latest Android ar update lets you use your smartwatch as a stalone audio player, with no smartphone tethering required. But how, exactly, do you get music tracks into your watch’s onboard storage? And how do you pair your watch to Bluetooth headphones or earbuds? doesn’t have clear documentation in the Android ar app, so I’ll show you how to do it here.
First, make sure you’re running Android ar 4.42. (You can find this system info by going to Settings>About on your watch.) Assuming you’re running the latest OS, your next step is to make sure you’re running the latest version of ay Music on your phone. Once you’ve verified or updated your music app, go into your Android ar app, under Settings, hit Resync Apps.
Now go back to your watch, launch ay Music—you can simply issue an “OK ” voice prompt then say “play music” to launch the app. You’ll be greeted by a message that says you don’t have any music downloaded to your watch:
You don’t have any music on your watch yet, but don’t worry. You’re just getting started.
Swiping down on the interface shown above, the text explains you need to enable “Download to Android ar” in your phone’s ay Music settings, provides a button to directly connect to this setting. Hit the button, go to the Settings menu that magically opens on your phone. Now check the box under Download to Android ar.
Next step: Download music to your watch! It’s a simple matter of going to an individual track or album in ay Music, hitting the download icon in the track display. I’ve circled that icon in red here:
See the download button I’ve circled in red? Hit it to download an album to your watch.
en you’re loading up your watch with tracks from ay Music—, remember, your watch’s total capacity is 4GB for everything—you’ll see the following activity on your ar device:
Remember: You have far less than 4GB on your watch for music storage.
For the purpose of this article, I loaded just a small selection of tracks. If you add more than just a few albums, you’ll overload your storage capacity, be waiting a long time for songs to transfer over Bluetooth. But once songs have moved over, you’ll see an interface like the one below for individual tracks.
It’s always somewhat dazzling to see color photos on your ar watch.
Swiping left on this interface exposes some player controls. First there’s a shuffle comm. Next you’ll find a play list for all the songs in an album. But how will you actually listen to a track? You’ll need to pair Bluetooth headphones or earbuds, as the watch doesn’t have a headphone jack. Hit the play button of any track, you’ll see the following alert:
It’s nice that Android ar walks you through all the steps directly from the watch interface.
After you hit the teal button in the image above, you’ll be dropped into a Bluetooth pairing interface. Assuming your headphones or earbuds are in pairing mode, you’ll see them in the list of available devices. Choose them to pair, as long as Bluetooth doesn’t let you down, you’ll be off to the races.
st remember that when your watch is paired with your earbuds, it won’t be paired with your phone. But that’s OK because offline music playback is just that: You’re supposed to use this feature for scenarios like exercise sessions when you don’t want to lug around a big, heavy phone in your pocket.
This is how ay Music renders track lists.
Using ay Music on your watch is relatively intuitive: Swipe up down to scroll through artists. Swipe left right to access an album’s track list. en you want to remove tracks from your watch, go back to ay Music on your phone, find those album files, hit that download icon again, remove the tracks. It’s as simple as that.
