Can I use Google Pay on a Wear OS watch if my phone is not nearby?

Hi Jon,

 

Yes, you can use Google Pay "standalone" on a Wear OS watch without needing to have your phone nearby, though I'm pretty sure that requires a cellular-enabled watch with an active data connection. 

 

Cheers,

John

I've been trying to find an opportunity to test this to confirm, but my bank is apparently having Google Pay issues at the moment.

In the meantime, I found this thread at r/WearOS which includes this note:

So it sounds like my previous response was mistaken - it should work on any NFC-equipped watch regardless of connection status. 

Cheers,

John

No worries - I love it when someone asks a question I don't immediately know the answer to since it means I almost certainly get to learn something new in the process! :)

And I totally get wanting to make sure that Google Pay on Wear OS would fit your needs. It would suck to arrive at a store with only your watch and be unable to make a payment. 

I had a quick chat with a Google Pay support rep to see if I could find out the authoritative answer since the product documentation isn't really clear. They informed me that an active Internet connection is not required for using Google Pay on Wear OS but that the watch would need to have been connected to the Internet at least once in the 24 hours preceding the transaction. 

So it won't work if your watch never connects to the Internet, but it will work as long as you let it "check in" every 24 hours. 

Unfortunately the agent wasn't able to find any public documentation on that so both the agent and I have requested that it be added to the Pay with your smartwatch help center article - hopefully that will happen #soon.

(I'm also going to try again to test this on my way home today - I'll be sure to report back with my findings.)

Cheers,

John

Thank you again! I appreciate your time. This has been very informative. That is certainly a reasonable expectation that the watch has connected to the internet in the past 24 hours. I look forward to finding out if this "watch only" payment scenario works for you. Good luck, and thanks again!

Jon

I disabled Bluetooth on my phone, launched Google Pay on my watch, and purchased a tank of gas. No internet connection required.

Cool!

Please let us know if you come up with any other questions!

Cheers,

John

and wallet at home. Transactions gone thru according to the shops machine

Yes, you can pay using your watch without being currently connected to a phone or mobile network. That said, the Google Pay app does need to check in over the internet once every 24 hours - so you can't just leave it permanently disconnected but it shouldn't be a problem to leave your phone at home for a trip to the store.

Cheers,

John

Watch sometimes refused payments because of missing internet connection as it either asked just for the connection or Google Play or/and Google Pay update. 

I resolved this issue by purchasing LTE version BUT I have just experienced another issue: When I approached the terminal it refused the payment and asked me for PIN verification - I entered correct PIN on my watch and it kept refusing payment and asking for PIN verification all over again. 

Additionaly, all these issues usually happened after a couple (up to 9) successful payments (still without connected phone). I was wondering if it had something to do with token limit (maybe 10?) on virtual card issued by certain bank. 

 

Is it a bank, Google or Huawei watch issue?

Hi Jerry,

 

Hard to say. You might want to reach out to Google Pay support to see if they can check into this:

 

Cheers,

John