The Podcast at Delphi.org: Developing on the Samsung Gear Live Smart Watch

Previously I created a blog post about using Delphi and RAD Studio XE7 to develop for the Moto 360. The new FireUI Multi Device Designer (MDD) makes is a breeze to design for the new smaller UI. I’ve since updated the FireUI Devices project on GitHub to cover the Samsung Gear Live & LG-G watches in addition to the Moto 360.

I thought I would walk through the steps for developing with the Samsung Gear Live. One advantage it has over the Moto 360 is that it has a physical USB cable connection, so you don’t need to deploy via BlueTooth. This makes for a much faster deploy cycles. With a USB cable though, you need to install the ADB USB Drivers.

1. Put the device in USB Debugging Mode
   1. Hold the home / side button until the settings menu appears (couple seconds)
   2. Select About and tap Build Number until it notifies you that developer options are enabled.
   3. Swipe left to right to go back
   4. Select Developer Options and enable USB Debugging.
2. You still need to have the watch paired with a phone via the Android Wear app since the confirmation dialog is displayed there.
3. Run the SDK Manager / Android Tools and Make sure you have Android SDK Tools, Platform-tools and Build tools updated (this moves the ZipAlign.exe, so you need to tell the IDE where to find it.)
4. Install the Samsung Android USB Driver for Windows
5. Gear Live should appear as an Other Device in device manager once you connect it to windows via USB.
6. Select Update Driver Software
7. Browse my computer for Driver software
8. Let me pick from a list of device drivers on my computer
9. Then select ADB Interface
10. Select SAMSUNG Android ADB Interface
11. On your phone you will see a dialog “Allow Wear Debugging” Check “Always allow .. . ” and then select OK.

Once you have done all of that, it will show up in your IDE as a target, and when you load the FireUI custom device for it, then you will have a great design surface for it too.

And you are ready to build your Gear Live app with Delphi XE7.

I’m sure I’ll have more coverage on Android Wear in the coming months too.