How to Flash a Custom ROM on the Samsung Galaxy Gear (Video)

Now that you have root access, it’s time for the fun stuff. Here I’ll show you how to flash the most popular custom ROM for the Galaxy Gear from developer fOmey (who you should definitely donate to if this procedure ends up helping you). This ROM has a ton of features you can find listed here, but suffice it to say it turns the Galaxy Gear into a full-blown Android device complete with live wallpapers, Play Store, and removes the Samsung signature verification so you can pair the Gear with other devices (although Gear Manager still won’t work without some tweaks I’ll show in a video later this week). Interested? Give it a try, it’s quite easy to flash a custom ROM on the Galaxy Gear.

UPDATE 02/27/14: Replace the video to add the Uncheck Auto Reboot new step.

I. Before You Begin

1. This only works on Windows.

II. Root the Galaxy Gear

1. Head to our How to Root the Samsung Galaxy Gear procedure, complete it, and return here to continue.

III. Flash a Custom Recovery

At the time of writing this there is only one popular custom ROM for the gear, but it is pretty awesome. For a full list of its features (including allowing other devices to connect to it besides Samsung verified ones) head to the developer’s page here.

1. Download the Recovery and save it to your Desktop (it is located under Downloads in that post).

*If you get an issue with the recovery screen being too small, download a different version here – http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=2463743

2. Download ODIN and save it to your Desktop.

3. Right-click the ODIN .zip file and click extract all.

4. Install ODIN by double-clicking the .exe file inside the newly extracted folder.

5. Hold the power button on the Gear until the Gear says rebooting on the screen.

6. As soon as it says rebooting, quickly tap the power button 5 times while the restart dialog is present to put the device into recovery mode.

7. Press the power button again to select Download Mode.

8. Press and hold the power button for 3 seconds to select Download Mode.

9. Plug the Gear in via USB cable.

10. Open ODIN (if it isn’t already open).

11. Uncheck the Auto Reboot Option.

12. Select AP in ODIN and then select the Recovery file you downloaded in step 1.

13. Press Start in ODIN to flash it.

14. Manually turn off the Gear by holding down the power button and turning it off (leaving it plugged in).

15. Hold the power button on the Gear until the Gear says rebooting on the screen.

16. As soon as it says rebooting, quickly tap the power button 5 times while the restart dialog is present to put the device into recovery mode.

17. Press the power button twice to navigate and highlight Recovery mode.

18. Press and hold the power button for 3 seconds to select Recovery Mode.

19. You should see TWRP recovery on the screen, if so it worked.

20. Select Reboot Device in recovery and wait for it to boot up normally.

III. Flash the Custom ROM

1. Download the ROM and save it to your Desktop (click on the latest Build then click on the download link under Mirrors on that page).

2. Plug in the Gear via USB cable (if it isn’t still plugged in from before).

3. Open MobileShare (you should have it from our Rooting the Gear procedure, if not download it and install it from here).

4. Click on Files under your device on the left side.

5. Click on SD Card in the right window.

6. Click on the Add button at the top and select the ROM .zip file we downloaded earlier and click OK (do NOT extract the .zip leave it as a .zip file). This will put the .zip file on the internal storage of the Gear.

7. Unplug the Gear.

8. Hold the power button on the Gear until the Gear says rebooting on the screen.

9. As soon as it says rebooting, quickly tap the power button 5 times while the restart dialog is present to put the device into recovery mode.

10. Press the power button twice to navigate and highlight Recovery mode.

11. Press and hold the power button for 3 seconds to select Recovery Mode.

12. Select Install in TWRP.

13. Select the ROM .zip file we put on the device earlier and swipe to install it.

11. Follow the instructions to choose what features you want in the ROM and continue to click Next until it flashes the ROM.

12. When it’s done flashing, follow the prompts again by clicking Next to reboot the device.

IV. Add a Keyboard (Optional but Highly Recommended)

Add a keyboard to the device so you can use things like the Play Store. Basically just install it using the Wondershare program you used in the rooting procedure.

1. Open Wondershare on your computer.

11. Once it opens, click on Google Play Apps.

12. Search for and install Google Keyboard.

13. Open Google Keyboard from the app drawer on the Gear and follow the instructions to install it.

Head to our Galaxy Gear Rooting How To’s page for other how to’s as they get posted.

147 thoughts on “How to Flash a Custom ROM on the Samsung Galaxy Gear (Video)”

          1. I did find a way around it but I’m no expert. .try downloading rom tool box on wondershare just as you downloaded supersu .Open it on the watch . In the app go to, manage rom install rom from sd card scroll down till you see the null rom click it and install. .fixed mine the recovery got big me know.like I said no expert at your own risk. I have been having problems with it being buggy , but I’m running null 13 .I think there is a newer version I’m going to try:)

          2. shane) what debelopers page you followed up can you send me the right http: address that you saw how to fix the problem please. asap thank you.

          3. The developers page is the one aapp . I was having little bugs here and there.the using rom tool box to get around the recovery thing was just a lucky guess On my part .i really love that app. bought the full version

          4. Ya his steps for fixing little things like watch styler and more are above. Many thanks to the developer .it’s an awesome rom 🙂

          5. shane0 – can i ask for some help. I flash the ROM using Odin, i have the Null_18 downloaded on the SD card but when i go to the watch and ROM toolbox lite – rom manage, there is no TWRP to select and there is no ROM listed. So if i select the copy from SD card, what happens then???

          6. Ok. Make sure you have installed the recovery with Oden as described in the video. then When you first open rom toolbox you will see 3 pages by swiping left or right. At the top, the pages are listed. Swipe right on the watch so tools is shown at the top.then select rom management. Than select reboot recovery .then twrp recovery should come up .and from there you flash your rom .hope that helps .not a professional .take no responsibility for broke stuff of course. Let me know if that helps:)

          7. thanks shane0…undertand all what you have written above. Now do i do as you have said here – Odin to flash the MD5 file, then the gear reboots. then do i go directly to the watch and rom managementreboot recoverytwrp etc or do i install ROM from sd card. If i do the latter, does that complete the recovery or do i need to do something else. Just want to make sure i do all the steps correctly so i dont brick it. I want to do this but reading everyones comments there are so many different ways and none have explicit instructions. thanks again, im sure your answer will assist not only me…

          8. You will follow the steps as in the video. First installing the recovery. Than as he shows, install the ROM to the root of your watch ,(internal storage)with wonder share .than reboot your watch.than you can install ROM toolbox .than from the app on your watch .go to ROM management/ reboot recovery,tick twrp if it asks which recovery you want to boot into .after you are rebooted in twrp.select( install ).top right. Than look for the null ROM you copied to your internal storage with wonder share .if you see it .on the twrp home screen there will be an option to wipe .wipe by sliding ,than go back to install and install the null ROM .and your done.any questions feel free to ask and I’ll try to help .

          9. shane0 – here is what happened. i followed everything – watch was in download mode, i opened oden and go the coms light. i clicked on AP and then clicked on the MD5 file. i pressed start and it went to RESET (above the coms light) in blue and then the watch rebooted itself. The reset didnt go to PASS until much later. I then went to ROM toolbox, went to Rom management and pressed on reboot recovery. it then asked to confirm to reboot in recovery and then just rebooted. Didnt ask for TWRP or anything. I check in Wondershare and the Null_zip file is present on the root of the sd card. seems like nothing has happened at all..what did i do wrong???? thanks so much for you help

          10. Really not sure but I’ll look into it.first try to boot manually into recovery and see if it will let you. If it comes up small .go back and try toolbox again. If not use wonder share and make sure you see your twrp file on your SD cards root. Let me know:)

          11. success!!!! i unticked the auto boot on Odin and then everything worked perfectly. thanks so much for all your assistance.

          12. shane0 – hopefully last question. all working well except i cant access the internet so the wifi tethering is not working. how do i fix this please??

          13. The best way to tell you is everything is the same as the video above. All I added was using ROM toolbox to boot into recovery instead of holding the button than tapping it 5 times than going down to highlight recovery and holding to inter recovery. I found that when I tried that way ,the recovery showed up small.so..if you Pause the video were he goes into recovery and use ROM toolbox to inter recovery. Than go back to the video you should be fine.

          14. ok i am running 10.1, however i want to upgrade to null14, may you please tell me what to do, i keep hearing everybody say that the win recovery is showing up small over the top of the sam…. logo and i dont want that to happen please help my

  1. 1. Download the ROM and save it to your Desktop (it is located under Downloads in that post).
    its not longer a tar file I cannot put it on odin.

    1. Hey David, I Did everything I was supposed to. Rooted the gear and went through the entire process you have outlined perfectly. When I go to restore, instead of taking me to the custom recovery it just does a factory reset on the gear. After checking apps, it shows that superuser isn’t there anymore. Tried the whole process twice and got the same result. What’s happening here?

      1. I’m having the same issue; was able to root and download SuperSU to the device, ODIN says everything worked, so I was able to boot it to download mode. However, when I click on recovery to install the custom ROM, it simply does a factory reset, then I have to re-pair it with my Note 3, and it restores my original settings.

        1. Edit: think I got it; I rooted, copied the custom rom to the device while in debug mode, flashed custom rom (unchecked auto reboot) so odin won’t reboot it; if it does it seemed to override the custom rom. Hold the button down until it reboots, then do the 5 tap to load recovery. I was then able to boot it from the custom rom and complete the install. It was either this or a timing issue, maybe I held the button down too long and it seems to time out if you don’t do anything with it.

          1. and now decided to try and go back to stock, and I didn’t follow the right steps. Now all I can get the watch to boot into is download mode, or the recovery rom but there are not any rom’s to install, so it’s pretty much bricked 🙁 anyone know how to remedy this?

        2. May be you can pass this along. I had the same problem. If you have your phone already rooted there’s a twrp recovery app in the play store that worked for me

    2. Hi david !!

      I need some help here please!!

      I fallowed all
      the steps from the rooting process to download the custom rom. I think I was successful
      on the rooting process because the result was exact same with the result on the
      video.

      Also on the
      second video I followed all the steps and click the ROM link to download
      Null_13 but the one I found was Null_18. I download the Null_18 which Is available
      at the moment and followed the steps finally I used Wondershare and download
      the Null_18 (zip file) in to the Gear SD then followed all the steps to the
      recovery mode but ones when I click the recovery mode it will automatically
      reset my gear and ask me to connect with my phone again like a new gear

      I tried this for
      more than 7 times and now I am tired of it. If you guys have any idea please
      help me.

      My laptop is
      windows 8 and do you think that’s the problem?

      Thanks

    3. WTF?!?!?!? OUT OF ALL THE VIDEOS I COULD HAVE CHOSEN I PICKED YOURS THIS IS MY FIRST ATTEMPT AT ROOTING ANYTHING SO I HAVE BEEN PULLING MY FUC@ING HAIR OUT. WHY WOULD LEAVE THIS POS VIDEO UP IF U KNEW IT DIDNT WORK? R U SOME SICK AND TWISTER COMPUTER DWEEB THAT JERKS OFF TO HIS VIEW COUNT? NEW VIDEO?!? 10 MONTHS AGO!?!? WTF?!?!I POS JUST LIKE UR VIDEOS! DELETE THIS VIDEO AND LEAVE THE THREAD UP SO THE COOL PEOPLE OF THE WORLD CAN TRY TO HELP CLEAR UP UR BS!

  2. so missed the root galaxy gear step and ran odin now galaxy gear is stuck on samsung logo after rebooting and wont change any screen need help

  3. Is there anyway to make the new flashed app manager the homepage on the watch instead of having to loaf it all the time?

  4. If I do this, can I use it without a Galaxy device? I know you can currently “trick” it into syncing with a non-Galaxy device, but it requires a Galaxy device to start with.

  5. Did everything I was supposed to. Rooted the gear and went through the entire process you have outlined perfectly. When I go to restore, instead of taking me to the custom recovery it just does a factory reset on the gear. After checking apps, it shows that superuser isn’t there anymore. Tried the whole process twice and got the same result. What’s happening here?

    1. mine does the same thing. i’ve done this 3 times today. thats THREE times my watch has factory reset and i’ve started over. i call b.s. on this actually working.

  6. Where an I find the Rom for this? I’ve done all the steps at least 8 times and when it gets to the recovery stage, it reboots back to the original stock version. I found a Null 11.1 Rom – Is that compatible with your steps. Please let me know what I’m missing. I would really appreciate it.

  7. hi my also same problem I installed everything last step reboot for next my gear rebooting wan start direct going download mode some 1 help me

  8. Is anyone else having the issue to where the recovery screen is taken up mostly by the samsung logo and on the very top is the actual recovery?

    1. If you download an app called rom toolbox to the watch from wonder share. Than boot into recovery from rom tool box it fixed mine . In romt toolbox if it asks, your recovery is twrp.than swipe left On The Menu And Look For manage rom, than REBOOT Recovery .worked for me but at your own risk of course 🙂

  9. Can’t even get recovery mode. It will show, “Installing system updates…” and watch reboot back to factory default. Everything else from rooting and installing custom recovery works fine. Only can’t get TWRP to work.

  10. Got it. Even easier step.

    1. Root it.
    2. Install SuperSU and ROM Toolbox Lite using MobileShare.
    3. Flash recovery using ODIN and let it auto reboot.
    4. Run ROM Toolbox Lite and select TWRP as recovery and NULL_15.zip as ROM.
    5. After reboot, it execute the scripts as per video.

    Enjoy.

    Now, if only Notifications and Contacts could work with my Xperia Z Ultra -> not working.

    1. I installed the Run ROM Toolbox Lite and selected TWRP and NULL zip then it did a recovery reset only to come up with the factory ROM. So i took your step 5 as following the recovery method and the watch just went back to the android logo and reset the watch again!
      I can’t get out of this cycle of resetting the watch completely.

  11. Is anyone else having issues when downloading the ROM file on wondershare? I get stuck at 23% and it doesn’t move after that. any help would be greatly appreciated.

  12. This is horrible, I keep repeating the same step for about 3 hours now and still no flash. What the hell is wrong with this? I’ve rooted through Cydia and installed Super user through Wondershare and then installed the recovery image through Odin 3.09. Once I have completed those steps and tried to reboot my gear to recovery, my gear wipes and resets everything back to default. I then lose root access. What the heck is going on and how can I fix this issue that everyones having???

    1. Try unticking the auto reboot check box in Odin, then flash recovery. Once that’s done and you have to reboot and select recovery it worked for me.

        1. for some reason the same thing is happening to me but then when i tried unclicking the autoreboot in odin, then flash recovery, it doenst work for me

  13. Having followed all the steps and Googled whenever I’ve had issues, I have got to the very end and when I install the zip file my phone restarts in DOWNLOAD MODE… does anyone know a way to get past this. I’ve retried 4 times with different files… Any help would be appreciated

  14. In case is useful to others… After several hours of going through the circle of factory resetting instead of allowing custom recovery I found that I had to just untick the auto-reboot in Odin. Then when I manually rebooted and selected recovery it worked!

  15. thanks to developer great work , Seems i have a slight problem with the internet, I cant enable it .
    went over the steps on fourms nothing. If anybody has any ideas shout me out. I am on the latest null released jan 1 st null 17

  16. PLEASE HELP!!!!!!!! I have rooted the gear did the whole process till I have to flash a rom. the recovery screen was smashed to the top so I Dloaded rom tool box from note 3 and transferred from phone to laptop from laptop to gear then I tried to reboot into recovery from gear and the screen still smashed and it wont boot out of recovery keeps taking me to the smashed recovery menu on gear

  17. I wish someone would help all the people saying the recovery keeps reseting the watch. I am having the same problem.

  18. Hi guys,

    I need some help here please!!

    I fallowed all
    the steps from the rooting process to download the custom rom. I think I was successful
    on the rooting process because the result was exact same with the result on the
    video.

    Also on the
    second video I followed all the steps and click the ROM link to download
    Null_13 but the one I found was Null_18. I download the Null_18 which Is available
    at the moment and followed the steps finally I used Wondershare and download
    the Null_18 (zip file) in to the Gear SD then followed all the steps to the
    recovery mode but ones when I click the recovery mode it will automatically
    reset my gear and ask me to connect with my phone again like a new gear

    I tried this for
    more than 7 times and now I am tired of it. If you guys have any idea please
    help me.

    My laptop is
    windows 8 and do you guys think that’s the problem?

    Thanks

  19. 3:01 I clicked on my movile device through mobile share , i did not find a file icon. so i went on my phone and debugged my phone as a developer but still it no files were added. i did the rooting process and i just want to run the custom rom but its not happening. dont know what to do.

  20. every time i try it just restore it to the factory rom. If I don’t select normal when i update with supersu I get:

    supersu failed to verify whole-file signature

    I’ve been trying to do this for over 4 hours and I’m into my second day 🙁

  21. For me it always reloads the factory rom and if i use supersu to update binary I get:
    supersu failed to verify whole-file signature
    I tried it using normal but I still get the factory rom

  22. I have it working!! but I can’t use the app store though I can browse the web. it keeps saying google accounts has stopped responding. anyone have a fix maybe i should down grade from null_19?

  23. Hi all,

    I was working on doing this whole process and it worked. Then when i turned my watch off for the first time and tried to turn it on again, I am stuck at the custom boot logo and it never gets back to the actual watch screen. Has anyone else had this issue?

  24. everytime i try to flash the recovery image it just goes to factory reset and i have to root all over again. please address this. ive done this five times now. no luck

  25. After following all steps, when I install the custom rom from recovery, my gear reboots but goes to the “downloading” screen.. I have gone into recovery about 10 times and tried reinstalling, but I cannot get past this issue.. my Gear will not boot up with the custom rom or at all for that matter.. Can anyone assist??

  26. I been having the same issues but i downloaded Winmd5free and added the recovery to it, then i ran my odin as administrator, unclicked autoreboot, and flashed it. i had to add my zip file to mobilego before i flashed it though, then i manually recovery reboot and it worked!!!!

  27. march 1 14 i have went threw steps serval times but when it cone to the recovery part it just restarts my gear and i have to go back to pairing me gear with my fone pleaz help

  28. how are you supposed to shut it down while it’s plugged in? The power button is inaccessible while in the cradle…

  29. Hello, ROM download page is not working. Hor can i get ROM (which is null_13.zip). Can someone help me?

  30. Leigh Emmerson

    Hi, Thanks for the really clear instructions. Everything seems to have gone smoothly except I don’t seem to be able to tether to my iPhone. Everything looks good and connect but no actual data comes through. Any thoughts?

  31. It doesn’t seem a solution was ever posted to the factor reset issue / loop. I’ve tried unchecking the auto reboot box in Odin and that doesn’t appear to have made a difference. Could someone confirm a step for me?

    I’m in download mode, connected via USB, run Odin. Unless I remove it from the cradle, I can’t get out of download mode, and MobileGo can’t connect to the gear. If I remove it from the cradle and reboot, I can then connect with MobileGo and continue on with the process, but I’m afraid that may be where I’m going astray.

    Is anyone still around that can help clarify these last few steps?

  32. So in case anyone is STILL stuck, let me explain how my brain works and how I got this working.
    1. Root (no one has a problem with that)
    2. Save the custom ROM to the SD Card via mobile share
    3. THEN do the custom recovery steps (Odin etc). Note Odin take a while to run, wait until the “exit” button is no longer greyed out before disconnecting anything.

    When you reboot, you should be able to follow the steps in the video starting at 4:00.

    I hope that helps.

  33. Great write up but I am having problems. Step 14 in the flash custom recovery. How do you reboot and tap the power button 5 times with it still plugged into the dock?
    I took it out of the dock and did this, then when I rebooted to recovery it just went back to stock mode (SuperSU was gone from the app list). I read in the developer post on XDA that this is a somewhat know issue and need to use commands in adb but it does not go into detail.
    Can someone help?

  34. Managed to install after struggling 2 days with the factory reset problem. Whenever I chose Recovery, it was doing a factory reset, and I was able to overcome it by deleting “/system/recovery-from-boot.p/system/recovery-from-boot.p” Install ES File Explorer (or any file browser app), change the file to writable and then you rename or delete or move it to a different folder. Once you do this, you should be able to see the custom recovery page.

  35. Bored with trying this, phone never recovers in twrp just resets to factory settings and have to set gear up from scratch…pissed as ive done this at least 5 times now.

  36. i had no problems until i got to part 14, you cant reset without removing so i took it out done a reboot to recovery. in the next app i done a reboot and it went back to gear. so i plugged it in opened mobile go and loaded the rom. then took it out rebooted to recovery in which it loaded app where i installed the rom.

  37. Does anyone knows how to “Manually turn off the Gear by holding down the power button and turning it off (leaving it plugged in)”?
    I mean the case is covering the power button…

  38. I know this is a 1 year old discussion, but does anyone have the NULL rom saved? You cannot get it from the XDA site anymore and every link I try is no longer good.
    Thank you

  39. I can’t download the ROM file. If I click on the Link it just open a Window and say’s that it’s not possible to connect the Server.
    What can I do?

  40. I Got the rom installed on the Galaxy gear but I have an issue with it not being able to contact Google. anything that has to do with Google it will not connect although it is connected to the Internet and I can browse web pages with the browser. any ideas on how I could resolve this issue?
    Kyle

      1. thank you for the quick response this is relatively new territory for me, I just have one question how do you wipe the data?

        1. No problem! There should be an option for it in the custom recovery (the screen you used to flash the ROM). If not then just re flash the ROM and see if that helps anyway.

          1. ok I did a wipe and reinstall of the null rom but it still won’t connect with Google. I get the message can’t reach Google services at this time. And if I try and use the Google app it comes up with a network error.

          2. I did the wipe and flashed the again but I still have the same problem. I get the error can’t reach google services at this time. And if I try to use the google app I get a network error.

          3. yes I can access the Internet and browse web pages but anything that has to do with Google like the Play Store or creating an account in the calendar app or using voice search none of them seem to be able to access Google.

          4. yes I can get on the internet and surf web pages, I was even able to set up an email account. But if I try and use Google search it always says it can’t reach Google at the present time or network error check your connection.

          5. Not sure then you might want to check the room developers site and see if he’s posted anything on it, sounds like an issue with his ROM (or his google apps in the ROM more specifically).

          6. I tried installing the rom again and still have the same issue. One thing everytime I try to add an account the google account manager crashes.

  41. hi David

    do you know how to turn on USB debugging in the custom ROM? I’m trying to sideload some apps using wondershare and it won’t connect to my watch, it keeps telling me to turn on USB debugging and I can’t find the setting anywhere in the custom ROM.I also tried to use adb to sideload the app and it can’t find my device since I installed custom ROM.

      1. okay I got it figured out, go to about gear and tap the build number 10 times and that opens up developer options then you can choose USB debugging.

  42. Dude its not working. Every time I go to recovery mode the phone is reset to the activation mode. Can you please guide me.

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