JudahsBase

The Tizen Watch – Apps No More

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by

Judah Nava
in

A smartwatch is usually a “buy it, forget it” kind of deal – grab the latest model, download your favorite apps, and go. But for some of us still rocking older Samsung watches – specifically the ones running Samsung’s old software platform called Tizen – things aren’t so simple.

Wait, six years doesn’t sound that old for a smartwatch, right? So why can’t I download apps on it anymore?

Here’s why: on December 16, 2023, Samsung officially stopped supporting Tizen-based apps in the Galaxy Store. That means anyone with a Tizen-powered watch (like the Galaxy Watch 3 or older) is now cut off from the app ecosystem. And if you thought sideloading your own apps might be a workaround… buckle up.

So, those of us who still have the watch and want to make custom apps for it are facing a unique issue that most developers of side apps don’t really know about. At least not yet. To make a custom application for a Tizen based watch, like the SMR800, you need to get Samsung to generate a certification file that is unique to your watch so you can side load custom applications. This process is different from making APK’s for traditional Android platforms.

Now, Samsung is dropping support for the Cert generation process, leaving many of us who don’t have certificate files left with a watch that will never have a new application for the time come, as of 10/17/2025. It was described as an evolution, but this feels far from that: here.

My Journey

I started late. I started tying to work on my watch in the start of October 2025, quite far from their announcement of support drop. I have always wanted to work on the watch (SMR800) but I did not have an urgency because I assumed that I can side load applications the same way I can with a phone or tablet.

When I loaded up Tizen Studio, it took me a while to get used the process and package manager it has. It seems Tizen Studio is being depreciated for the Tizen extensions for VS code and Visual Studio. I eventually got the right version of Tizen Studio and started working on getting the Samsung Certificates needed. These watched don’t allow side loading unless you have a Samsung generated certificate. Then I faced the PKCS#12 Error. Also here.

The PKCS#12 Error

This error pops up when requesting Samsung to generate an author or distributor certification. The latter cert is misleading as I don’t have the intention of distributing any applications to other people but it is required non the less.
It comes off as a Java error and that is what started my journey of environment switching, cert process exploring, alternative solution exploring, and considering defeat.

23 Java Versions

After testing 23 different Java versions on Windows 11… Ok, so it was actually 4 different Java versions, but they were on two different laptops because I was worried one of my laptops might of had something affecting the software so isn’t that like 8 different java versions? Never mind.

Two different laptops, 4 java versions, multiple Tizen Studio versions including the VScode extension and the CLI version. These are all the different versions I tried using to get the Samsung certificate generator working. No luck, just the same error. The PKCS#12 error. From this point on, I was hoping someone built a tool that, that is when I stumbled on tizencertificates by sreyemnayr on github.

Cert Process Exploring

The GitHub project, tizencertificates, aims to replicate the cert process that the Samsung certification plugin uses. It is based on the work from this Github Project here.This seemed like a great alternative because it uses python at it seems that other people close to this project achieved success. So when I tried it, I was greatly disappointed to get HTML error 500. I, with ChatGPT decided to investigate how the project was built.

Opening up the Samsung Cert Package Java Files

So the package uses work from Andreas Mausch on his research on the Samsung certificate generation process. There seems to at one point be a whole project that relates to his work but I have since been able to find that project. At this time I have not been able to make contact with him. My one option so far seems to get Linkedin plus to directly message him.

In the tizencertificates project, there is a file that reades the package files of the plugin and extracts information. So using Codex and the most recent updated plugin package, I found out the changed the endpoint for Samsung Cert generation.
Old:

  • https://dev.tizen.samsung.com/apis/v2/authors
  • https://dev.tizen.samsung.com:443/apis/v2/distributors

New

  • https://svdca.samsungqbe.com/apis/v1/distributors
  • https://svdca.samsungqbe.com/apis/v3/authors

The call to action!

  • Find a way to contact Andreas Mausch
  • is there anyone in XDA forums that can help us? Clue?
  • Using Postman to further explore the endpoints.

This follows with the changelogs I found in the package details:

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