This support article covers the Pocket Casts Wear OS integration for smartwatches on the Android ecosystem.
If you’re looking for information on the watchOS integration for Apple Watches, please visit this page: Apple Watch.
Here’s what you’ll need to get started:
- Pocket Casts Plus or Patron
- Smartwatch or other wearable device that runs Wear OS 2, Wear OS 3 & Wear OS 4 – examples include a Pixel Watch, Samsung Galaxy Watch, and other Android smartwatches
- Bluetooth speaker or headphones
The Pocket Casts app can be downloaded and installed to your Wear OS device/watch in one of two ways:
- Using your Wear OS device:
- Head to the Play Store
- Search for Pocket Casts
- Tap “Install”
- Using your phone:
- Head to the Play Store
- Search for Pocket Casts
- Find your WearOS device in the list of available devices
- Tap “Install”
- Using a desktop browser:
- Open the Pocket Casts Play Store page
- Click “Install on more devices”
- Select your Wear OS device from the list of devices
- Click “Install”
The Pocket Casts Wear OS app cannot be installed from the Play Store app on your mobile phone.
Once you’re logged in to your Pocket Casts Plus account, all that’s left is to make sure your Wear OS device is connected to a Bluetooth speaker or headphones. If you aren’t connected to any yet, the app will prompt you to choose a Bluetooth device or pair a new one. Using your Android device to control playback on the Wear OS app is not possible.
- Log in with Google (Sign in with Google)
- Log in on phone
- Log in with email (temporarily disabled)
Once you’re logged in to your Pocket Casts Plus account, all that’s left is to make sure your Wear OS device is connected to a Bluetooth speaker or headphones. If you aren’t connected to any yet, the app will prompt you to choose a Bluetooth device or pair a new one. Using your Android device to control playback on the Wear OS app is not possible.
Note that, currently, we only allow playback through Bluetooth. If you want us to add the ability to play episodes through the Watch speaker, please let us know so we can track demand for this feature!
Automatic downloads are not yet supported in the Wear OS app. However, you can manually download an episode by looking for it in either:
- Podcasts > the podcast of your choice
- Playlists > a particular playlist
Then, tap on the download icon as shown below. That should then start the download.
You can then check and manage all the episodes downloaded to your watch from “Downloads.”
If you would like to see auto downloads in the Wear OS app in the future, please submit it as a feature request.
Before anything else, please check that:
- Your Wear OS device is running the latest version of the Pocket Casts app
- The Pocket Casts app versions on your phone and your Wear OS device match
Please try logging out of the Android app on your phone and logging back in while it is being paired with your Wear OS device.
The very first time you log in to the Wear OS app can take from around 45 seconds to even two minutes. So, please give the process some time to complete. We are also looking into how this can be improved.
If you have used the option to log in with “Continue with Google” on Pocket Casts, and have added an email/password log in option, you can use either method to log in to your account on WearOS.
If you don’t have an email log in you can follow these steps to add one. The email address for the Google account should match the email address that is added for the email and password log in.
First, make sure all your devices have synced recently:
- The web and desktop apps will always have the latest information from our servers.
- On the mobile apps, you can check the Profile tab for the “Last refresh” time. You can also click “Refresh now” to force a manual refresh.
Next, you can trigger a manual sync in the Wear OS app by following these steps:
- Swipe to the leftmost screen in the app
- Scroll down and tap “Settings”
- Tap “Refresh now”
You can also enable “Background refresh” in the settings to have your watch automatically refresh more often.
If episodes are not downloaded, playing them can result in some choppiness or skipping. This normally happens when the network connection is not fast enough to keep up with the episode. For the smoothest playback experience, we recommend downloading episodes to your Wear OS device.
Only files that are available on your cloud storage will show up in the Wear OS app. You can check whether your custom files have been uploaded to your cloud storage in the following ways:
- Using the web or desktop apps, view your Files. All the files you see here have been uploaded to your cloud storage.
- Using the mobile apps, go to Profile > Files. You’ll know if the file has been uploaded to cloud storage if it has a gold cloud icon under its title. If a file was also downloaded, it will have a green checkmark next to the cloud icon.
Changing the order of the episodes in your Up Next queue isn’t possible using the Wear OS app. It’s only possible to add and remove episodes. You can, however, change the episode order from your mobile app. You can then go back to the Wear OS app’s Settings and do a manual refresh. This way, the changes you’ve made to your Up Next queue can immediately be reflected in your Wear OS device.
No, the Bookmarks feature is not yet supported on the Wear OS app.
No, hiding archived episodes is currently not possible on the Wear OS app.
We’re right here! You can get support for the Wear OS app by following these steps:
- Make sure that Pocket Casts is also installed on your Android device. You can download the Android app here.
- Place your Android device next to your Wear OS device.
- From the Wear OS app, head to Settings > Help and feedback > Contact support. This will cause the Wear OS app to send app logs to the Android app.
- On your Android device, a share dialog will pop up. Please then select the app you wish to use to send us a message.
