Workarounds to get your Gear S3 (and other Samsung watches) working with Galaxy S24 phones

If you’re not able to connect your existing Samsung smartwatch (like Gear S3) to your newly bought Samsung Galaxy S24 series smartphone, please be informed that you’re not alone. Many people are struggling with this issue. And with the intention to help, I have collected a few workarounds that I found on the Internet.

However, please be informed that I haven’t tested any of these workarounds myself yet, so I am not endorsing any of them specifically. And if any of these workarounds causes any issues on your devices, I won’t be responsible. The only factor that made me highlight these workarounds was that these workarounds ended up successfully helping many other users as well.

So, without any further ado, let’s jump on to the workarounds immediately.

Workaround 1

This workaround involves around 7 steps, and was posted by user ‘evolutionarts‘ on the Gear S3 subreddit around 4 weeks ago. There are over 70 comments on this thread, and most of the people have confirmed the workaround has helped them. Following is the post:

1. Download the older versions of the wearables app and the gear S plugin app (I got the apps from apkpure.net)

2. Put your phone in airplane mode and enable bluetooth

3. Manually set the date on your phone to December 3 2023

4. Install the apps on your phone, wearable 1st plugin app 2nd

5. Power on your watch and connect your phone to the watch via bluetooth

6. The wear app should open and follow the setup instructions from there

7. After or near the end of setup you may need to connect your phone back to wifi or connect to restore your backup for the watch.

goodluck!

Below is a link to download the files.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/11249dij-GEylIdGVnFuwgr5caWY7epJF

I also found the same workaround shared in the official Samsung forum, wherein at least one user confirmed it worked for them as well. Popular tech repair YouTuber, Louis Rossmann, also highlighted the workaround in their rant about the problem:

Workaround 2

In the same post which I cited in the previous section, another user ‘SWsilent_warrior‘ claimed they have an easier workaround. Following is what they posted:

1. Download the Galaxy Wearable (Samsung Gear) app from Google Play.

2. Make sure the Gear S Plugin is not installed.

3. Go to the link below and download version 2.2.03.23121551 of the Gear S Plugin https://apkpure.net/gear-s-plugin/com.samsung.android.gearoplugin/download#google_vignette

4. Install the Gear S Plugin you just downloaded from apkpure

5. Open the Galaxy Wearable (Samsung Gear) app and attempt to connect your S3 Frontier. It should connect now

This user also encouraged others to try this workaround with other Galaxy Gears and S24s. At least 3 other people confirmed it worked for them.

This same workaround was also shared in the official Samsung forum wherein multiple users confirmed it worked for them.

Workaround 3

I also found a video showing the pairing of Gear S3 Frontier with S24 series phone. However, looking at the comments below the video, it looks like the steps didn’t help everyone. However, I am still including it here for your reference. Please note that the video will play from the point the presenter starts pairing their S3 Frontier with their S24 phone.

Update 31/05/24: It appears that the creator of the video has made the video private for unknown reasons. Given the success of the workarounds mentioned above, I’d suggest trying them out.

Some other workarounds

I also found some users sharing the series of steps that worked for them specifically. However, these weren’t supported by (any or many) others. Still, I am linking to these comments so that if the above workarounds didn’t work for you, you can try these out. Here you go: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6.

Other important details

It’s also worth mentioning that I also stumbled upon a Samsung support page where it is clearly listed that the Gear series of Samsung’s wearable devices isn’t compatible with Android 14 (which powers devices like the Galaxy S24 phones). Following are the exact words:

Gear Sport, Gear S2 Classic, Gear S3 Frontier, Gear S3 Classic, Gear Fit2, Gear Fit2 Pro: Phones with Android 4.3 – Android 13 and RAM 1.5 GB or higher are supported.
Note: These models are not compatible with Samsung Galaxy phones released with Android 14. This includes the Galaxy S24 series, Galaxy A25, and Galaxy A15.

PS: I spent many hours researching this issue and read hundreds of user-comments in the process. If any of the workarounds listed above helped you, or you were helped by the article in any way, please give a like to this article, and also leave a comment below. This small gesture is all I need from my readers to keep coming up with such helpful articles. Thanks in advance.