Does Android Wear work with geofencing without paired handheld?

Question

According to the documentation, geofencing uses cellular network and wifi signal for detecting a location, but it seems like it doesn't work without a connected companion device.

Does Android Wear work with geofencing without paired handheld?

Shocker

Answer 1

Update: Just had a quick play with this, doesn't seem to work yet when BT disconnected and wifi connected.

Original reply:

Not all wear devices have the hardware to support this, though the LG urbane 2 has LTE and quite a few Wear devices support wifi.

I would think this works considering other services work that use location with wifi/gps.

Can you check these items?

1. Verify your Wear device supports wifi, i.e., it has a wifi chip
2. When disconnected, check wifi is enabled under settings (this should happen automatically)
3. Wait some time (even 5 mins) for a signal

More details:

If your wear device has wifi, it should actually turn on if the Wear device becomes disconnected from the phone via bluetooth. You can verify this by looking in the settings as noted above.

I have noticed with the FusedLocationProviderApi it can sometimes take quite a bit of time to switch to the on-board chip when the phone becomes disconnect, so it may be the case with the Geofencing as well. FYI, Google Play Services always uses the phone's hardware first to save battery. It only uses Wear hardware when the phone disconnects.

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