Pixel Watch 2 - Privacy Preserving Setup

I've been trying everything i could think of to make the watch work under GrapheneOS - Here is what i learned:

• Unpairing the Watch means factory resetting it.
• Every feature (literally everything) is google dependent (who would have thought.. i know)
• Pairing with your phone requires the "Pixel Watch" -App to be installed on your main profile (not work, not private space) alongside Google Play Services. There's no way around.

This is obviously unacceptable. So i did a bit of research and found a way that will not only be way more practical, it will also be private.

First i created a second user on my Phone, installed Google Play Services and the pixel watch app on it, logged in with a newly created google account and completed the setup.

I know some people use a chinese version of the WearOS app to bypass the google login. Since i don't want a chinese app to configure my watch, i didn't even try that.

After the watch was set up, i continued and:

• Deleted the user profile from which i connected the Watch
• Enabled wireless debugging
• Debloated the watch as good as possible (i will have to root the watch in the future to properly do it)
• Removed the Google account in the settings
• Cleared all Bluetooth preferences
• Enabled Bluetooth discovery
• Installed KDE Connect on it (not meant for WearOS but it does work barely)

The watch is now in a state where i can use it daily.

But i also want to make use of all those fancy quality-of-life features, like heartrate monitoring, sleep tracking and so on.

Now comes the fun part.

I've created a basic Kotlin project with both a mobile and WearOS app.

I will implement features like:

• Notification sync
• Call notifications
• Media Player Control
• Weather (openweathermap)
• Heartrate monitoring
• Sleep tracking
• Do not Distrurb Sync
• Homelab integrations (Nextcloud, Immich, Uptime Kuma, ..)
• And much more ..

The goal is to keep the watch offline, let the phone do the heavy lifting and communicate with a selfhosted database. I may even add a frontend and an API so people can integrate it for their needs.

Sounds good but why don't you just buy an #opensource #smartwatch like the #pinetime - You may ask.

Because as much as i hate to admit it, i love the design, the look and feel of the pixel watch. And i'm sure that i'm not the only one.

I also bought this one cheap for around 120€ #refurbished. So the value i can get out of it seems pretty good to me.

So much for today. I haven't even started tackling the Bluetooth connection yet 😅. Let's see how that turns out

I have added a poll to this post to see how many people would be interested in a setup like this. Please let me know if you have any suggestions, ideas or expertise in that regard.

Cheers.

#privacy #security #android #google #pixel #pixelwatch #degoogle #degoogling #degoogled #adb #rooting #grapheneos #smartwatch #development #wearos #bluetooth #qualityoflife #GooglePlay #GooglePlayServices #frontend #api #selfhosting #selfhosted #homelab #opensource