How limited is the Galaxy Watch 4 or 4 Classic when connected to a non Samsung Android device?
That's we're going to find out in today's video.
The good news is that you get the vast majority of Galaxy Watch 4 features when connected
to a non Samsung phone compared to a Samsung phone, including things like Samsung, Pay
Bixby
, all the Samsung Health Workout's and even the Galaxy Buds controller, if you have a
pair Galaxy buds connected to your non Samsung Android phone.
Because of that, I'm just going to cover everything that you don't get when connected to a non
Samsung Android device.
And you can just assume that all the other features are available.
Also, remember that some of these missing features may be added with a future update.
But don't expect that to happen anytime soon.
And if you want to see a deep dove on all the features of the galaxy, watch 4 has to
offer.
You can check out my other deep dove galaxy, watch 4 videos that are linked at the end
of this video and in the description.
And speaking of the description, there are also time codes down there to help you find
the things you care most about.
And if you appreciate for your time codes, let me know by dropping like Downbelow.
The first thing I want to talk about are the missing applications, and there are two of
them.
So if you swipe up to review all of your applications and you scroll down, one of the first things
you'll notice is that there is no
messaging application installed.
And that's a pretty big problem, because without a messaging application, you can't reply to
messages from your watch.
Fortunately, there is a messaging application that you can download.
And it's Google's own messaging application.
So if you open up the play store app, tap the search icon, tap the keyboard, then type
in messages that'll bring
up Google messages right here, just called messages.
Tap, tap and tap install.
Once it's installed, you'll be able to not only reply to messages that come in, but you'll
also be able to start new messages right from your watch.
And one important thing to point out about this is this Messenger app only works if your
default messenger on your phone is the Google messages app, which is the case with most
non Samsung Android phones anyway compared to the messages app that you get when connected
to a Samsung device.
There are two limitations.
You don't get the option to send an audio message, and you also don't get the option
to quickly open the message on your phone.
Other than that, you get all the same messaging features.
Also, since the Built-In keyboard option is just T9 text, which is really hard to use
and just takes a long
time to send any message at all.
I highly recommend that you also download the gourd keyboard application to install
this.
Go back to the play store.
Tap the search icon again and search for Gaud.
Now just tap Debord and install that.
Once it's installed, you need to set it as the default keyboard.
So let's go back to the watch face.
Swipe up to see all of your applications and tap the settings up.
Then scroll down until you find a general and tap that.
Then scroll down a bit more and tap input.
Then tap keyboard list and default.
Then tap default keyboard and switch that to G board.
Now, if I go back into the messages app and open up the keyboard, I get a full cordi style
keyboard, which makes it way easier to type.
The only other missing application is a camera control application.
Fortunately, I did find an excellent camera application that offers tons of features to
control your camera right from your wrist.
Let's go back to the play store, tap search again.
And this time you're going to search for camera one.
I'm going to go ahead and select and install this application once install, just open the
application.
And there is the preview of my pixel vibe's camera.
So it's currently in portrait mode.
But if I just tilt my camera, it'll switch to landscape mode and then I can just tap
to take a picture or tap to start recording a video.
Now, when I'm done recording, I can either pause the video and then start recording again
later or I can stop the video.
If you pay just two dollars for the premium version of the application, you get a ton
more features.
If I swipe up, I can actually switch which camera is being used.
So if I pick up the phone here, you'll see that I'm now using the front facing camera,
and I'm going to keep using the front facing camera
for now.
Just you can see the icons a little bit better.
You get a power saving option, which turns off the preview.
And it turns the buttons into just circles.
You can take a photo with a timer.
You get the same video and picture options.
This speaker icon makes all the audio that's recorded with the phone actually play in the
watch his speakers.
If you tap the three dots, you get the options to change a bunch of different settings, including
the layout of the interface, the picture size, the videotape.
And this does change based on which camera you're using.
So right now, I'm using the front camera, which is only capable of full HD recording.
But if I go back and switch to the rear cameras, come back into the settings, then you can
see that I now get the option to film in four K.
And if I scroll all the way down, I can even start time lapses and high speed video back
in the settings.
I can also adjust to how long the timer runs for.
I can change the favored button function.
And I can even change the back button, action it to do things like take a photo, sort of
continue video or audio recording, and even start or cancel the self timer.
Now, let's take a look at some of the missing features within some of the applications.
Let's start with Samsung Health.
Fortunately, you do get the daily activity tracker, the step tracker, all of the exercise
that you can track when connected to a Samsung device.
You can also track when connected to a non Samsung Android device.
You get sleep monitoring, heart rate measurements, stress measurements, blood oxygen measurements,
even body composition measurements.
You can also add food and water intake.
You can compete with other people.
And these competitions are to see who is exercising more.
And if you're actively in a competition with somebody, it'll show you who's in the lead.
And for all the ladies out there, you can also track your cycle.
Unfortunately, you are still missing two features, the ability to measure an EKG and the ability
to measure your blood pressure.
Those two features aren't available because you need to have the Samsung Health Monitor
app, which is currently an exclusive to Samsung devices.
I tried a side loading the app on my pixel five, but that would just result in the app
crashing before being able to set anything up.
Fortunately, there is a way to get the easy mind to sort of work on non Samsung devices.
But it requires a good amount of work, and it's currently really buggy.
The people at XDA developers have modified the Samsung Health Monitor app to work on
non Samsung devices.
I'll leave a link in the description if you wanna learn how to set it up and see if it's
worth your time.
The other app that's missing features is Bixby, and you might not care about that at first,
but I just upload a video about how Bixby is an amazing and incredibly powerful tool
on the Galaxy Watch
for.
So if you think Bixby's trash, you can go check out that video by clicking the card
above or link in the description.
And I'm betting you're going to change your mind anyway.
The specific missing Bixby feature is that there's no Bixby capsule store on Non Samsung
Android devices.
Simply put, capsules are plug ins that increase the functionality of Bixby.
If you're familiar with Amazon, Alexa Bixby capsules are equivalent to Alexa skills.
Currently, you can only browse through these on a Samsung device with the Bixby capsule
marketplace.
And as you can see, there are a ton to choose from.
Fortunately, I did find a way to get these installed on your Galaxy Watch 4 even if it's
connected to a non Samsung Android device.
And it's actually really simple.
As long as you know the name of the capsule you want to install, like let's say I want
to install this copycat capsule.
All you have to do is activate Bixby on my watch and say.
Ask copycat a question.
And just like that, the copycat capsule was added to my Galaxy Watch 4 which is connected
to my pixel five.
And if you ever want to see which capsules you have installed on your non Samsung Android
device, all you have to do is open up the Galaxy wearable application.
Tap apps, tap app settings, tap Bixby, then tap my capsules.
And here you get a list of all the capsules you currently have installed.
And unfortunately, you can't access this massive list of capsules when connected to a non Samsung
Android device.
And there's way too many capsules for me to share all of these with you.
As you can see, this list just keeps on going.
However, if you have a friend with a Samsung device, you can ask them to let you browse
through the capsules on their phone.
One capsule that I do highly recommend that I talked about in detail in my BICS review
on the Galaxy Watch 4 Classic is a capsule called My Brain.
And since I already covered that in great detail, I'm sure I have a card above and a
link in the description that you can click to get to that video
. And that video is also timecode.
It's just skip ahead to the capsule's section of that video, but I do highly recommend checking
out the rest of it.
So you don't miss out on all the incredible features at Bigsby has to offer.
Next, I want to talk about the missing settings when paired to a non Samsung Android device.
Now, to do that, we're going to take a look at the Galaxy wearable application on two
different devices.
So on the left, I have the Galaxy Z fold three, which is connected to my Galaxy Watch 4 Classic.
And on the right, I have a pixel five which is connected to my Galaxy Watch 4 if you jump
into the settings, then into the notification settings and scroll down to the bottom.
You'll see that when you're connected to a Samsung device, you get the option to sync.
Do not disturb mode with your phone.
So if I do not disturb mode on my watch, it will also enable it on my phone.
And the same vice versa when connected to a non Samsung Android device.
You don't get that cinching option.
So no matter what, if I enable do not disturb mode on my phone, that does not affect the
watch and the same vice versa.
And for those of you connected to a Samsung device that don't want that cinct, you can
just turn the toggle off.
Backing out of the notification settings and going to advanced settings.
You see at the top that there's this option called bedtime mode on the Samsung device.
And that's not available on the non Samsung device.
If I tap this, I get the option to sync bedtime mode between my phone and my watch.
Now, bedtime mode is something that's not supported on non Samsung devices, and that's
why you don't get the option to sync it.
And bedtime mode is basically do not disturb mode.
But it adds one more step by turning your phone's screen black and white bedtime mode
on the watch.
It does have a bit more functionality than it does for the phone.
You can see it turn the screen brightness almost all the way down because when you're
going to sleep, there is no need for a super bright screen.
And it also turns off all the wake up gestures.
So turning your wrist to wake it up won't do anything.
Touching the screen.
Won't wake it up.
Turn the bezel.
Won't wake it up.
The only thing that will wake the screen back up is pressing one of the two physical buttons.
And this also does turn on.
Do not disturb mode.
So you don't get notifications buzzing on your wrist while you're trying to sleep and
just demonstrate what happens when you turn on goodnight mode when connected to a Samsung
device.
If I go ahead and tap that, you'll see that my galaxies fold three gradually turns to
a black and white screen.
And looking back over the watch, you'll see that turning the bezel does not make it up.
Tapan screen doesn't wake it up.
Turning your wrist to wake it up won't do anything.
The only time is going to wake this up is a pressing one of the two physical buttons.
And if I jump into these settings on my phone and turn off bedtime mode and you see it,
the color comes back to my galaxies, fold three.
And now if I rotate the bezel, it'll take the watch back up at the bottom of the advanced
features section.
There's an option called remote connection.
And there's a slight difference depending on if you're connected to a Samsung device
or a non Samsung Android device.
The way this feature works when connected to a Samsung device is it lets you send and
receive calls and messages from your watch.
As long as your watch is on a Wi-Fi network, even if it's not connected to your phone via
Bluetooth.
The only limitation with this feature on a non Samsung Android device is that you don't
get the remote calling option.
Fortunately, the remote messaging still works.
And in case you're wondering, you don't need to manually sign into a Wi-Fi network on your
watch.
All the Wi-Fi networks you're connected to on your phone are automatically transferred
to your watch.
When you set the watch up.
In terms of watch faces, you're only missing one specific feature.
And that has to do with the R emoji watch face.
So if I tap this on both devices, then tap customize.
You'll see that the Samsung device gives you the option to create new emojis and it gives
you a bunch of people to start with.
Or you can create one that looks like yourself using the camera on non Samsung devices.
You only get the option between this girl and this guy.
And in case you're wondering what these avatars do, they have different animations depending
on what's on your screen.
And if you tap the screen, they'll do a new animation.
So there is everything you can and can't do with the Galaxy Watch 4 or for classic when
connected to a non Samsung Android device.
Let me know if you think it's worth it down the comments below.
And if you guys found this video helpful one, help me out.
Go ahead and drop a light down below to help me beat the YouTube algorithm.
And don't forget to subscribe and turn on notifications to see even more deep dove coverage
of the Galaxy Watch 4 as well as my upcoming deep dove for the Galaxy Z flip three and
the galaxies fold three.
That's it for this 10 year old.
God bless, guys.
Catching the next one.