We’re well on our way to getting custom ROMs for this watch
If you’ve been looking for a way to load custom ROMs to your $350 Pixel Watch for some god-forsaken reason, by all means, go ahead. Someone else has paved the way for you to do so and, trust us, it’s pretty ugly.
Most Wear OS watches can field ADB commands through Wi-Fi — we show you how to get that up and running with our tutorial on installing the Pixel Watch’s watch faces on your Wear OS 3 device — but they do require a hardwired connection when it comes to doing something as privileged and crazy as unlocking the bootloader.
Unfortunately, the only way such a connection is possible is through those four Pogo pins on the device that match neatly to the ones embedded within the proprietary magnetic charging pad. Thing is, you don’t need all those pins for power — if you’re unaware, those pins actually correspond similarly to the pin-out of a full USB port with one pin providing power at 5V, two for handling data coming in and going out, and the last one for ground.
Shiny Quagsire on Twitter was able to slice up a USB cable and suss out a way to connect their Pixel Watch to a computer.
That cable ain’t a pretty sight, but hey, you gotta break a few eggs, right?
Anyways, our MacGyver then went through the usual steps to unlock the bootloader just like any other Android-based device and now they’ve got a Pixel Watch with an unlocked bootloader.
With the Pixel Watch kernel source out (via XDA-Developers), it won’t just be ROM developers getting busy out there — this also opens up the opportunity for some AliExpress vendors (you know the type) to manufacture special adapters from USB to Pogo outputs.
Thanks: Mishaal
