WearOS - distribution - How to prepare my app for the wearOS opt in?

Question

How to prepare my app for the wearOS module opt in?

In my handy manifest: nothing

Handy build:

versionCode 56
versionName "1.0.56"
applicationId "com.arbelsolutions.myapplication"
wearApp project(":wear")

In the wearOS manifest:

<uses-feature android:name="android.hardware.type.watch" />
<uses-library
            android:name="com.google.android.wearable"
            android:required="true" />
<meta-data
    android:name="com.google.android.wearable.standalone"
    android:value="true" />

Wear Build

versionCode 57
versionName "1.0.57"
applicationId "com.arbelsolutions.myapplication"

I have upload the bundle to opt in from the Advanced tab - wear OS - nothing changed.

The opt in check box is greyed out. I have contacted support chat - they do not know. They told me they will return me an email. its been a week - and still no respond. Anybody?

On my release folder I have a new bundle which is 2 Mega more then before - looks like it have the wearOS packed inside. WearOS APK was also created in the release folder - Maybe I should upload the wearos APK - it is written " Upload a Wear OS app bundle or APK to a test track" ? But the google docs say no way - they say to upload the bundle only.

EDIT I: I have tried all solutions from the following: Stackoverflow - almost the same issue Nothing helps - got the same answer from google support (to add the <uses-feature android:name="android.hardware.type.watch"/> to the phone manifest ) - but then - google play console do not allow me to upload this bundle

Answer 1

Now I think I know what your problem is, because I had it before, and the Android documentation doesn't clearly remove the ambiguity; when saying that a bundle caters to different configurations, etc. it would also imply, in my view, that Wear OS is one such configuration, so should consist in a module inside 1 project. Well, NO! By configuration they just mean different screen sizes, density, etc.

So, what you need when releasing/deploying is really 2 BUNDLES: 1 for Android (phones) and 1 for Wear OS - instead of 1 bundle with 2 modules.

And you can relax about making those "bundles", in contrast with making APKs; sounds more scary than it is. In your two projects (now you will have to have a different project for Wear OS, unless you can perhaps build from each module inside 1 project, but I reverted to 2 projects personally, to make things more clear - the upside of keeping 1 project is that you can use the same code maybe, via a common library...), instead of building an APK, just build a bundle (Build > Generate Signed Bundle / APK and choose Bundle) - that's literally it.

Up to you to arrange several configurations. . but you don't have to :-)