Here’s how you can turn your Wear OS smartwatch into a mouse

If you are deep into the Android ecosystem, there is a good chance you have a good Wear OS smartwatch on your wrist right now. Wear OS watches are great companion devices to Android smartphones, and they can do everything from tracking your health to delivering notifications and calls straight to your wrists. If you own a Wear OS smartwatch, you can now use one as a floating mouse for your PC.

YouTuber Snazzy Labs spotted the Doublepoint booth at CES 2024 that demoed their cool WowMouse app for Wear OS smartwatches. This app turns your Wear OS smartwatch into a Bluetooth mouse and is free to use.

In the demo, we can see it being used with an iPad. We can see the mouse icon on the iPad moving with the arm movement and the pinch gesture being used to click. With a well-timed click and hold, you can even swipe and scroll.

Mishaal Rahman notes that the app works for Wear OS 2 (and above) smartwatches but doesn’t appear to work with the Pixel Watch or Pixel Watch 2.

How to use the WowMouse app to use your Wear OS smartwatch as a mouse

I tried WowMouse on my Galaxy Watch 4 paired to my Windows desktop via Bluetooth, and it works surprisingly well. The hardest part of the setup is navigating Wear OS to pair the watch to Windows (which isn’t that difficult, but it is annoying to navigate on the tiny screen). Here are the steps:

• On your Wear OS 2 or above smartwatch, download the WowMouse app.
• Go to Settings > Connections > Bluetooth on your smartwatch and connect to your target device. You may need to open the Bluetooth settings on your target device for it to appear as a pairable device.
• Once paired and connected, launch the WowMouse app.
• Set the hand you will be using the smartwatch on.

• The interface will be teal blue when the watch is not connected and turn lime green when a device is connected.
• Click on the mouse icon on the smartwatch to activate the mouse mode. This quick toggle helps when you don’t want your arm movements to be mirrored, such as when typing.
• Move your arm to move the mouse on your target device and pinch to click.

And that’s it. You can now use your arm movements to control your mouse, thanks to your Wear OS smartwatch.

The app has a few settings that you can play around with. You can set the HID output as a left click, spacebar, or enter. You can also switch from ping taps to surface taps, which would be helpful since, in my experience, pinch taps would cause a lot of hand and arm movement to move the mouse away from what I wanted to click at.

You may also need to adjust the mouse cursor speed in your target device, as my Windows default was too high for precise movements with the watch. I would also recommend wearing the watch on your dominant hand, as that would give you the best experience.

As Mishaal notes, other apps like this Bluetooth Keyboard & Mouse app let you use your Android smartphone as a trackpad and keyboard. But waving your arm around to control your laptop looks a lot more magical. Try them out for yourself!