Hit the pavement with empty pockets. Wear OS users can finally download Spotify music directly to their devices. With Spotify’s latest app refresh, paid subscribers can now download albums, playlists, and podcasts to their Wear OS smartwatch.
All in all, Spotify is finally bringing a much-needed music feature to Wear OS users. Before now, Wear OS did not have support for offline music playback from any of the popular music services, including Apple Music, Pandora, or even YouTube Music. This is a pretty significant hindrance for runners and other athletes who’d prefer to work out without a phone in hand. The old workaround was to load up and stream local music files through apps like NavMusic. Now thanks to Spotify, offline playback support is available on smartwatches running Wear OS 2.0 or later, including the new Galaxy Watch 4 and Galaxy Watch 4 Classic. The update will also impact devices from Fossil, Mobvoi, and Suunto in the weeks ahead.
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How to add the Spotify app to your Wear OS smartwatch
If you don’t yet have Spotify on your device, now is the time. Grab your phone and smartwatch and follow the directions below to download Spotify on Wear OS.
- Open Google Play Store on your Wear OS device.
- Tap the search icon and search for Spotify.
- Tap install and allow the app to download to your device.
- Once the Spotify app is downloaded, tap open and you will see a pairing prompt including a code.
- Open spotify.com/pair on a phone, computer, or tablet and log in with your Spotify credentials or sign up if you haven’t already.
- When prompted, enter the code that appears on your watch face and select pair.
How to download Spotify music to your Wear OS smartwatch
It’s easy to download Spotify music to your Wear OS watch. Just follow these simple steps to add playlists or podcasts to your device.
- Open the Spotify app on your Wear OS smartwatch and find the song, album, or podcast you would like to download.
- Scroll down to just below the file title and tap Download to watch.
- Wait for the status bar to show that your download is complete.
- Select the downloaded music or podcast from your library and start listening.
To keep track of which files are downloaded to your device, look for a green arrow next to each song or podcast. Free users on Spotify can download podcast episodes directly to their Wear OS device but will still need to stream music using a Wi-Fi or cellular connection. Just make sure you are running the latest version of Spotify.