The purpose of rooting is to increase not decrease function. Rooting an android phone can give a person almost limitless possibilities, because of all the special apps available. Rooting a Gear 2 on the other hand, doesn't have many special apps available. Its just done for bragging rights. What are you able to do with your rooted Gear 2 that makes it worth it?
-
After 15+ years, we've made a big change: Android Forums is now Early Bird Club. Learn more here.
Rooting Gear 2? Whats the point?
- Thread starter By_design
- Start date
well it is still early for one the root process for tizen. and two for devs to come up with tizen apps. as far as i know there is not much being done for gear 2. but as the devs get more accustomed to tizen we might see more goodies inthe near future.
i'm not sure, but i have not been able to find much info on how to root the gear 2. there is not much activity over at xda on the gear 2.
nickdalzell
Extreme Android User
the Gear 1, rooting did give you access to Play Store and its suite of apps and Nova Launcher Prime, but with such a tiny screen it didn't really amount to much--plus it killed the firmware update feature so you're stuck with whatever OS yours has--forever. i tried unrooting mine and flashing an updated stock image and it soft-bricks it.
Does it mean you can do something more useful with it, like working with any Androids, e.g. Oppo, and not just a couple of Samsung flagships.
nickdalzell
Extreme Android User
for anything like Play Store, yes, it only requires a ROM with Bluetooth Tethering enabled. but for the notifications, S-Voice, weather clock, etc it only works on Samsung phones with TouchWiz/Gear Manager. so unless you pipe calls through GrooveIP on the watch, which in my case didn't work due to the slower speeds of BT Tethering, you won't get texts or calls unless you got a proper handset with Gear Manager running.
rooting is done mainly for apps, like apps that are not normally available. but unless you like downloading Play apps or playing games over a dial-up connection, which is what it amounts to, or struggling with Candy Crush Saga on a 1" Screen, it's not worth the disadvantages of it being seemingly one-way and killing your ability to get updates to the OS that adds features these watches have lacked when launched, such as the ability to read notifications on the watch. when i rooted my OG Gear, it was before the update to allow you to read notifications on the watch, and since any attempt to unroot and flash stock has failed, i am stuck with a watch that still has 'show on device' to read them. i wish i never rooted it.
rooting is done mainly for apps, like apps that are not normally available. but unless you like downloading Play apps or playing games over a dial-up connection, which is what it amounts to, or struggling with Candy Crush Saga on a 1" Screen, it's not worth the disadvantages of it being seemingly one-way and killing your ability to get updates to the OS that adds features these watches have lacked when launched, such as the ability to read notifications on the watch. when i rooted my OG Gear, it was before the update to allow you to read notifications on the watch, and since any attempt to unroot and flash stock has failed, i am stuck with a watch that still has 'show on device' to read them. i wish i never rooted it.