History of our “Custom Notifications” app for Samsung Gear S2/S3/Galaxy Watch/Active 2/Watch 3

The functionality of setting custom notification sounds on the Samsung Gear S2 (speaker version) or S3 was requested by many users over time. I don’t know why Samsung did not include it on their devices, especially while taking into account the fact that it would be very simple to implement ( for them ).

On May 2017 I discovered a method to set custom notification sounds on these smartwatches, and I launched an application that has received favorable reviews from the users.

But on December 2017, the Tizen 3 came to the Gear S3 and my app is no longer working on the updated devices. You may wonder why. In my opinion, Samsung intentionally blocked the method I used to set custom notifications. What happens is that when you set a custom notification sound, it is automatically replaced by a default sound, when you receive a notification.

UPDATE 10.03.2018

After many weeks of thinking, I now have an idea for a fix.

It should be available before the beginning of April.

UPDATE 29.03.2018

Finally, a version compatible with Tizen 3 updated Samsung smartwatches has been launched! Its name is Custom notifications 3+.

The old app Custom notifications is still available in the store for the devices with an old operating system version.

UPDATE 15.01.2021

The old app Custom notifications has been removed from the store.

The newer Custom notifications 3+ app has been renamed to Custom notifications.

These changes are meant to resolve the confusion between the two apps. Also, the smartwatches compatible with the old app are no longer in use by a sufficient number of users to make the app viable. That’s why I decided to stick to one custom notifications app which inherits the name of the original app and is also compatible with the majority of Samsung smartwatches.

To summarize:

Custom notifications -> works on Samsung Gear S3 with a Tizen version of at least 3.0, on Samsung Galaxy Watch, Samsung Galaxy Watch Active 2, and on Samsung Galaxy Watch 3.
Download link: https://galaxystore.samsung.com/geardetail/Yuz8U0RiHA