If you own an Android Wear device you might have noticed an odd change recently. It seems since the last Google Play Services update (to v6.5), users have started reporting on a message that appears on their smartphones when their watch connects. Before the update the message would simply read ‘Connected’. As you would expect this is rather self-explanatory and for want of a better word ‘normal’ message. However, since the update users have reported a different message which now pops up. Or more interesting, an extended message. The message users are now seeing reads ‘Connected, running sync loop’. You can see an example of the message in the image below. This seems to have gotten a few users a little flustered and worried as to what is causing this sudden change. More importantly, what is this sync loop which seems to be running.
If you are one of those users, then it seems you do not have anything to worry about. No-one is tracking you (at least no-one who was not before the change) and it does not actually mean too much for the average consumer. It seems the change in use of dialogue is the result of the Developer Options setting on your smartphone. For the most part, the average user does not need to worry about Developer options. As the name suggests, this is more of a developer type thing. Some of you who are rooted, will know and occasionally use developer options as you need to activate this setting to be able to ‘debug’ when connected via USB to root and flash. Either way though, it seems the new message is an effect of developer options being enabled. Since the Play Services Update, it now seems when the watch is connected and developer options is also enabled the screen displays the extended sync loop mode. This is presumed to be there to offer developers additional on-screen information.
So if you are keen to get rid of the new message and get back your old familiar, less threatening ‘Connected’ tag, then the process is quite simple. Disconnect your smartwatch, head over to your smartphone settings menu. From here, scroll down to ‘developer options’, click through and disable. Once the developer setting is disabled, simply reconnect you smartwatch and you should now see the old ‘Connected’ message back in its rightful place. Either way, whether you disable it or not, it does seem that it is nothing to worry about. Have you been experiencing the problem? Let us know and let us know how the fix worked for you.
