[Wear OS General] bernarbernuli:
How to take photos and videos remotely on your phone with a Wear OS watch.

Among some uses for Wear OS watches is to "take photos" remotely. Wear OS watches do not have cameras, but they can act as a remote shutter to take a picture with your phone's camera and even a real-time viewer that what the phone's camera sees, that is, as long as they are paired via bluetooth phone and watch, that is, as long as the bluetooth signal reaches it.

I. USES:

What is this function for? Imagine you want to take a picture with you in it, you could place your phone on a tripod or other place, aim, then enter the frame with your companions watching it from the watch screen and press the shutter release of photos or videos from the watch. Another function would be that you can watch and monitor your baby or pet while you are in another room of your house; or watch in dark and hard to reach places like a car engine.​

​

II. METHODS:

Currently, there are two ways to use Wear OS to turn your watch into a phone camera viewer.​

If you own a Google Pixel or Samsung Galaxy S / Note phone (WearOS 3 only) you can control the camera from the watch without the need for third party apps by using Google's app, Google Camera (v6.1 or higher). The moment you open Google Camera on the phone, the watch will display a new card called "Remote". If you touch it, the screen of your watch will become a viewfinder of what you see through the phone's camera, from the watch you can also set a timer (self-timer) so that for example you have time to position yourself since you press the shutter release on the watch or switch from front to rear camera, or vice versa.

If you don't have a Google Pixel or a Samsung Galaxy S / Note, or want more control over the settings from the watch there are third-party apps that also show a preview of what the phone's camera sees on the watch and in addition, you can adjust from the watch itself the zoom, exposure, flash, switch between the main camera and selfie, take photos with timer (self-timer). You just need to launch the app from the watch and it will be able to take pictures even when your phone screen is off. Currently, there are several Android camera apps that can "talk" to Wear OS watches such as Wear Camera, Camera One, Wrist Camera, PixtoCam and Camera Remote Wear.

III. COMMON CONSIDERATIONS:

Regardless you use Google camera, or another third party app it is necessary for it to work to install the phone version on the phone, and the watch version on the watch and preferably from the Play Store the 2 versions.

To work properly you must disable the power saving feature for the app on the phone, so that it works in the background. This permission is needed because some phones such as Nokia, Huawei, OnePlus and Xiaomi "kill" this app completely when not in use.

This app needs at least these permissions to work properly: Camera permission, Storage permission (to save photos/videos on your phone), Microphone permission (when recording a video) and Location permission (to add the location data on the photo).

Be it Gooogle Camera, or be it a third-party app, these are capable of taking photos and videos even when your phone's screen is off, this means you can go completely unnoticed while taking photos and videos.

The disadvantage of the third party apps of the second method is that it does not use your camera app to take the picture but only uses the APIs of the phone's camera so the settings you would have adjusted in the camera app (exposure, contrast, filters, flash, etc) are not taken into account. The photo will be taken with the factory default settings.

Live streaming works as long as you are in Bluetooth range.

A small preview of the final image appears on the watch screen, while the actual image will be stored on the phone.

If the preview has some lag in the image transmission, Restart the watch.

For Sony Xperia users, disable the STAMINA mode, if you want to take a picture with the screen off (Settings > Power management > STAMINA mode).

All third-party apps for these purposes that I know of (and that I list below) are either paid or with in-app purchases integrated within the free app (with limited features). All of them are currently working properly (at least in TWP3) and have been updated recently. The paid versions can be tried for free if a refund is requested within 48 hours of installation, and some of the ones with in-app purchases give you a trial period to try and buy later. The prices to receive the full versions are around 1€ to 3€ (in europe), so it is not a big outlay to have all the possible features they offer. Perhaps the most complete if you do not want to pay anything is Wrist Camera.

- Paid: PixtoCam and Wear Camera​

- In-app purchases: Wrist Camera, Camera One and Camera Remote Wear​