VibeWatch — Wear OS

VibeCodyWear is the native Wear OS client for VibeCody. Built with Kotlin and Jetpack Compose for Wear OS 3+, it delivers the same feature set as the Apple Watch client against the same /watch/* backend — so you can mix & match.

Introduced in v0.5.5.

What you can do on the watch

• Stream live AI sessions from your paired desktop.
• Reply by voice using the built-in Wear OS recognizer, or tap a template.
• Approve / reject pending agent actions (shell commands, file writes).
• Switch between sessions from chat, agent, review, and sandbox.
• Pair with URL + Bearer — no QR or JSON copy required; works on the Android Wear emulator.

Requirements

Build SDK — compileSdk = 36 and targetSdk = 36 (Android 16 / Wear OS 6) as of v0.5.5; minSdk = 30 preserves Wear OS 3 compatibility. AGP 8.7.3, Kotlin 2.1.0, JDK 17.

Install

Option 1 — sideload the release APK

Download from the Releases page:

curl -LO https://github.com/TuringWorks/vibecody/releases/download/v0.5.5/VibeCody-Wear-v0.5.5.apk
adb connect <watch-ip>:5555          # enable ADB debugging first
adb -s <watch-ip>:5555 install VibeCody-Wear-v0.5.5.apk

Enable ADB debugging on the watch: Settings → Developer options → ADB debugging + Debug over Wi-Fi.

Option 2 — Play Store AAB

Upload VibeCody-Wear-v0.5.5.aab to the Play Console’s internal-testing track. Once approved, install directly from the watch’s Play Store.

Option 3 — build from source

# Linux, macOS, or Windows:
make watch-wear            # Release APK
make watch-wear-bundle     # Release AAB
make test-watch            # Wear OS unit tests (gradle test)

# Or drive Gradle directly:
cd vibewatch/VibeCodyWear
./gradlew :app:assembleRelease

Output: vibewatch/VibeCodyWear/app/build/outputs/apk/release/app-release.apk

Pair in 3 taps

Pairing is brokered through VibeMobile on your Android phone — the watch inherits the session.

1. Phone (VibeMobile): pair with the desktop (VibeMobile pairing).
2. Phone: on the paired-machine row → ⋯ → Add Wear OS Watch.
3. Watch: open VibeCody → tap Accept.

The watch generates a P-256 ECDSA keypair in the Android Keystore (StrongBox-backed on devices that support it, e.g. Pixel Watch 2+), signs the challenge, and receives a 30-day JWT.

Emulator / dev-watch path (URL + Bearer)

vibecli> /pair --show-bearer --for-watch

On the watch: Settings → Manual Pair → Paste URL + Bearer. This bypasses the phone entirely and is how the Android Wear emulator pairs.

The screens

1. Sessions list (rotary-scroll)

Turn the rotary bezel / side button to scroll. Each row:

 ● refactor axum routes          08:42
 ○ review PR #42                 08:30
 ● agent: make test              08:11

Tap → opens the transcript. Long-press → session menu (Pull to phone, Close, Cancel step).

2. Transcript view

Full message content — no 80/512-char truncation as of 0.5.5. Text reflows to the screen shape (round or square); code blocks get a subtle mono font and horizontal-scroll affordance.

3. Reply sheet

• Voice — tap the mic. Uses Google’s on-device recognition (offline on Pixel Watch / Galaxy Watch Ultra).
• Templates — “Yes, proceed”, “Show diff”, “Cancel”, + 3 custom slots.
• Keyboard — the standard Wear OS IME; slow but works.

4. Approvals

A haptic nudge + a full-screen modal when the desktop agent needs approval:

 ⚠ Run: cargo check
 Session: refactor axum
 [ Approve ]  [ Reject ]

Sync model — no truncation, no drift

The pre-0.5.5 watch protocol used a fixed-size ring buffer (80 chars for labels, 512 for message bodies). 0.5.5 replaces this with a Google-Docs-style ID-based reconciliation: each message has a stable ID; the watch subscribes to a stream of {id, seq, delta} events and resolves its local buffer against the canonical transcript. Misses are caught up automatically on reconnect.

The practical effect: your watch, your phone, and your desktop show identical transcripts, regardless of who’s typing.

Data Layer relay

On Android, the watch can reach the desktop in two ways:

1. Direct — when the watch has Wi-Fi and can see the host (mDNS / Tailscale / ngrok), it talks HTTP/2 directly.
2. Phone relay — when the watch has no route (e.g., LTE-only watch out of Wi-Fi range), traffic is tunneled through the phone via the Wearable Data Layer.

VibeCodyWear detects the best path automatically. You can force one from Settings → Connection → Prefer direct / phone-relayed.

Battery tips

• The SSE stream is cheap; the typical drain is 1–2 % per 10 minutes of active streaming.
• Keep the transcript screen open only while actively watching — VibeCodyWear falls back to push-only mode when backgrounded.
• Voice dictation is the biggest drain; batch replies instead of one-offs.

Troubleshooting

ADB install fails with INSTALL_FAILED_NO_MATCHING_ABIS

Wear OS is ARM64. Make sure you grabbed the wearos.apk (not the phone APK) and that your watch is Wear OS 3+.

Watch says “No paired machine”

• On the phone, open VibeMobile → Machines and verify the target is listed.
• On the desktop, /watch devices in VibeCLI. Revoke and re-pair if missing.

Voice capture returns empty

• Grant Microphone permission to VibeCodyWear (first-launch prompt).
• Confirm Google Assistant is the default assistant (required by the recognizer).

Pairing hangs at “Signing challenge”

• StrongBox / Keystore lockout — reboot the watch and retry.
• If you’re on the emulator, use the URL + Bearer flow instead.

Stream disconnects at the 2-minute mark

Some carrier NATs drop idle connections. VibeCodyWear auto-reconnects; the Google-Docs-style sync will catch up without gaps. If it happens constantly, enable Tailscale on the watch and host.

Security notes

• P-256 private key lives in Android Keystore. On devices with StrongBox (Pixel Watch 2+, Galaxy Watch 6+), it’s stored in dedicated tamper-resistant hardware.
• JWT is kept in EncryptedSharedPreferences, backed by the Keystore.
• Revocation — /watch revoke <device-id> on the desktop, or Governance → Watch Devices in VibeUI. Takes effect on the next request.

See Watch Integration for the full architecture and protocol reference.

Related

• Apple Watch guide — same client, watchOS
• VibeMobile — the Android phone app that brokers pairing
• Connectivity — mDNS / Tailscale / ngrok paths
• Releases — download artifacts