How to Enable Developer Mode on any Android Wear Smartwatch

Just like on the core Android platform, there’s a way to enable a hidden Developer Mode on Android Wear 1.0, 1.5 and the new 2.0 update.

Yesterday I showed you how to enable a secret feature of Android Wear that will help you increase the longevity of your OLED screens. This feature required that you enable Developer Mode on Android Wear and it made me notice that I hadn’t done a tutorial for this just yet. I did explain how to do this in that tutorial but I do like to keep things separate for a few reasons.

For one, if anyone is doing a Google search just for learning how to enable Developer Mode on Android Wear, hopefully they come across this tutorial(whereas they wouldn’t have come across yesterday’s).

I also like to refer back to these types of tutorials in others and it will be more helpful to send readers directly here. This way, when I’m not making them read through the other tutorial that is essentially off topic because most of it talks about a different feature. So I apologize if you already know how this is done and it isn’t useful to you. I am trying to create a repository of as many Android tips, tricks and tutorials as possible so it’s necessary that I get some of these basic guides posted. So, without going too much off topic, let me show you how to enable Developer Mode on any Android Wear smartwatch.

This first method will be for Android Wear 1.0/1.5 and the second one will be for the new Android Wear 2.0 update

Android Wear Developer Mode

Swipe to the Left on Your Watch Face

Locate and Tap on the ‘Settings’ Option

Scroll Down and Tap on the ‘About’ Option

Locate the ‘Build Number’ Option

Then Repeatedly Tap on the Build Number Option 7 Times

Continue Tapping Until it Says You’re Now a Developer

Swipe to the Right to Go Back to the Settings Page

Then Look Under the ‘About’ Option and Tap on the ‘Developer Options’ Option

Android Wear 2.0 Developer Mode

Swipe down from the top of the screen

Tap the Settings icon (gear icon)

Scroll down and tap the System option

Scroll down and tap the About option

Then scroll down and tap the Build Number option about 7-10 times

Keep tapping until it says you’re now a developer

Swipe to the right twice

Scroll down and you’ll see the Developer Options option at the bottom

Explanation

If you’ve ever enabled Developer Mode on a regular Android smartphone or tablet then this process will be very familiar to you. You’ll need to get into Android Wear’s Settings page and you can do this by swiping to the left while you’re looking at your chosen watch face. You can also swipe down from the top, then swipe to the left a few times and then tap on Settings. Android Wear has been changing a lot since its inception so this process could be different depending on if Google ends up changing things up. Once in the Settings page, scroll down and then tap on the About option.

This will take you to the typical About screen that we also have on regular smartphones and tablets with Android. Scroll down this screen until you see the Build Number option and then continually tap it. After a few times you’ll be told that if you continue then you’ll enable Developer Mode. Just continue pressing this about 7-10 times and then you’ll eventually be told that you are now a developer. Congratulations! From here, we can swipe to the right(or you can just go back into the Settings screen from any other way), and then look underneath the About option. If done properly, you should see a new option here that says Developer Options.

That’s all there is to it. You have now enabled Developer Mode on your Android Wear device. This is just a way to enable a special menu here and it isn’t going to make your smartwatch function any differently. Now, there are some options in here that if changed, will make your device function differently. As with all hidden menus, you don’t want to go in and start tinkering with things you don’t know what they are. Like the tutorial I wrote yesterday, it required a specific setting to be enabled and it was my way of teaching you what it did. So know that you know what that option did, you’re safe to toggle that one on and off as you see fit. Try to learn about the different features in this hidden menu before you go experimenting.