How to restore your Huawei Android Wear watch to Android Wear 1.5 (using a Mac)
I needed to do this recently, and there frankly wasn’t very much about this online, and lots and lots of broken links. So here is a little list of things to do. I’m using Android Wear 1.5 because there’s no factory image of the final version of Android Wear 2.0 that I can find. The watch should update itself within 24 hours of you completing the below.
- Download the latest ADB and fastboot package from Google.
- Download the Huawei Watch Android Wear 1.5 factory image. It used to be linked from Google’s servers but the link to download it has been removed. It’s at http://storage.googleapis.com/androiddevelopers/shareables/wear-preview/sturgeon-mec23l-factory-48003078.tgz (299MB). I’m putting this on my own webspace just in case they remove the actual file, too.
- Next, plug in your Huawei watch to your Mac using the charging puck.
- Get into fastboot on the Huawei watch, by:
1. Hold the power button down until watch reboots, and keep holding it
2. Wait for the vibration. Right at the end of the vibration, release the power button, then immediately tap it.
3. It should instantly take you into fastboot mode on screen. If not, you weren’t quick enough. - Unzip the ADB/fastboot thing you downloaded earlier.
- Unzip the .tgz factory image you downloaded earlier. Drag all these files into the platform-tools folder.
- Edit the flash-all.sh file (TextEdit will do) to add “./” in front of all fastboot commands.
- Finally:
cd Downloads/platform-tools
./fastboot oem unlock
./flash-all.sh
…and hey presto, your watch will reboot into Android 1.5. Yay! You can then go and set it up on your phone and all that.
Finally, get your watch into fastboot mode again, and run
./fastboot oem lock
…so you’ll be sure to get any OTA updates. Then hold down the button to reboot it.