How to reprogram the Samsung Galaxy Watch 5’s buttons

The Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 offers more customizability at launch than its previous watches. Part of that is the ability to reprogram the home button and back buttons to better suit your day-to-day needs or workflow. And now that Google Assistant is available for Wear OS 3, you don’t have to settle for Samsung’s hard-coded Bixby as your default smartwatch assistant.

Out of the box, you can double-press the home button to switch to the last used app, or long-press to bring up Bixby. The back button takes you back to a previous screen with a short press and launches Samsung Pay with a long press. If those don’t work for you, you can edit these controls — except for launching Samsung Pay. For some reason, Samsung doesn’t let you change these hardcoded controls.

The reprogramming of buttons is of course not only the case with the Samsung Galaxy Smartwatches. This is possible with most clocks. On the Galaxy Watch 4 and 5 series, however, your choices are a bit more structured – and if you want to long-press to launch Google Assistant, there are a few extra steps. How to get started:

Reprogram buttons on the watch itself

• Swipe up to access the app’s main menu.
• Tap the settings icon (it looks like a gear).
• Scroll down and tap Advanced features.
• Beat customize buttons.
• Under home buttonyou can then customize Double press and press and hold options.
• Double press leaves you either Go to the latest app or launch a specific app. Tap the app icon that best suits your needs.
• You have fewer options for that Press and hold Possibility. Here you can start Bixby, Google Assistant or the Switch off Menu. If you want to start Assistant, you need to download Google Assistant first by going to Load game, Installing the wizard update, and then follow the on-screen instructions. You will be directed to enable Assistant for use on your smartwatch through the app on your phone. Note: If you are upgrading from a Galaxy Watch 4 or Watch 4 Classic that already has Assistant Update installed, you may need to restart your phone.
• You can also scroll down back button section from the customize buttons Menu to reprogram the short press. There are two possibilities: Go to the previous screen or View recent apps. Choose whichever is most convenient for your needs.

Photo by Amelia Holowaty Krales / The Verge

Reprogramming keys with your phone

• open that galaxy wearable apartment
• Beat view settings.
• Scroll down to Advanced features.
• You should see them home button and back button sections. Under home buttonyou can type Double press or Press and hold to reprogram the keys. Under back buttonyou can type Short press. The options for all of this are the same as on the watch.