Guide · updated 2026-10-05
bitchat on Wear OS
Version 2.0.1 is the release that added a watch app. The watch file is a separate APK. Installing the phone app, then pairing the watch, does not put bitchat on the watch. Installing the watch file on the phone does not give you the phone app either.
The file
The Wear OS build is bitchat-android-wear-2.0.1.apk, 4.3 MB (4,540,204 bytes). The hash is on the download page under that card. Check it on a computer before you copy the file anywhere near the watch. A watch is a bad place to discover that a chat attachment was a different package.
The phone, if you also want bitchat there, still needs the universal or ARM64 APK. They are different packages in this release. Keep the filenames straight when both are in the same Downloads folder.
What the release says the watch can do
The v2.0.1 notes describe a Wear OS app for the nearby mesh: public chat, encrypted direct messages, people, favorites, notifications, voice notes, images, and files. Push-to-talk is included, with the same slide-to-cancel idea as the phone. That list is the feature set to expect. It is not a promise that every phone screen has a twin on a 1.5-inch display. Small screens drop labels. The underlying mesh is still Bluetooth to nearby peers, with the same seven-hop ceiling the project documents for the radio path.
A watch radio is small, and a wrist is a worse antenna than a phone on a table. For a first test, keep the watch and one phone in the same room, with the phone running the phone build, and stay on the local mesh rather than a geohash room. If the watch can only see peers while the screen is awake, look at the watch’s battery restrictions the same way you would on a phone. The troubleshooting guide is written for handsets and still applies to “the radio is being closed.”
Getting the package onto the watch
Wear OS menus are not the phone’s “install unknown apps” screen, and they change between watch versions. Two ordinary paths exist. One is a computer with adb and a watch that has debugging enabled: the install command is aimed at the watch, not at the phone. The other is a companion installer that you trust as much as you trust any other sideload tool. This site does not ship a second helper app. If a tool asks for account passwords or for a different APK than the one you hashed, stop.
Do not install bitchat-android-wear-2.0.1.apk on the handset because a file manager opened it first. Move it, or delete it from the phone after the watch has it. The phone’s own install is a different button on the download page.
What the watch will not fix
The watch does not turn geohash rooms into an offline feature. Those rooms still need the network, as they do on the phone. It does not give you a phone number, an account, or a longer Bluetooth range than the room you are standing in. A wipe on the watch, if the version you installed still offers the project’s emergency clear, clears the watch. Messages already shown on a nearby phone stay on that phone.
App bugs on the watch belong upstream, with the watch model in the report. A wrong file on this mirror belongs in the contact form.