HMKwatch (or HMKwatch)​03. Matteo Dini MD​04. Ballozi​05. Bosenko East (or Bosenko)​06. fatih sendur​07. WFProduction by A.Kovalev​08. PERSONA Watch Face​09. WINwatchface​10. Tancha Watch Faces​11. Yosash​12. Chester​13. Ntv Watchfaces​14. Active Design Watch Faces​15. Lihtnes​16. SMZ JeonDaeHyun​17. MDS​18. Digital Wings [DW]​19. SHIFR​20. EK​21. IV Watch Faces​22. Timeflik (ex Mr. Time)​23. MyWF Cartel​24. Inspire Watch​25. Prado Design​26. MW Design​27. Re: Brand​28. Amser Watch Faces​29. MW Design​30. MatveyAn​31. MDS Watch Faces​32. styles4you​33. Inspire​​and others.​
All the above watch faces are either paid or have in-app purchases. They don't come with an accompanying Android phone app for their working, with very few exceptions that need the Android app just for phone battery feature.
2. CATEGORY 2: One where the watch face connects to its companion app on the phone over bluetooth/ wifi/ nearby devices to exchange information. In this case, the companion apps on the phone must keep running in the background in order to update certain information on the watch. e.g. phone battery level, etc.
The Android phone apps for this category of watch faces usually come with ads. although there are exceptions. For these apps, I have seen that almost every feature/ customization for these apps are locked behind a paywall. Personally, I find most of them very annoying, although there are exceptions. The following are some of the developers who engage in such a practice:
No ads; only in-app purchase
1. SOOON​2. GS Watchfaces​
Ad supported; in-app purchases to unlock most features and customizations
1. RichFace​2. thema​3. Smart Art Studios​4. DeNitE Appz​​and others.​​The problem that I have noted with this Category 2 type of watch faces is that they may interfere with the connection between the phone and the watch. This is only an observation and I may be wrong. So the community can confirm or reject this observation.
In my case, the Galaxy Wear app as well as Smart Things app were having too much problems in displaying the battery level of the watch when I had this 2nd category of watch faces installed. Once I uninstalled all these, the problem seems to have been sorted. I must mention here that I had put all these companion apps in deep sleep mode on my Samsung phone. My guess as to why this created problems is because the watch faces were trying to contact their companion apps, which were not responding as they were optimized. This probably led to the connection being overwhelmed by these watch faces that resulted in the problem noted above.
UPDATE: My suspicion is probably correct. Apps and watch faces that REQUIRE a companion app on the phone are indeed the most likely culprit for this problem. The solution is to disable battery optimisation for these apps on the phone, or uninstall such apps from both the phone and the watch.​
ADDITIONAL COMPLICATIONS SUPPORT
The following apps will add support for corresponding complications for all your watch faces that support WearOS/ 3rd party complications (i.e. those that are not designed to get complications only from their own companion apps on the phone, e.g Manager by SOOON):
1. Phone Battery Complication
2. Complications Suite - Wear OS
3. Heart Rate Complication
4. Health Services Complications
5. SimpleWeather
6. SimpleWear
If you have any of the above apps installed, you'll be able to add the corresponding complication to all of your watch faces. For example, if you add the 2nd item above, you'll be able to add UTC Time, day number, week number, etc. to all your watch faces, even if they don't come with it. Same holds true of BP, and other health related complications.
RELATED POSTS
You'll find more info and related links here:
Wear OS - Facts
Hello community! In this post, I am giving you info on some aspects of Wear OS, which you may or may not know. All the details presented are based on my experience with Samsung Galaxy Watch4 (WiFi model), running on Wear OS 3.x. So they may not...
forum.xda-developers.com

Wear OS - Facts

Hello community!
In this post, I am giving you info on some aspects of Wear OS, which you may or may not know. All the details presented are based on my experience with Samsung Galaxy Watch4 (WiFi model), running on Wear OS 3.x. So they may not be representative of all the watches (and those that run on custom software like Tizen) in the market.
Let's begin:
01. You can sideload phone apps on the Watch using ADB. There are good tutorials on the internet that explain how to go about it. If the UI on the app is difficult to use, you may be able to make it usable by reducing the DPI of your watch. Again, there are good tutorials available for this on the internet. It is advisable that you restore the DPI to its default values after setting up the apps to prevent unexpected behaviour or other problems.
02. There is no support for VPN service on Wear OS. So you can't run Android Firewall apps like Netguard, Karma Firewall, etc.
03. There is no App Info page in the watch for installed apps. This means you can't delete cache or data for apps. You can only install or uninstall apps, just like in iOS. However, the app info page is available on the Galaxy Wear app (for Samsung Galaxy Watch) that will show the storage used, battery consumed, memory occupied for each app. It will also allow for force stopping and uninstalling apps on the watch from this screen.
04. You can backup your watch faces and other apps installed from Play Store (or other official stores like Galaxy Store) using an Android File Manager that supports APK backups. There is no built-in support for this though.
05. As with Android, there is NO support for backing up app data, or the configurations of watch faces. The built-in backup feature is very limited in what it does, so don't expect that you'll be able to simply restore everything after a factory reset. This is one area where iOS and WatchOS are clear winners.
06. If you reset the network settings on your phone, you'll have to factory reset your watch to pair it with your phone again. Apparently, this is for security (of your data) purposes.
07. If you are using a Samsung Galaxy watch running on Wear OS, then the Galaxy Watch Manager app on your phone is very crucial, and holds your watch's pairing key. If you delete this app's data on your phone or uninstall it, you'll have to factory reset your watch to pair it with your phone again.
08. Your watch can actually play videos, stream media, act like a FTP server, and do a few more things if you install (sideload) the right apps. I wouldn't recommend doing that regularly because the watch hardware is not designed to do these things, so you'll really be pushing the hardware if you use your watch for such activities for extended periods.
09. Unlike your phone, the displays used on smartwatches are prone to screen burn-in, especially because most of the watch faces do not offer a proper AOD feature that minimizes this risk. So choosing the right watch face is very important. Alternatively, keep changing the watch face every day or so.
10. AOD works only when you are wearing your watch. This is a good thing because it not only preserves battery, but also helps reduce screen burn-in.
RELATED POSTS
1. Top 3 to 5 Watch Faces
2. Some observations about Watch Faces
3. Checklist for choosing Watch face
4. Watch faces with support for rare complications
5. Problems with Galaxy Watch4
6. Watch battery info not syncing on phone apps
7. What can your smartwatch do
8. What features do you look for when buying a watch face