[Android Software Development] lordseht:
Samsung Gear 360 and Pixel 3a

Getting the Samsung Gear 360 (2017) on the Google Pixel 3a was a bit of a challenge, but I got it to work alright. Unfortunately it is very step-dependent and if you go out of sequence it doesn't work. Here were the steps I took:

1. Download the .apk from the first page of this thread which is the modded version of the Samsung Gear 360 app, and install it (you may need to turn on "Allow from unknown sources").
2. I had to install the Samsung Accessory service manually from that same page because it didn't download and install automatically.
3. On the phone:
3.1. DISABLE mobile data. Go to the Google Pixel 3a device settings, Network & Internet, Mobile Network, set that to off.
3.2. DISABLE bluetooth (turn it completely off). It doesn't work if it's on but not connected to anything, the bluetooth service must be off.
3.3. Navigate to the Samsung Gear 360 app.
3.4. Go to Settings in the Samsung Gear 360 app, then Mod Settings. Make sure the following are ENABLED: Wifi Direct and Automatically open settings. A previous post in this thread said that Wifi Direct is required for the 2017 version, and I can confirm that is the case.
4. On the 360 camera:
4.1. Turn the camera on.
5. On the phone:
5.1. Connect to the camera.
6. On the 360 camera:
6.1. Press and hold the menu button until it says "Connect to Android". Press the menu button again until it says "Connect to iOS". At this point your phone's bluetooth may turn itself on, this is okay.
6.2. Press the red record button to select it. You'll see an 8-digit number on the lower section of the screen. Write down this number, it's the Wifi password.
7. On the phone:
7.1. Navigate to the phone's Wifi list and select the Gear 360 (XXXX) where XXXX are the last 4 digits of your camera's serial number.
7.2. A password popup will appear, type in the number you wrote down earlier. You'll get a "Connected, no internet" status beneath the connected wifi.
7.3. After it connects successfully, navigate back to the Gear 360 app.
8. On the 360 camera:
8.1. Press and hold the menu button until it says "Connect to Android". Press the red record button. At this point you'll see it flash connected on the Gear 360 app on the phone.
8.2. (Optional): At this point you can access both the gallery and the live camera view. I tested the ability to remote-capture from my phone and it works.
8.3. Go to the gallery to view captured images. Tap on them and it should automatically stitch it together (we want the app to do this). Press and hold to select the images you want to save, then tap save on the top right of the screen to batch stitch them then save them to your device.
9. (Optional) Upload the photos to the cloud *
* Note: I couldn't get "Share" then "Import to photos" to work correctly, the Google Photos app doesn't display the Gear 360 folder as a device folder. I couldn't find a way around this within the app.
9.1. Connect the phone via USB-C to your computer and set it to allow data transfer (for Windows 10 you may need to go to Autoplay -> Samsung Gear 360 (SM-R210) set to "Open device to view files (File Explorer)." **
** You could also connect the Gear 360 directly to the computer, but it won't have the stitched images.
9.2. In the DCIM\Gear 360\ folder, copy and paste the stitched files to a local folder on your computer.
9.3. In a browser, login to your account on Google Photos
9.4. Drag and drop the files into your browser and it'll upload to Google photos, you can then add them to an album if you want.
9.5. View the photos in the album, it will automatically allow you to 360 degree rotate it when you open them (very handy since you don't need to install Samsung's glitchy viewer).

Some issues you may encounter:

If you're connected to the Gear 360 via Wifi direct but in the app when you go to gallery it doesn't connect. This happens when you're still in iOS wifi mode but are not connected with the Android connection. To solve this, connect to iOS Wifi direct, then connect to Android (Steps 7.2 through 8.1).

All in all a bit of a pain in the ass, but it works well once you get used to the steps above.