[Wear OS General] wkevinw:
The process (continued)

You will need an Android device to run WatchMaker on, and almost all other watch face apps. You can buy just about any Android phone that runs at least KitKat (4.4). I am not sure if it runs on Android tablets. You can also use the AMIDuOS emulator on Windows or the Andy emulator on Windows or Mac (I haven't actually tried the Windows version, but I have tested the Mac version and it works fine,). Make sure the Google Play Store app is installed on your device. Then purchase WatchMaker premium and install it. Then, if you want to control how long you watch face stays in the "bright" mode, purchase and install StayLit. (Note - I have no affiliation with any of these companies - just think their apps are what you need to make the most of using your watch as a watch).

Now apparently the apps that have companions that run on the watch automatically try to download the watch app (.apk files) that are included in their .apk file. So we need to extract those .apk's from the main app. I used a free program called AirDroid on the phone. You then open up a browser on your computer that's on the same network as your android phone and browse to the address listed in the AirDroid app. Then browse the Apps, and you should see both WatchMaker and StayLit. On your browser a down arrow will appear as you hover to the right of the app. Click on it - this will download the main .apk file. Save both of these to some folder on your PC. If you are using AMIDuOS, the process is just slightly different. You will need to put the emulator in Developer mode. You click on the Settings app, scroll down to the About Phone, and click on that. Then, as with the watch, click on the Build Number at the bottom 7 times until it says that you are a developer. This will add a new option to the settings - Developer options. Look for the USB debugging option in the Debugging section, and enable it. After that, you now need to open a command prompt. Make sure you have installed the Android SDK tools. Now, type ADB forward tcp:8888 tcp:8888. Do this until you don't get any errors. Now you can bring up AirDroid on the emulator. Then in a browser, you can open a session to http://localhost:8888. This will allow you to use AirDroid to download the .apk files from the emulator.

Now, open those .apk's with WinZip or 7Zip or equivalent. Inside each one, look inside sdk/raw. There will be another .apk with wear or wearable. Extract those files - you will be "sideloading" those into the watch.

Open a command prompt, and navigate to where you stored the wear .apk files.

First, type: ADB -d devices - you should get back a list with your watch serial number. If not, search the web for solutions.

To install WatchMaker, type: ADB -d install -i slide.watchFrenzy.premium android_wear_micro_apk.apk

And again, if you don't get Success - search the web for solutions.

If you purchased StayLit. install it with: ADB -d install -i com.phonephreak.extendedlight wearable_app.apk

At this point, if you check your Android Wear app on your iPhone, you should see WatchMaker Premium in gray available under watch faces. We're almost there. If you now go to the watch and press the middle of the face, you can select new faces - one of them should be the red WatchMaker Premium selection. If you select that, you should get the default Steel Blue face.

You can change how long the screen stays bright by swiping from right to left at 3 o'clock, then scroll down to the StayLit app. Tap on it and it will give you many choices - select the one you want by tapping on it and you're set (I like 30 seconds - you can always cover it with your hand if you want to manually dim it). But you need it to be longer than the default 5 seconds if you want to enjoy your selection of faces or for others to notice - after all, isn't that the reason we care about watch brands or faces? Otherwise, we could all wear an ugly cheapo and be done.

OK - now all that's left is to download our WatchMaker creations.