How to Use Nearly Any Watch Face on an Apple Watch, Not Just the Built-In Ones [CNET]

Tired of seeing the same ol’ clock face on your Apple Watch? Expand beyond Apple’s selection with these apps.

Every Apple Watch release includes new watch faces, and we expect more to come when the upcoming watchOS 11 arrives this fall. But after almost 10 years of Apple’s smart timepiece, there’s still a glaring limitation — we can’t add any face we want.

Well, officially that is.

It is possible to install other watch faces, and you don’t even need to hack or modify your Apple Watch. Third-party apps have figured out how to work around Apple’s limitations — in an approved way — to vastly expand the options for watch faces. If you’re bored with the current options and have been thinking about giving your Apple Watch a facelift, it’s time to check out alternatives.

Read more: Old watch in a drawer? Use the Apple Watch as a Smart Home Remote.

First, let’s show you how to switch between Apple Watch faces

Apple’s collection of clock faces includes dozens of designs and variations, from simulated analog faces evoking minimal real-world watches to information-dense displays packing as much data into the small space as possible. You can have up to 50 faces at the ready, which are most easily switched by swiping from the left or right edge of the Apple Watch screen. (If that isn’t working, make sure you’ve updated to WatchOS 10.6. The initial 10.0 release removed this handy feature.)

There are two ways to add faces, via the watch itself or your iPhone.

On your watch:

1. Touch and hold the clock face until you see the chooser interface — the face shrinks to make room for its name, a sharing button and an Edit button.
2. Swipe to the left until you see the New screen and tap the + button.
3. Scroll through the options. They’re listed alphabetically, so if you know which one you want, scroll quickly using the Digital Crown to jump down the alphabet. Tap Add for the one you want.
4. Change any of the face’s options, such as color and complications (the functions embedded in some faces).
5. Press the Digital Crown to finish editing and activate the face.

On your iPhone, do this:

1. Open the Watch app and tap Face Gallery at the bottom.
2. Choose and configure the face you want.
3. Tap the Add button.

Thanks to complementary complications, custom faces are possible

In traditional watchmaking, a complication is typically an additional mechanism besides the main clock hands, such as an integrated stopwatch or a smaller clock you can set to another time zone for your jet-setting lifestyle.

On the Apple Watch, complications are assigned to dedicated areas and display information such as the current weather conditions, Activity rings or your current compass heading. Tapping a complication usually opens an associated app, like Weather or Calendar.

Third-party developers have seized on this opening, creating their own complications to run in those spaces. In fact, the apps I’m referencing here provide a framework enabling anyone to make their own designs — resulting in hundreds of possibilities.

Note that some of the apps’ faces are free to use, but to access most designs you’ll need to sign up for a paid subscription.

Change up complications with Facer

Facer substitutes its own complications into Apple’s existing faces. A licensed Atari design, for example, is built on the Portraits face, using its own images for the background. Many other faces take advantage of Apple’s Modular face, adding custom designs and functions to the complications.

Under the hood, the Facer app lives on your iPhone and communicates with a companion Apple Watch app that populates the faces. To add a new face, do the following:

1. Open Facer on the iPhone and tap one you want to activate.
2. Tap the blue Add button with the icon of an arrow on a watch. That switches to the Watch app.
3. Tap Add to My Faces.

After a few moments, the face is activated on your watch and the custom complications load.

Facer also has an app for Android smartwatches. Some of the faces, particularly ones mimicking high-end watches such as official designs by MVMT, are available only for circular Android models and don’t show up for the Apple Watch.

Take over the entire clock face with Clockology

Just like Facer, the app Clockology includes faces that work with Apple’s existing frameworks. However, some of the faces use a Full Screen option that breaks out of that mold, with some limitations.

Instead of forcing functionality into existing complications, a Full Screen face in Clockology takes over the entire clock. But wait, didn’t I just say that’s not allowed in WatchOS?

Yes, but there’s nothing preventing the Clockology app to display whatever it wants. To bypass the default clock — which is a separate Clock app that has special system privileges — Clockology runs as the front-most app. So you’re running a separate app on top of the Clock app that happens to also be a clock.

Installing a face in Clockology is similar to Facer’s approach:

1. Open the Clockology app on the iPhone and tap the design you want to add.
2. Make sure the Clockology app is open on the watch.
3. Tap the Sync button on the iPhone.

To prevent the regular Clock app from taking over each time you lower your wrist, you need to change an important preference. On the Apple Watch or in the Watch app on the iPhone, go to Settings > General > Return to Clock and select After 1 hour. That keeps the last app you opened active. If you don’t happen to check your watch or trigger it in some way after an hour, the Clock app will become front-most. Open Clockology to start the timer and keep it prominent: double-press the Digital Crown to reveal recent apps and tap Clockology.

Keep these tradeoffs in mind when substituting watch faces

The novelty of running new watch faces doesn’t wear off anytime soon, but you do need to know about some downsides to using alternate watch faces. In exchange for shaking up the Apple Watch’s visuals, you give up some functionality.

For faces that create custom complications, tapping them takes you to the Facer or Clockology app, not the underlying data sources such as Weather or Heart Rate. That means no quick-access tools such as the Timers app. However, you can replace any of the complications with ones from other apps once the face is installed.

Most of the Clockology Full Screen faces are not interactive at all. They’ll display information in various ways — like battery level and the day’s step count — but tapping the face doesn’t lead to more data. The exceptions are a few Clockology faces that include a button layer that changes what’s presented when you tap. You also won’t see the notifications indicator (the red dot at the top of the screen) when a Full Screen face is active.

And one small annoyance: Pressing the Digital Crown normally takes you to the Apps list, but if you’re running the Clockology app, pressing it takes you to the Clock app. Press again to get to the apps.

The Apple Watch is a constant companion for millions of people, even in the face of competition from Android smartwatches and devices such as smart rings. Whether you’re discovering a use for an old watch or finding hidden App Store gems, the watch has proven itself to be more than just a timepiece – and now you can customize even that essential feature in more ways than ever.