firebase_messaging_watchos

The watchOS implementation of firebase_messaging.

Bridges the Firebase Apple SDK (FirebaseMessaging) to Flutter on watchOS over dart:ffi. Method-channel plugins are not supported on watchOS, so this package exports C symbols from watchos/Classes/firebase_messaging_watchos_ffi.m that wrap FIRMessaging; watchos/Package.swift declares a SwiftPM dependency on firebase-ios-sdk's FirebaseMessaging product, and Dart resolves the symbols via DynamicLibrary.process(). Token and topic calls use an async begin/poll bridge; received messages queue natively and a Dart pump drains them into the platform interface's onMessage / onMessageOpenedApp streams.

Experimental. Firebase support on watchOS is new. This package builds, links the Firebase Apple SDK, and passes its host tests and an on-simulator smoke test, but has not yet been proven on physical watch hardware; it is published as a pre-release.

Requires firebase_core_watchos (the initialization + app registry foundation) and a flutter-watchos CLI with external-SwiftPM-dependency linking.

APNs on watchOS

Firebase Cloud Messaging needs the APNs device token, which watchOS delivers only through the app-level WKApplicationDelegate. The flutter-watchos runner ships a FlutterWatchOSAppDelegate that owns the notification delegates and rebroadcasts the remote-notification and user-notification callbacks to plugins; adopt it in your App:

@WKApplicationDelegateAdaptor(FlutterWatchOSAppDelegate.self)
private var flutterAppDelegate

Apps created with a current flutter-watchos template already include this. Add remote-notification to UIBackgroundModes and the push entitlement to receive messages on device. The watch simulator has no APNs environment, so getToken returns null there.

Implemented surface

• Tokens: getToken, getAPNSToken, deleteToken, onTokenRefresh.
• Permissions: requestPermission, getNotificationSettings (mapped to the watchOS-safe subset of UNNotificationSettings; capabilities the watch lacks — badge, CarPlay, lock screen, previews — report notSupported).
• Messages: onMessage, onMessageOpenedApp, getInitialMessage.
• Topics: subscribeToTopic, unsubscribeFromTopic.
• Presentation & init: setForegroundNotificationPresentationOptions, setAutoInitEnabled / isAutoInitEnabled.

registerBackgroundMessageHandler is a no-op — watchOS has no background isolate to run a handler in — and setDeliveryMetricsExportToBigQuery is Android/web only.

Usage

This is a federated plugin implementation. Apps that already depend on firebase_messaging and target watchOS add this package (and the firebase_core_watchos foundation) alongside it:

dependencies:
  firebase_core: ^4.0.0
  firebase_core_watchos: ^0.0.1-beta.1
  firebase_messaging: ^15.0.0
  firebase_messaging_watchos: ^0.0.1-beta.1

Then use firebase_messaging's API exactly as on iOS — the watchOS implementation registers automatically via Flutter's federated plugin runner.

License

The FlutterWatch Authors under a BSD-3-Clause license. See LICENSE for the full text. Firebase itself is © Google under the Apache-2.0 license.