Android Wear Notification is not displayed if FLAG_NO_CLEAR is used

android, wear-os

Solution

Notification flag `FLAG_NO_CLEAR` basically makes your notification "ongoing". Ongoing notifications posted from phone will NOT be displayed on the wearable device.

You have two solutions to your problem - both of them have advantages and disadvantages. Please read text below and decide which solution will solve your situation better:)

Solution 1 - use group:

You can make use of `group` feature of Android Wear framework. It's basically created to post many (grouped) notifications on wearable device and one `summary` notification on phone. But using this mechanism you can also post one `ongoing` notification on your phone and second notification only on wear. You will end up with one `ongoing` notification on your phone and one normal notification on your wearable device.

    final NotificationManagerCompat notificationManager = NotificationManagerCompat.from(this);

    // This notification will be shown only on phone
    final NotificationCompat.Builder phoneNotificationBuilder = new NotificationCompat.Builder(this)
        .setSmallIcon(R.drawable.ic_launcher)
        .setContentTitle("Title phone")
        .setContentText("Text phone")
        .setOngoing(true)
        .setOnlyAlertOnce(true)
        .setGroup("GROUP")
        .setGroupSummary(true);

    // This notification will be shown only on watch
    final NotificationCompat.Builder wearableNotificationBuilder = new NotificationCompat.Builder(this)
        .setSmallIcon(R.drawable.ic_launcher)
        .setContentTitle("Title wearable")
        .setContentText("Text wearable")
        .setOngoing(false)
        .setOnlyAlertOnce(true)
        .setGroup("GROUP")
        .setGroupSummary(false);

    notificationManager.notify(0, phoneNotificationBuilder.build());
    notificationManager.notify(1, wearableNotificationBuilder.build());

This method will allow you to post an "alternative" notification for watch only, keeping your `ongoing` notification on phone. But (as mentioned earlier) the notification on watch cannot be `ongoing` - it has to be a normal notification. If you really want to have a true `ongoing` notification on watch you'll need to go for second solution.

Please read more about grouping (stacking) notifications here: https://developer.android.com/training/wearables/notifications/stacks.html

Solution 2 - create wearable app:

Ongoing notifications from phone won't be shown on watch, but you can create wearable part of your Android application and post your notification directly on Android Wear. You can easily post an ongoing notification from there, but it won't be the same notification as is on phone. You will need to sync them between both devices.

Please read more about `DataApi` here: https://developer.android.com/training/wearables/data-layer/index.html https://developer.android.com/training/wearables/data-layer/data-items.html

You can also take a look at my post where I've posted a code demonstrating how to use a `DataApi` in practise: https://stackoverflow.com/a/24896043/3827276

Problem

Original source

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