Fair enough.
That “app is running in the background” notification is really just Android’s way of letting you know that something is designed wrong with an app, since the app itself should never need to run in the background.
You can basically think of it as Google’s way to shame developers into fixing their app.
Just got my watch today.
How do you set it up so you can see the txt that you receive? I’m running android and I’ve allowed the Wyze app access to SMS. All I want to do is see the txt.
You also need to enable notifications access (unless that’s what you mean) for your text app. Not just the sms permission.
You’ll also want to change the battery settings for the Wyze app to allow it to run unoptimized. (Mary not not be 100% required)
Then there’s the spot for “running in the background” in the app that will explain how to configure that. You need it to run in the background to actually do anything (the little that it does currently do)
A couple issues I’m having.
When I’m in the Wyze app and slide the button to turn on notifications, it doesn’t stay turned on. I hit the arrow to go back to the previous screen and when I go back to notifications, I see the slider button is turned off.
When I go into the notifications to see the list of available apps, I don’t see my messages app in there at all.
I’ve got the app running in the background.
Not sure where to find that battery setting though.
I’ve also restarted my phone to see if the messages app would pop up in that list but it doesn’t.
In your Wyze app on phone, select watch from your devices, then select notifications in the settings list. You have two options, turn ON text messages in the main app list or go into others and turn on messages. Turning on both will duplicate your notifications. For some reason the option “Messages” within Others is the only one that will display the contact name when the person sends you a message. “Text messages” under the main app list will only display a phone number of the person sending you a message. Currently I have the Messages" within Others turned on. You cannot respond to messages.
To make sure the app is running in the background - recommended, you do the following:
Also, to ensure that you get the notifications, you will need to make sure your permissions are correct. I am currently going through my permissions, but by defualt the watch sets the following:
One other thing, are you testing this with your phone unlocked and being used next to you or on a Charger. I am asking because there is an issue with Android notification when the phone is off of the charger and has not been touched for a period of time, say 3 to 5 minutes. Then Doze mode kicks in. Once this happens, the phone will not send the notifications in a timely fashion. I have experienced 15 to 30 minute delays. This is something Wyze is trying to work on and correct. However, other non wyze apps also suffers from this, including Google apps.
With that said, the only workaround I have implemented for this, and it works, is to run what an ADB command to disable Doze Mode. Once this is done, notifications are a lot faster. This is all over the forum and the internet. No Root required but does require you to run it when you restart your phone, takes a minute to run.
An area to look at for Notifications as well - Android Users:
Notification Access Screen
This is the App - Allowed
This is the Band - Not Allowed
I just want someone from wise to contact me to send me another one as this 1 will not pair or Sync
Understand that. Did you call them? If not, I would call when they first open tomorrow morning
Have a number that someone actually will answer?
This is the one I use, but first thing is normally better:
Phone: (206) 339-9646
Available Monday - Friday 5 am - 6 pm PT and Saturday 8 am - 4 pm PT
You can also try the online method (which you may have already): Wyze.com/support
Thank you.
Thank you
This information is very helpful. Thank you. Things like this should help folks to understand that their phone, Android in particular, has functionality that can affect the way the Watch functions. The android software is changing as well. This requires constant maintenance for the watch software. Folks should also understand that the android software can change while the programmer in working with what they believe to be the latest. As a retired programmer of 30 years I understand these things. 
This is so true. I tried explaining that to individuals in the forums. It is not trivial writing code for Android or even iOS. each has there hurdles you need to overcome.
Android user here, Galaxy Note 10.
was able to sync successfully, sms messages are coming thru ok, though without names (I heard the watch doesnt sync with your phone contacts, and they are working on this), phone calls are coming thru ok. I’m not getting any app notifications though, At all. I’ve got quite a lot of apps turned on within the wyze app. I have the app running in the background, with no battery limitations on for apps, I’m unsure what to do. I’ve had my phone screen unlocked and see notifications coming thru from apps, but nothing on my watch. I also didnt get any sleep data lastnight.
P.S I don’t think your group messeges get pushed to your phone, because I haven’t received mine. just individual text messages. I tried some shortcuts with my wyze products on the app, and they have transfered over to my watch, so that is working ok. Its just the actual app notifications that do not work.
thanks for you help!
While I don’t disagree with this, in concept… Android actually doesn’t change that much outside of major revisions, which at best come out annually. While there are hurdles to programming across android and IOS, this is actually significantly easier if you don’t keep 2 code bases and instead use a platform agnostic language/framework, like flutter for instance. However, Android programming in terms of properly working with background tasks I don’t think has really changed much since Wyze has been in business… Let alone since they added this watch to their lineup.
Even so, Google offers fairly flexible compatibility abstraction, that if used properly, can prevent the need for major software changes for multiple versions. Even things like keeping an entire app running in the background, rather than creating a service with the limited functionality that you actually need in the background, hasn’t really been “proper” coding on Android for a while now. Android added the “background task” notification of shame when developers keep the functionality in the main app rather than using something more sensible like WorkRequest. The notification goes ahead and lets you know that an app is basically ignoring any battery saving features that Android provides as well as batching of notifications/data syncing. To me, this either means that they rushed it out the door or just don’t know better.
Given that I still get crashes on a rule that I made in their app when it tries to pull the rule from the server for the past few months (probably got stored malformed), I’m going to assume that it’s more of the latter.
I will say that I’ll give them some leeway as it looks as though Wyze created their own firmware for the watch (rather than doing something crazy like adopting Wear OS, which would’ve locked then mostly to Android device) which makes things even more difficult for them. Now they have to create the entire framework between the app and device. While I was excited to get this smart watch, it’s a bit of a sad state when (from pictures in this thread) the smart watch is less functional than their fitness tracker.
I feel like they would’ve been better off holding off a couple extra months before shipping the pre-orders to finish more of what is considered “basic” smart watch functionality these days. There are some things that can be expected based on the hardware that was advertised… No lux sensor for auto brightness (though this field l could be worked around with time based rules from the app to change brightness), no proximity sensor, no microphone, no speaker, no local storage. Fair enough, this was all expected.
However, they needed more time for the software. For instance, take this “concept photo” that I literally just snapped a screenshot from the Wyze watch page…
Where’s that notification at? I don’t have anything on my watch even remotely resembling that for emails.
I think it really shot them in the foot to release this watch as is. I personally can’t recommend it to anyone as it currently is. Maybe I’m another 6 months to year of software updates, it will get where it’s a decent smart watch… But, that’s definitely not where it is today.
-Joe
wish I could get my wyze notifications, or just any app notifications for that matter lol
I do agree that Wyze could utilize an agnostic development environment, which would make things a bit easier, but as I am not on the development team I cannot say one way or the other on how they actually do their development.
All I can say is that 37 years in the development field and working on iOS and Android efforts for last few years have yielded some basic understanding of the differences and requirements each platform places on the application. iOS is more stringent on how they require things to get done, if you wish to put it on the App Store. Android is more open. However, Android did go through a major over haul in recent years, some of which had to do with privacy, battery life, and adaptive / learning options. This changed how individuals need to send notifications as they will experience delays if they do not. They even went as far as removing the option to turn off the Doze mode (it was called something else in the past) without replacing it with another option. Matter of fact, even some of the Android/Google apps are affected by this.
Don’t think I am making excuses here, as I have always said that Wyze needs to correct the notification issues for Android. But, I always try to provide options which could help individuals with similar issues. Everyone has there opinions or decide how they would like to resolve their problems, it is always nice to see if someone else was able to fix an issue so that I don’t spend a lot of time trying to myself.
With that said, the Wyze watch for me has been working great. Yes, it needs to have updates made to it, but from the initial setup, I have not experienced any major issues which would require me to put it away. I see in the forums that others have, and hopefully a resolution can be provided.
Problems so far are:
Enhancements I would like to see
These are just some.
