How to customize the shortcut button on the Huawei Watch 2

The Huawei Watch 2 and its leather-equipped Classic counterpart are compelling Android Wear devices, and some of the best-looking to boot. Whichever one you buy, you can change the watch face or even swap out the strap to give it a personal touch — but why stop there?

Each watch features two hardware buttons: the power button, used for most tasks like waking the display, launching Google Assistant, and viewing all apps; and a shortcut button that, by default, launches the Workout app. Luckily, if fitness monitoring isn't your thing, it's easy to set that shortcut button to launch something else.

Customizing the shortcut button

It only takes a few steps to change that Workout shortcut into a quick launch for Google Play Music or Android Pay.

  1. Swipe down from the watch face or press the power button to launch the app list and tap the Settings app.
  2. Scroll down and tap Personalization.
  3. Tap Customize hardware buttons.
  4. Tap Bottom right.
  5. Scroll through your app list and tap the app you want to launch with the shortcut button.

That's it! From now on, pressing the shortcut button from the watch face will launch the app of your choosing. Keep in mind that the shortcut button won't work while you're in another app, as some apps utilize additional hardware buttons for their own features. Maybe some day Google will update Android Wear with the option to bypass this limitation with a long press the custom button.

Hayato Huseman

Hayato was a product reviewer and video editor for Android Central.