In September 2023, Apple released watchOS 10, the latest operating system for the Apple Watch. This version of watchOS brought with it significant updates, including Smart Stack widgets, Bluetooth accessory support for cycling, and new tools in the Mindfulness app. Additionally, watchOS 10 introduced a number of new watch faces, including Snoopy, Palette, Solar Analog, and Nike Globe.

Apple Watch owners can choose from a wide range of faces. Even after selecting the Apple Watch face, each one can be highly customized, changing styles and colors, as well as adding features that the company from Cupertino calls “complications.”

Some Apple Watch faces make a personal statement. Others are tuned in for health and maximizing sports performance, while others are strictly designed for work. Changing face watches once they’re in your collection is as easy as a tap and a swipe.

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To help with your business tasks and related activities, an Apple Watch face that delivers helpful information at a glance can be an asset. If you just need the time and no other distractions, you can choose a simple face such as California, Simple, Typograph, or Numerals. On the other hand, if you deal with people and projects worldwide, the GMT and World Time faces display the time in different zones.

16 best Apple Watch faces

  1. Metropolitan

The Metropolitan is a classic, type-driven watch face that features custom-designed numbers that dynamically change in style as you turn the Digital Crown. The numerals rotate to become pills when your wrist is down.

You can add complications to this face, such as Activity, Alarms, Astronomy (Moon Phase), Audiobooks, Calendar, Remote Camera, Compass (Compass, Elevation, and Level), Compass Waypoints, Contacts, News, Phone, Reminders, Sleep, Stock, Workout, and World Clock.

Figure A

Metropolitan Apple Watch Face.
Metropolitan Apple Watch Face. Image: Apple
  1. Lunar

This face depicts the relationship between the Gregorian calendar and the lunar calendar used in many cultures, such as Chinese, Hebrew, and Islamic. Customizable features for this face include Color, Calendar (Chinese, Hebrew, and Islamic), and Time.

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Lunar Apple Watch face.
Lunar Apple Watch face. Image: Apple
  1. Playtime

Apple teamed up with artist Joi Fulton to create this face. The result is a dynamic, colorful art face unique to the brand. You can rotate the Digital Crown to change the background, and characters react when you tap on the face.

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Playtime Face Apple Watch.
Playtime Face Apple Watch. Image: Apple
  1. Astronomy

The latest Astronomy face features a new star map and current cloud data. This watch face shows a continuously updated 3D model of the earth, moon, or solar system. You can customize the view of the Earth, Moon, and Solar System; set a random view and change the style.

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Astronomy Apple Watch face.
Astronomy Apple Watch face. Image: Apple
  1. California

Several Apple Watch faces offer visuals, animations, and other bells and whistles, but sometimes simplicity is best. The California face offers a clean look with a traditional analog time display with numerals in Arabic, Roman, or other styles. The Simple style serves up a clean, primary analog display, and the Typograph type displays large numerals, so you can easily see them.

Figure E

California Apple Watch face.
California Apple Watch face. Image: Apple
  1. Numerals

For a straightforward Apple Watch face, the Numerals displays a single bold number for the current time with three hands to indicate hours, minutes, and seconds.

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Numerals Face Apple Watch.
Numerals Face Apple Watch. Image: Apple

To set this up, scroll down the Face Gallery in the Watch app on your iPhone until you see the face for Numerals. Choose the color and style you prefer. This face offers just one complication: You can customize to see today’s date, the weather, reminders, or other information. When ready, tap Add to add it to your current Apple Watch face.

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Setting up Numerals face on Apple Watch.
Setting up Numerals face on Apple Watch. Image: Apple
  1. Nike Analog, Bounce, and Globe

Since the watchOS 9 update, Apple Watch users who are runners can access all the Nike watch faces — even those without a Nike model. The analog-style watch face prominently displays the time in large numerals.

Figure I

Nike Analog face.
Nike Analog face. Image: Apple

Nike Bounce is a watch face that moves as you move. The digital numerals react to every step, jump, or movement of the wrist. Users can also tap the display or turn the Digital Crown to set things in motion.

Figure J

Nike Bounce Apple Watch face.
Nike Bounce Apple Watch face. Image: Apple

Nike Globe is the newest Nike face, which features a globe with 60 lines of longitude, each of which lights up as a second passes. Globe colors and styles can be customized, and Nike-specific complications for fitness tracking can be added.

Nike Globe Apple Watch face.
Nike Globe Apple Watch face. Image: Apple
  1. Portrait

The Portraits watch face uses photos from the photo library on the user´s iPhone. Up to three styles and up to 24 images can be selected. A new photo appears each time you raise your wrist or tap the display. Depth effects can also be applied to images.

Figure K

Portrait Apple Watch face.
Portrait Apple Watch face. Image: Apple
  1. GMT

Knowing the time in different countries and regions can certainly be helpful if you deal with colleagues, customers, or other people around the world.

The GMT face displays your local time in the inner part of the dial and the time for a different zone in the outer part. To set a different time zone, tap the watch face and turn the Digital Crown until you find the zone you want to view. Tap the checkmark. Now, the outer ring will show you the time in that region.

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GMT Apple Watch Face.
GMT Apple Watch Face. Image: Apple
  1. World Time

The World Time face lets you track the time in 24 time zones at once. The sun and moon icons represent sunrise and sunset where you are, and the light and dark zones on the globe reflect night and day moving across the earth.

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World Time Apple Watch face.
World Time Apple Watch face. Image: Apple

To set this face, first, make sure you’re running the latest version of watchOS. Next, open the Face Gallery on your iPhone’s Watch app. The World Time appears at the top of the screen under New Watch Faces and toward the bottom of the screen as part of the alphabetical list. Choose the color and style you wish to apply to the face. You can also customize any of the four complications at the four corners.

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The inner dial shows the time in your current zone with an analog or digital display. The outer dial shows the time in each zone worldwide in military or 24-hour time.

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Setting up World Time Apple Watch Face.
Setting up World Time Apple Watch Face. Image: Apple
  1. Infograph

The Infograph face features up to eight rich, full-color complications and subdials. Maybe you need to see a lot of information, such as the weather, temperature, elevation, mail, reminders, or stock activities. Or perhaps you want to be able to easily use certain tools on the Apple Watch, such as the calculator, camera remote, compass, stopwatch, timer, or voice recorder. In those cases, you need an Apple Watch face that can display multiple details.

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Apple Watch Infograph Face.
Apple Watch Infograph Face. Image: Apple

To set up Infograph on your Apple Watch, go to the Face Gallery in the phone app, and swipe down to and tap the Infograph face. Choose your favorite color. Then tap each of the complications to select the information you want to see. Add the face. The different complications appear in the four corners of the face and a series of small dials in the center.

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Apple Watch Infograph face complications.
Apple Watch Infograph face complications. Image: Apple
  1. Breathe

Sometimes you just need to unwind from the daily grind. For that, you can turn to watch faces that encourage you to relax.

The Breathe face offers quick access to the Breathe app, which helps you breathe in and out for a short duration as a way to calm yourself. The face displays a gentle drawing of a face, which you can tap to transform into a different image. And the Fire and Water face displays a changing animated image of fire and water interacting to create a peaceful effect.

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Apple Watch Breathe.
Apple Watch Breathe. Image: Apple
  1. Kaleidoscope

One particularly relaxing Apple Watch face is Kaleidoscope, which displays a series of slowly moving kaleidoscopic images that are soothing to watch.

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Kaleidoscope Apple Watch Face.
Kaleidoscope Apple Watch Face. Image: Apple

To set this face, from the Face Gallery in the Watch app, tap the Kaleidoscope face. Choose the image you wish to see. You can even add one of your own photos. Select a style and add complications if you wish. Add the face and watch the image change when you need a break .

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Apple Watch Kaleidoscope face.
Apple Watch Kaleidoscope face. Image: Apple
  1. Snoopy

By far the cutest Apple Watch face on offer, the Snoopy watch face features characters from the Peanuts comic strip, including Snoopy and Woodstock, who interact with the watch hands and react to weather conditions. The face offers various animations, changing each time the wrist is raised. When the display is dimmed, the characters are shown as sleeping.

Comic fans will also notice that the background changes color on Sundays to mimic the Sunday comic strips.

INSERT:snoopy-apple-watch-face.jpg

When the display is dimmed, the Peanuts characters are shown as sleeping.
When the display is dimmed, the Peanuts characters are shown as sleeping. Image: Apple
  1. Palette

One of the most visually appealing designs, Palette displays the time using three overlapping layers of colors that shift throughout the day. Users can customize this face with different gradient patterns and add up to four complications.

Palette watch face.
Palette watch face. Image: Apple
  1. Solar Analog

The Solar Analog watch face shows an analog representation of the sun’s position throughout the day. It provides a classic look with the added functionality of visualizing daylight hours, sunrise, and sunset with light and shadow. The dial style and colors can be customized.

The light and shadow shown on Solar Analog shift depending on the sun’s position at that time.
The light and shadow shown on Solar Analog shift depending on the sun’s position at that time. Image: Apple

You can also find Apple Watch faces and Apple Watch face apps from third parties. Open the App Store, either on your iPhone or directly on your Apple Watch. Search for the term “watch faces,” and you’ll find several paid and some free apps that offer their own faces for your Apple Watch.

How to add faces using the iPhone app

You can add new faces to your Apple Watch through your iPhone or using your watch. To add faces using your phone, open the Watch app on your iPhone, then tap the icon at the bottom: Face Gallery. The face gallery will show you all the latest Apple Watch faces, as well as those Apple has unveiled in the past.

Swipe down and across the gallery, and tap a face you like. Each face can be customized, and you can add extra information displays like data, weather, time zones, heart rate, mail, and voice memos, among many others. You can even add complications from third-party apps. Once you are done, tap the Add button to add it to your Apple Watch. The face you added will appear in the My Faces list in the Watch app and on your Apple Watch.

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The My Faces list.
The My Faces list. Image: Apple

Add a new face using your Apple Watch

To add faces using your Apple Watch, swipe edge to edge across the watch face to see other faces in your collection. To see all available watch faces, touch and hold the watch face. Then swipe to the one you want and tap to select it.

You can also customize a face directly on the watch. To do this, press down on the face until it shrinks in size and an Edit button appears. Tap the Edit button, and turn the Digital Crown to choose a different color or style. Swipe the face to the left to see the Complications screen. Tap a specific complication and turn the Digital Crown to change it.

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New face add using Apple Watch.
Image: Apple

To add complications to a face using your watch, first touch and hold the display, then tap Edit. Swipe left all the way to the end — the different available complications will show up on the last screen. Tap a complication to select it. To choose more complications, turn the Digital Crown and find a new one.

Once you are finished, press the Digital Crown to save your changes, then tap the face to switch to it. The entire process is very intuitive; once you have done it, adding complications comes easily. You can also add saved faces to your collection to access them easily.

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