• 18 July 2023
• Smart Watch
• By Galaxy Watch

Detect When a Galaxy Watch Is Being Worn

Implementing off-body detection for Galaxy Watch

To access the Low Latency Off-Body sensor data on a Galaxy Watch running Wear OS powered by Samsung, the SensorManager library provides the TYPE_LOW_LATENCY_OFFBODY_DETECT key, which enables you to check if the watch is being worn.

To detect if the watch is being worn:

In Android Studio, to create a wearable application project, select "New Project > Wear OS > Blank Activity > Finish."

Because the Low Latency Off-body sensor is a body sensor, in the application manifest file, define the required permission to use the body sensors:

For Android 6 (API level 23) and higher, to access sensor-related information, the application must obtain permission from the user. In the application code, check that the user has granted access to sensor data.

If the user has not yet granted permission to access sensor data, they are prompted to do so. Your application can extract sensor information only if the user selects "Allow." If they select "Deny," the application cannot access any information from the sensor.

Alternatively, you can implement unregistering the listener within the onPause() method, or through a button in the application UI.

Summary

Various Galaxy Watch features, such as notifications, work only when the user is wearing the watch. The Low Latency Off-Body sensor enables you to implement application features that react to if the watch is being worn. To ease application development, you can override the sensor so the watch does not need to be physically worn during testing.