The Samsung Galaxy Watch and Galaxy Watch Active 2 may not be awash with apps, but they do have some support for big apps, like WhatsApp.
If you’re an active WhatsApp user and want some of that instant messaging action on your Samsung smartwatch, the good news is that it can be done.
Even though there’s not an official WhatsApp app for the Samsung Galaxy Watch and Watch Active 2, you are able to view notifications and respond to them with both default and written messages. Find out how below.
How to view WhatsApp notifications
There is no dedicated WhatsApp app for the Samsung Galaxy Watch. You can reply to message notifications, but this isn’t a full-blown chat interface.
First, we therefore need to make sure the watch gets the right message notifications.
1. Go into the Galaxy Watch app on your phone, scroll down to the ‘Settings’ menu and select ‘Notifications’.
2. Check they are switched on at the top of the page. If not, enable notifications by tapping the slider button.
3. Next, tap ‘Manage Notifications’. You’ll see a big list of all the apps on your phone, and slider next to each, which lets the notifications fly over to your phone. Make sure WhatsApp’s slider is switched on.
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Responding to WhatsApp notifications
When a notification arrives on your phone, it’ll appear in a preview form at the top of the screen. It could alternatively take over the screen for a moment if the display is in standby mode.
To bring the notification back up at a later time:
1. Rotate the bezel on the Galaxy Watch counter clockwise. This takes you to the last notification received.
2. Tap the message, whether it’s an SMS or a WhatsApp. This takes you to the full message read-out.
How to send a default response
If you scroll down to the bottom of the message, you’ll see a whole list of pre-filled messages you can send to your contact with a tap.
These aren’t based on the content of the message itself, but you can add your own. Scroll down far enough and you’ll come to the ‘Edit Responses’ entry.
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Tap this and you can write your own. After all, not everyone wants the “OMG!” – something that’s a top Samsung Galaxy Watch suggestion.
We strongly recommend using the bezel to scroll through the messages. It’s far too easy to accidentally send one using the touchscreen.
Writing your own responses
Above the list of pre-written replies, you’ll also see three little icons. The first lets you dictate a message using the Galaxy Watch’s built-in microphone.
The second offers the emoji library to pick the emoticon of your choice to send over. Who doesn’t speak in emojis every now and then?
The last is the keyboard. And this lets you type out a message manually, using a T9-style keyboard.
You can tap on a keypad, each of which represents 3-4 letters of the alphabet as you type, the Galaxy Watch guesses the word you’re aiming for using predictive text.
To add numbers or punctuation, just turn the bezel clockwise to flick through the various keyboard screens.
From the punctuation and numbers screens you can also tweak the keyboard’s own settings. Tap the little cog icon in the keyboard to get to this menu.
In the Smart Typing menu you’ll see the option to turn off predictive text, if you can’t get on with the T9 method too.
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