How to Root the Samsung Galaxy Gear (Video)

Galaxy Gear just not quite living up to the hype? Maybe it’s time you root it. Rooting it is the process of gaining root access, aka administrative rights. This allows us to then alter just about anything we want on the device to our liking. From removing unwanted apps, to turning the Gear into a full-fledged Android device complete with live wallpapers and Play Store to so much more. To get to all of that, though, we first need root access. Thanks to some developers on XDA (who you should definitely donate to if this procedure helps you) it’s quite easy. Here’s how.

Updated 12.03.13 to include new way to enable USB debugging when using the latest software on the Gear (not reflected in video but reflected in written procedure below).

I. Before You Begin

1. This only works on Windows.

2. You do need access to a Galaxy Gear approved device (i.e. a Galaxy Note 3). Either you must have one, or you must be sneaky enough to go into a Best Buy and use one of theirs really quickly.

II. Bypass Activation Screen on the Galaxy Gear

Unfortunately, we need to access the device’s settings screen but are not able to do that without connecting a device to it first. This means you need a device that is currently compatible with the Gear (at least for a few minutes) to pair with it first then you can finish the rest of the procedure with any device. If you don’t have access to one of these devices, it might be possible to go to a Best Buy store with your Galaxy Gear and simply pair to one of the demo Galaxy Note 3’s in there then walk out once it’s done, but the staff at the store might punch you in the face for that. Maybe.

1. Go to Settings and enable NFC on the Galaxy Gear approved phone (i.e. Galaxy Note 3).

2. Hold the Galaxy Gear Charging Dock to the back of the Galaxy Gear approved phone and wait for it to install Gear Manager.

3. Follow the prompts on the Gear approved phone to connect to the Gear until the Gear shows the time on it indicating it is past the activation process.

III. Enable USB Debugging on the Galaxy Gear and Install Drivers

Next, we need to enable USB Debugging on the Gear so we can connect to it from the computer.

1. Go to Settings > Gear Info > and Tap Software Version 10 times.

2. Go back.

3. Enable USB Debugging on the Galaxy Gear.

4. Download the Samsung USB Drivers to your Desktop.

5. Right-click the .zip file you downloaded and click extract all.

6. Double-click the .exe file inside to install the drivers.

7. Plug in the Galaxy Gear via USB by putting it in it’s charging dock and plugging in a USB cable from it to the computer. Let the drivers install.

IV. Root the Galaxy Gear

After installing enabling USB Debugging and installing the ADB drivers, we can connect to it via USB from our computer and gain root access.

1. Download Cydia Impactor and save it to your Desktop.

2. Right-click the .zip file and click Extract All.

3. Double-click the Impactor .exe file inside the newly extracted folder.

4. When it opens, it should show # drop SuperSU su to /system/xbin/su in the field. If it does, click Start. If it doesn’t, put it in there manually, then click Start.

5. When it pops an error about allowing the connection, click Always allow and click OK on your Galaxy Gear.

6. Close the error and click Start again. This time it should proceed with the process.

7. Download Wondershare Mobile Go (the Free Trial will work just fine), save it to your Desktop, and double-click the .exe file to install it.

8. Open Wondershare on your computer.

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

10. Search for and install SuperSU (free version by Chainfire).

11. Open SuperSU on the Galaxy Gear by swiping over to Apps from the homescreen then swiping through that to find SuperSU and tapping it.

12. When prompted to update the SU Binary, tap yes.

After that, you are all set and rooted. Now the fun begins. Head to our Galaxy Gear Rooting How To’s section to see all the other how to’s you can do with root access. Enjoy!

76 thoughts on “How to Root the Samsung Galaxy Gear (Video)”

  1. Hi, I cant get my gear to connect to the computer its says “no device” found??
    Can you help me with this?
    Cheers

    1. Joseph Sarigianopoulos

      Try a different USB cord. I went nuts for a bit until I changed it. Worked like a charm. Actually, I used the USB that came with my phone, NOT the gear cord.

    1. Sounds to me like you’ve done a recent software update on your gear, am i right?? Well if you did this is what you have to do to get back the USB debugging option.

      Go to settings on the Gear, scrawl down to Gear info, Press About Gear, You’ll see Software version, keep pressing 7 times you’ll see the msg how many clicks u need after that the debug will show up on the gear info. Simple….. Good luck.

    1. Aaron-David Berry

      I am having the same problem, not just with super su, but everything I try to dowbload…have you heard of any solutions?

  2. I also got to the wondershare an when i press install it go upp to 43-68% then stops and say: Install failed invalid uri. How to fix m8? :/

  3. I am getting Connection failed –> Failed to connect your mobile device to your Gear. Make sure that the correct charging dock is being used. Any help will be appreciated.

  4. Nice post david. Btw to install SuperSu you need to do this: Open WonderShare Go > Select Device > Install Apps and give it the SuperSu.apk file. You can find the apk file on google and place it on desktop for your ease and select it upon prompted. I was just trying to root my Gear and found this not working and found the solution to update my guide > so posting it here as well to help the people.

  5. You can pretty much do this on Linux as well with the Linux version of Impactor. I had to code a LD_PRELOAD lib since the impactor executable kept dying on a call to free(). I just stubbed out the calls to free and it worked perfectly. Now rooted 🙂

  6. Hi

    This is all quite new to me but I have got to the point where I install SuperSu on my gear. but having pressed continue to update the su binary, the installation fails. I have googled around and tried superuser, busybox but with no internet access or keyboard, i do not know how i can get past this stage. how can the su binary be updated other than the method i have tried. (pressing continue)

    any help would be appreciated!

  7. i managed to install supersu but when it tries to update su binary, it says installation failed. Can anyone please help me .

  8. Rooted fine but Google play crashes upon opening running a blue tooth tether..which I can surf Web but Google b play crashes can’t get it to work

  9. when i try to update I get supersu failed to verify whole-file signature. How do i fix this? when i am in supersu and I click update it fails.

  10. I got all the way to the last step. When I do the wonders hare step and download the super su it doesn’t give me the option to download to my gear only my note 3 or other phones and tablets. Any help?

  11. Hello everyone! Someone emailed me to let me know that the procedure has changed (it used to work fine when I originally posted it) and so there are missing steps, adding them ASAP. For future reference, I simply can’t answer all the comments on the site so if there is a big issue that everyone is noticing, please just shoot me an email by using the contact us form on the site and I’ll look into it! Thanks for understand and please hold for the changes (they’ll be listed as an update on the procedure when they are done).

  12. so ive successfully rooted and there’s an annoying little droid floating around in my watch.

    any way to get rid of it?

      1. Do you have a pic of the droid floating around? Never heard of that… Check the new featured comment about the SuperSU question (located at the top of the comments here).

  13. Benerallee Mainard

    Hi guys.. to get supersu on your gear.. connect your phone to wondershare.. download supersu to your phone, then export it to your gear… and then follow the gear directions
    😉

  14. DeWayne Canterberry

    I used these steps to root my watch and everything installed just fine. But when I woke up this morning to my surprise nothing was on my watch but the original stuff. What do I do to fix this.

    1. Not sure honestly never heard of it doing that. You’ll have to check the original thread on XDA linked in the article and see if someone else has reported something similar.

  15. Hi Guys any advice? I ve rooted and success by installing supersu + update su. then I installed custom tw rom.md5 with odin status pass I rebooted to recovery mode but I got Black screen. I have tried several times It could not load the custom twrp rom at all
    please advise?

  16. Be carefull Null27 do no work at all its crashed my gear in downloading mode for while
    I installed Null23 it works perfectly

  17. I can’t get SuperSU to install to my Galaxy Gear and I keep receiving this error message when I connect to MobileGo – “String was not recognized as a valid DateTime”. Please help

  18. I have a problem. I opened the play store but it asked me to log in. I pressed on “Existing” but it crashed. Can any one help?

  19. Hello i have a problem my gear has a yellow triangle trying to root i tried odin to fix it but no look it says (firmware upgrade encountered an issue please select recovery mode in Kies & try again) and y went to Keis and still nothing can someone help

  20. wondershare wont install the supersu app without signing into my google account. Clicking install brings up a list of devices including my current and past phones but not my gear. I installed it on my phone but after aI click on downloads I get a failed to download msg for the app.

  21. Hey I am getting no device found while starting impactor even I installed the samsung driver with your given link. can you please help.

  22. not allowing me to install Super SU on Gear. Only allows the install of Super SU on registered google play devices. help.

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