Flowfal should run on any Wear OS watch, including the Google Pixel watches, but so far we have ourselves only tested the following:

• Samsung Galaxy Watch7 (40mm SM-L300 and 44mm SM-L310)
• Samsung Galaxy Watch6 (40mm SM-R930 and 44mm SM-R940)
• Samsung Galaxy Watch5 (40mm SM-R900 and 44mm SM-R910)

Note that not all Android watches have a compass (magnetometer) sensor and this is important if you want to get an accurate indication of where the user is facing. Contact us if you want to check if a watch not listed above is going to work well with Flowfal.

If you can find them, we would recommend buying a new Samsung Watch5. In the UK we have found unopened, sealed, new Watch5s online for around £75 (approx. $80 or €80). There clearly is still quite a stock of these being sold off relatively cheaply. These new ones seem to be as cheap as reconditioned ones so we would recommend finding the new ones.

Alternatively, you may be able to find used Watch5 or Watch6s in good condition. Currently around £45 ($50 or €50) is a reasonable amount to pay for a used Watch5 in good condition.

The Watch6 is also fine and seems to also be available boxed unopened - it is much the same as the Watch5 but just with a slightly bigger display. The Watch7 is also fine, but note that as you go up the range of these watches they require newer Android watches to connect to. You can find the info on watch Android phone connects to what type of watch here.

You only need to buy the WiFi versions of these watches (sometimes they refer to them as just "Bluetooth"). The 40mm versions of these watches are fine, especially if they are going to be worn by women as well as men. You don't need to go for the bigger 44mm ones. You don't need the much more expensive versions that have the LTE mobile phone in them. Likewise, you don't need the "classic" versions that have a ring that rotates around the display. See the model numbers we have listed above if you are unsure.

To install Flowfal on a Wear OS watch you will need an Android phone to pair the watch to. Once installed on the watch, the Flowfal client runs by itself and does not need to be connected to the phone.

If you don't already have an Android phone, then you will also need to get hold of an old Android phone running Android 8.0 or later to use for this install process for the Samsung Watch5. Newer watches require this phone to be running newer versions of Android.

Follow the instructions that come with your watch on pairing it to your phone. This is the process for the Galaxy Watch6:

• For Samsung Watches you should install the Galaxy Wearable app on your phone
• For other Wear OS Watches you should install the Wear OS app on your phone
• Power up the Watch6 - it may ask you to select the language to use
• Start the Galaxy Wearable app, click the menu button with three lines on it, then Add New Device, then select the Watch you want to pair to
• You will be asked to confirm a pairing code on the watch and the phone
• You'll be prompted to create a Samsung account - we just skip this step
• You'll be asked to agree to the End User License Agreement. At the same time we would recommend deselecting the option to allow automatic updates as you don't want update dialogs popping up on the watch during a performance
• The Galaxy Wearable app will request various permissions - accept these
• Agree to the terms of service
• The watch install should start
• It will ask to sign you into your google account - you need to do this for the Play Store on the watch to work
• It will then suggest a load of apps to install - we recommend skipping that step
• You will then be asked to approve a set of Smart Switch permissions - you can deny these

Now that the watch is paired to the phone we can actually instal the Flowfal app. Swipe up on the watch face to get the list of apps, find the Play Store app on the watch and start it, press the search button, type in Flowfal, and install it on the watch.

Once you have installed Flowfal on your watch you can shut down the Android phone you used to pair it.

It is worth checking your watch software is up to date as quite a few bugs have been fixed in these since they came out. Go to Conections in the settings app and switch off Bluetooth, and then make sure the watch is connected to WiFi with internet access. Then find the software update option in the settings menu and click on that. You may need to apply several updates before it says the watch is up to date.

By default, the watch will track your movement activity, but the notifications that pop up occasionally from this will disrupt the Flowfal app, so we recommend disabling them:

• Swipe up on the watch face to show all the apps
• Start the Settings app
• Click on the Health option
• Click on the Notifications option
• Set all the listed notifications to off
• Swipe right to go back up a level
• Click on Heart Rate
• Select the Manual only option
• Swipe right to go back up a level
• Make sure Activities to detect option is switched off
• Swipe right to go back up a level
• Swipe right to go back up to the app screen

Wear OS has a quick settings menu that you access by swiping down from the top of the screen. This is hard coded into the OS and cannot be removed. When you put the watch into Locked Mode for a performance it is still possible to activate this menu if the watch face gets swiped down.

To make this less likely to cause an issue we recommend removing all but three items from the Quick Settings menu. These remaining three items are ones that when clicked do not switch the watch to a different screen. To do this you will need to:

• Swipe down on the watch face to show the Quick Settings menu
• Swipe to the left until you see the + icon
• Press the + icon which puts the menu in edit mode
• We now need to remove most of these icons, but we need to leave three active
• Do not remove the following three icons: Mute, Display Always On and Do Not Disturb, as shown in the last image
• For all the other icons click on the red minus signs above each icon in the menu to remove it
• A green + sign will appear above each you have removed, showing it is available to be added again
• Swipe up to exit edit mode
• Swipe down again and confirm that only the three icons shown in the last image are now in the menu
• Swipe up to dismiss the menu

Note that once the power icon has been removed from the Quick Settings menu the watch can no longer be turned off using that menu. To turn the Watch5 and Watch6 off you will need to press both buttons for a few seconds until the power-off screen is shown.

Wear OS devices always have at least one power button than when pressed will exit any app and return to the home screen. It is not possible ot disable this behaviour, even when you put the watch into Locked Mode.

For some performers, in particular dancers, who move a lot, it is possible these buttons might get pressed occasionally.

The only solution is to physically prevent the buttons being pressed. For the Samsung Watch5 and Watch6 we have successfully used watch covers for these watches, like the one shown here, that make the buttons a lot harder to press. For extremely active performers we have glued/siliconed a strip of plastic across the button area of the cover to make the buttons impossible to press.

Similar physical solutions are presumably available for other Wear OS watches.

Please let us know if you come up with other elegant solutions to this issue.

By default, when you power up the watch it will switch on Bluetooth and try and use that rather than WiFi if it can. However, we want to always use WiFi to connect to Ableton Live. So each time you restart the watch you need to:

• Swipe up on the watch face to show all the apps
• Start the Settings app
• Click on the Connections option
• Click on the Bluetooth option
• Turn Bluetooth off
• Swipe right to return to the Connections menu
• Click on the WiFi option
• If you have not connected to a WiFi network before, select the +Add Network button and follow the prompts
• If you have previously connected to a WiFi network the watch should auto connect to it and this should be shown on the WiFi page
• However there appears to be a bug where the watch does not always auto connect to a known WiFi network as it should - in these cases you will see the known network listed on the WiFi page as Disabled - click on the WiFi network and enter the WiFi password to connect to it again

If you forget to do this and you start the Flowfal app on the watch with Bluetooth on, or the WiFi not connected, then you will see the message "Waiting for WiFi" on the Flowfal screen.