When I was trying to update my Moto 360 earlier today, this Google Play Services error was preventing me from doing so. I figured out a way around it and this is how I did it.
If you follow me on Twitter then you might already know that I’ve been going through an RMA with Motorola for a cracked back cover on my Moto 360. If not, then you should stop what you’re doing and follow me right now :p
Without getting into the headache that Motorola has caused with me trying to get my smartwatch replace, I’m just going to jump into the meat of today’s issue. I received a replacement for my broken Moto 360 and I immediately paired it with my phone so that I could apply the Android Wear 5.1 Lollipop update to it(it was running KitKat).
After paring it, I dove into the Settings of the smartwatch so that I could start downloading the update.
Everything seemed to be going smoothly as the download had started. . .but this didn’t last very long. Shortly after the download started, I started to see a ‘Google Play Services has Stopped’ error flooding the screen. I would dismiss it, go back to try and initiate the download again and it would immediately throw up that error again. It was almost impossible to do anything on the Moto 360 without this error popping up so I did what I could to do a factory reset on it.
I went through the same process after the factory reset of the Moto 360 and it happened again. I thought that maybe it was the phone or something so I downloaded Android Wear on a retired Android smartphone of mine and reset the smartwatch so that I could try it again. Again and again, I kept getting the same errors so I had to give up and work on it later. After doing a little search on Google I came across this thread on XDA and saw about 4 different things suggested to fix the same issue that other people had experienced. After some trial and error with these suggestions, I figured out what worked for me.
Moto 360 Google Play Services Stopped
- Factory Rest the Android Wear Device
- Uninstall the Android Wear Application
- Launch the Settings Application
- Scroll Down and Tap on the Apps/Application Manager Section
- Swipe Over to the ‘All’ Column
- Scroll Down and Tap on the ‘Google Play Services’ Application
- Tap on the ‘Uninstall Updates’ Button(alternatively, tap on Disable first, then uninstall the updates)
- Download an Early Copy of the the Android Wear Application to the Smartphone
- Tap on the Download Complete Notification Once it Finishes
- Install the Early Copy of Android Wear
- Launch the Android Wear Application(don’t let it automatically update via the Google Play Store)
- Pair the Android Wear Device to the Smartphone as Instructed by the Android Wear App
- Once Paired, Dive into the Settings of the Android Wear Device and Tap on About
- Then Scroll Down and Check for an Update
- Let the Android Wear Device Download the Update
- Install the Android Wear Update and Let it Reboot
- Then Update Google Play Services and the Android Wear Application on Your Smartphone
Explanation
The only thing I can assume is that there is some sort of conflict between the current version of Google Play Services and the early versions of Android Wear. Like, Google Play Services is so new that when the Android Wear application tries to update the watch, it just starts freaking out for some reason. I am really shocked that Google(and Motorola too) allows this to happen. As much as I love Android and would never go back to iOS. . .is a reason why the ‘average consumer’ chooses iOS and that is because they want something that just works. I’m capable of doing a Google search to fix a bug like this, but a lot of people aren’t(or will feel that they shouldn’t have to).
Any first generation Moto 360 is going to have this KitKat version of Android Wear on it and I can only imagine that all of them are going to have this same issue. Requiring that your customer search the web and jumps through all of these hoops just to get their $300 smartwatch to work and update properly is insane. Usually you can chalk this up to the OEMs not handling the software properly but Google controls the software on Android Wear. Either way, I’m thankful that I was able to find out what worked for my particular issue and hopefully it will help others who experience the same thing.
