How to play Genshin Impact on a Wear OS smartwatch

Now, thanks to the resurgence of Wear OS as a capable platform and the entry of both Google and OnePlus into the space, Android users now have more quality smartwatches to choose from. Wear OS 4 may still be considered inferior in terms of aesthetics and smoothness compared to Apple’s watchOS, but it’s still more than enough for most users. However, you can do something on a Wear OS smartwatch that you can’t do on an Apple Watch: play Genshin Impact!

Developer MlgmXyysd Find out how to run Genshin Impact on a Wear OS smartwatch. The experience is like this:

In the video above, the developer is playing Genshin Impact on the OPPO Watch X (renamed OnePlus Watch 2 in some global markets). The round display of the smartwatch cuts off several important UI elements such as the joystick, action buttons, and even the map, which is a clear indication that Genshin Impact is not optimized to run on a round smartwatch. The developers ran it on the OPPO Watch 4 Pro with a rectangular display, and the results were much better.

Still, ignoring the flawed UI, it’s impressive that a Wear OS smartwatch can run an infamous game with ease and bring even the best Android flagships to their knees.

So you ask, what’s the problem? The problem here is that the smartwatch doesn’t actually run Genshin Impact. Instead, it’s running a cloud-streamed version of the game, which has officially launched in some markets.

Genshin Impact Cloud can only be downloaded on smartphones, so you’ll need to find a way to sideload the smartphone app onto your smartwatch. Thankfully, Wear OS allows you to sideload apps easily. OnePlus Watch 2/OPPO Watch From there, you can sideload Genshin Impact Cloud via ADB, log into your account, and play the game on your smartwatch!

So why should you play Genshin Impact on a smartwatch? The answer is, because you can.

I don’t want anyone to enjoy playing a game like Genshin Impact on their little smartwatch screen with a terrible user interface. But the fact that you can sideload smartphone apps onto your smartwatch and stream games over the cloud in minutes is impressive. This is a great way to show off what your smartwatch can do that some other popular smartwatches on the market can’t do.

If you want to try this, please note that Genshin Impact Cloud only works in the following regions:

• Singapore
• Malaysia
• Indonesia
• Thailand
• the Philippines
• Laos
• Cambodia
• Bangladesh
• Myanmar
• China

If you try from another region, you will get a login error. You may be able to work around this by logging in via a VPN, but we haven’t explored this yet, so we recommend proceeding with caution.

Have you tried playing Genshin Impact on your smartwatch? How was your experience? Will you play optimized versions of games on your watch? Let us know in the comments below!