Add initial Wear OS heart rate provider support

[roberi]

This PR introduces initial support for using a Wear OS device as a heart rate provider in RunnerUp.

2026-07-29_21-00-56.mp4

Implementation overview

Phone app

• Added a new Wear OS devices option to HRSettingsActivity. This allows users to discover and connect to paired Wear OS devices running the RunnerUp Wear app.
• Added a new heart rate provider, WearHRProvider, which implements the existing HRProvider interface. By following the same pattern as the Bluetooth and ANT+ providers, the integration requires only minimal changes to the core application logic.

Wear app

Two new services have been added to the Wear module:

HeartRateService

Responsible for collecting heart rate and battery information from the watch.

• Heart rate data is obtained through SensorManager using Sensor.TYPE_HEART_RATE.
• Battery status is monitored through a BroadcastReceiver listening for Intent.ACTION_BATTERY_CHANGED.

HeartRateListenerService

Extends WearableListenerService and acts as the communication layer between the phone and the watch.

• Receives START and STOP commands from the phone via the Wearable Data API.
• Starts and stops HeartRateService as needed.

Compatibility note

The Wear module currently targets minSdk 25, which makes it possible to support older Wear OS devices. Because of this, the implementation uses the traditional SensorManager API instead of the newer Health Services API, which requires Wear OS 3 (API 30) or later.

Testing

The feature has been tested using both Android Studio emulators and physical devices (Pixel Watch 4 running Wear OS 7, paired with Pixel 9 Pro running Android 17). More than 50 workouts completed successfully. No stability issues observed, provided that the RunnerUp Wear app remains in the foreground (see limitations below). Battery consumption is approximately 20% per hour of activity on the Pixel 4.

Additional testing was performed by Toby2988 as described in issue #1366.

Known limitations

The watch app currently needs to remain in the foreground to ensure reliable heart rate delivery.

Follow-up work

The following improvements are planned in subsequent PRs:

• Convert HeartRateService into a foreground service (or merge it with the existing foreground notification) to ensure reliable operation when the display is off or another app is active.
• Improve error reporting and recovery during device discovery and connection establishment, including watch-side permission failures.
• Address the new READ_HEART_RATE requirements introduced on Wear OS 6 (API 36). The current implementation only suppresses the manifest warning through tools:ignore="HealthConnectPolicy".

[Copilot]

Pull request overview

This PR adds initial end-to-end support for using a paired Wear OS device as a heart rate (and watch battery) provider in RunnerUp, using the Wearable Data Layer for communication between the phone and watch apps.

Changes:

• Phone: adds a new “Wear OS devices” HR settings toggle and a new WearHRProvider implementation that discovers capable watches and receives HR/battery messages.
• Wear: adds watch-side services to start/stop HR monitoring, read Sensor.TYPE_HEART_RATE, monitor battery changes, and send readings back to the phone.
• Common/shared: introduces Wear message paths, a shared capability name, and supporting preference/string resources.

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 15 out of 15 changed files in this pull request and generated 7 comments.

Show a summary per file

File	Description
wear/src/main/res/values/wear.xml	Declares the Wear capability name intended to be advertised by the watch app.
wear/src/main/java/org/runnerup/view/RequestPermissionActivity.java	Improves permission name formatting for display (incl. health permission namespaces).
wear/src/main/java/org/runnerup/hr/HeartRateService.java	New watch service to read HR sensor + battery and message results to the phone.
wear/src/main/java/org/runnerup/hr/HeartRateListenerService.java	New listener service to receive phone start/stop commands and control HeartRateService.
wear/src/main/AndroidManifest.xml	Adds HR permissions and registers the new Wear HR services.
hrdevice/src/org/runnerup/hr/WearHRProvider.java	New phone-side HR provider using Wearable capability discovery + messaging for HR/battery.
hrdevice/src/org/runnerup/hr/HRManager.java	Wires the Wear provider into provider creation and provider listing.
hrdevice/res/values/strings.xml	Adds Wear OS preference key string resource.
hrdevice/build.gradle	Adds wearable/play-services dependency (and common module dependency) for the new provider.
hrdevice/AndroidManifest.xml	Removes unused <application> block from the hrdevice module manifest.
common/src/main/res/values/strings.xml	Adds UI string for “Wear OS devices”.
common/src/main/java/org/runnerup/common/util/Constants.java	Adds Wear message paths, capability constant, and source-node extra key.
app/src/main/org/runnerup/view/HRSettingsActivity.java	Adds menu item ↔ preference mapping for Wear OS devices toggle.
app/res/values/pref_keys.xml	Adds Wear OS preference key.
app/res/menu/hrsettings_menu.xml	Adds the “Wear OS devices” checkable menu item in HR settings.

Suppressed comments (2)

wear/src/main/java/org/runnerup/hr/HeartRateService.java:189

• getRequiredHeartRatePermission() references HealthPermissions.READ_HEART_RATE. On devices where android.health.connect.* isn't present, class resolution can fail even though the branch is guarded. Use the literal permission string for API 36+ instead of HealthPermissions.

  private String getRequiredHeartRatePermission() {
    if (Build.VERSION.SDK_INT >= 36) {
      return HealthPermissions.READ_HEART_RATE;
    } else {
      return Manifest.permission.BODY_SENSORS;
    }
  }

hrdevice/src/org/runnerup/hr/WearHRProvider.java:227

• MessageClient.sendMessage expects a non-null payload; passing null can trigger an NPE inside Play Services. Use an empty byte[] for STOP commands as well.

            Wearable.getMessageClient(context).sendMessage(
                            connectedNodeId,
                            Constants.Wear.Path.MSG_CMD_HR_STOP,
                            null // No payload needed for the stop command
                    );

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[gerhardol]

Brief look, no comments.
Note that Play updates of Wear have been rejected the last releases. Jonas did not get the updates approved (I do not recall the motivation right now).

[roberi]

Thanks for your note. I will contact Jonas to see if there is something I can help him with.