I have been the proud owner of the first standalone Google Daydream headset since it launched – I actually got it at launch day. It is an excellent platform offering support countless hours of entertainment. Sadly one feature that is absent from Google Daydream is the ability to download content offline. This really seems like an oversight on Google’s end as the current Google Play Movies app on Daydream even offers a way to view offline content and manage storage. After hours of browsing the web, I came up with no current method of downloading offline content. I have a trip coming up and I am determined to binge watch content on my Daydream headset – fortunately I have come up with a solution.

Note : This method requires the use of the Android Debug Bridge (adb). You will need to install the correct version of adb for your operating system. This guide will not cover those steps. You will also need a USB-C to full size USB-A if your laptop or computer does not have a Type C port.

Note: Downloading offline movies will take up a lot of space. I strongly recommend adding a large MicroSD card to your daydream before downloading movies.

Enabling USB Debugging

We will need to enable USB Debugging on your daydream headset. The instructions are as follows

Open Settings Select “System” Select “About Device” Tap “Build Number” 7 times to expose the “Developer Options” menu Go back one menu and select “Developer Options” Enable USB Debugging

You can then connect your Daydream Headset to your computer and attempt to open a adb shell by typing “adb shell” at the prompt to test that you can connect to your headset. Type “exit” to leave the shell.

Forcing the Phone Activity

In order to expose the Download Functions, we will need to re-launch Google Play Movies with the Phone UI. This can be done by typing the following on your computer.

adb shell am start -n com.google.android.videos/.activity.LauncherActivity

or

am start -n com.google.android.videos/.activity.LauncherActivity

if you are already in a adb shell. You can then put your headset back on and you will be greeted with the Google Play Movies phone UI – complete with the download buttons! You can then download all of the movies and TV shows that you wish and watch them back in the normal Daydream.

You will need to use this method each time in the future if you want to download new content. Sadly there is no permanent way to do it

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