When it comes to customising and personalising your Apple Watch, the watch face you set on the display is of paramount importance. It should fit in with your personal style, display information that’s most important to you, and look good. While Apple doesn’t allow third party watch-faces on the Apple Watch, the company does offer a pretty large library of faces itself. So, here are the best Apple Watch faces that you should check out.
Note As one would expect, I am ranking these faces based on my personal preference. I would recommend that you go through the entire list.
1. Flux (watchOS 11)
Flux is one of the latest watch faces that arrived with watchOS 11, and it’s absolutely stunning, especially if you use it with the latest Series 10 that brings an LTPO 3 display. The watch face shows the time in big, bold numbers, along with a fill-up effect to show the passing seconds. You can choose from a number of color variations, or choose the Dynamic color option for a more colorful look.
If you’re using it with a new Apple Watch Series 10, the seconds animation works even in the always on display thanks to LTPO 3, and for other Apple Watches, the AOD screen still looks big and beautiful and shows you the time at a glance.
Personally, I like using the outline only style as you can see in the screenshot, because it just looks cleaner.
2. Modular Ultra (Apple Watch Ultra Only)
The Modular Ultra is my go-to watch face on my Apple Watch Ultra 2, because it just brings so much information thanks to its ability to show 7 different complications apart from the time. Plus you can customise the bezel to show information like the seconds, depth, elevation, and even training load.
In terms of customisation, you can change the clock type to show hours and minutes, or a variety of hour:minute:seconds styles. You can also enable or disable the night mode, and choose from an almost never ending list of color options, or even add your own custom colors for the watch face.
3. Chronograph Pro
If you’re looking for something that mimics the look of a beautiful analogue watch, while still bringing important information at a glance, the Chronograph Pro watch face is something you should check out. It looks absolutely stunning and as the name suggests it has a chronograph design. You can just tap on the bezel to convert your watch into a chronograph and record time in scales of 60, 30, 6, or 3 seconds.
You can also choose from a bunch of color options, or pick a custom color to make it perfectly match your outfit, and the watch face supports 4 complications, so you can get important information at a glance.
4. California
The California watch face has long been my go-to watch face when I require my Apple Watch to look more formal and less like a gadget. It brings the basics up-front and looks classy. You get the time, obviously, along with a bunch of options for the dial-markers including Devanagari if you want hindi numerals.
You can go full-screen or circular with the watch face. I prefer full-screen which gives me access to two complications. However, if you go circular, you’ll get four extra complications on each corner of the watch face. So if you want extra information on your wrist, you can go with that.
Another thing I really like about this watch-face is that it has one of the best looking Always-on-Displays of any Apple Watch face.
5. Toy Story
Who doesn’t love Toy Story? It’s one of my favourite animated movies of all time, and if you’re a die hard fan of the movie, the Toy Story watch face will definitely interest you.
The watch face features fun little animations from all the main Toy Story characters, so you can have Buzz Lightyear, or Woody play around on your wrist. You can tap on the watch face to see more animations from different characters as well.
Pro-tip: This is also a great way to keep a young kid playing around with the watch, in case you’re looking for something to distract your kids at times.
6. Snoopy
If you’re looking for a whimsical and fun watch face, the Snoopy watch face (introduced with watchOS 10) is one that you should definitely try.
As the name suggests, this watch face brings the iconic Snoopy to life on your watch face. He, along with Woodstock, play around your watch, and even interact with the watch’s hands depending on the time of the day, and other things like the weather.
The Always on Display for this watch face is beautiful as well, as it shows Snoopy resting in different poses throughout the day. It’s a fun way to check the time on your watch, but be warned, you will find yourself checking your watch way too often just to watch the characters play around.
7. Metropolitan
One of my personal favourite watch faces when watchOS 9 came out, Metropolitan is a clean watch face that manages to look minimal even with support for four complications around the corners. The watch face seems perfect for both casual and semi-formal settings, and you can rock it at a formal meeting as well, but I would personally stick with a more simple watch face in such a situation, like the California watch face.
In terms of customisation, Metropolitan offers four different types of watch styles, five dial options and a bunch of color choices to pick from. Basically, you can make this Apple watch face work with any outfits you have planned.
8. Lunar
The Lunar watch face is another one that came out with watchOS 9, and it brings a lot of information to your screen. It will prove really useful to people who like to keep a track of the lunar calendar alongside the Gregorian calendar. What’s more, it comes with support from three lunar calendars: Chinese, Hebrew, and Islamic.
There’s support for four complications around the corners, just like the Metropolitan watch face. However, this watch face can look a bit overwhelming to people; it certainly looked that way to me. Customisation options are definitely not a lot here, and you can only change the color of the second hand, and switch between an analogue and digital clock.
9. Infograph
One of my personal favourite Apple Watch faces, and the one you’d likely see me sporting on my watch most often is the Infograph watch face. This watch face brings a total of eight complications to the screen, which means there’s ton of information on here, which is great for me.
Also, the watch face makes great use of space, and it just looks amazing to me. Some people might find this to be too loaded with information, and if that’s the case you can either choose a different watch face from the rest of the list, or you can just turn off some of the complications from Infograph as well.
Personally, I even use some of these complications as quick-launchers for third party Apple Watch apps that I use, such as Spotify and Overcast.
Infograph is also the best watch face for exercise enthusiasts because you can add complications and shortcuts for all your workout related apps and features. So you can have things like the workout app, water logging apps (if you use any), heart rate tracking, and everything else in the same watch face.
10. Contour
If you want a watch face that’s clean and minimal but also brings a little bit of a dynamic element, Contour is probably for you. It’s an absolutely stunning looking watch face that gradually changes throughout the day to highlight the current hour. This means that the watch face always looks subtly different from hour to hour, and Apple has custom designed the font to perfectly fit into the edge of your Apple Watch.
Contour is a watch face that I have used a bunch on my Apple Watch Ultra 2, only to realise that this watch face is best suited to regular Apple Watches thanks to their slightly curved displays.
You get a bunch of color options here, including a slider to further adjust the darkness or lightness of the colors, along with two different styles for the font, and the ability to turn the dial color on or off. The watch face also supports two complications, but my recommendation would be to simply use the top complication for the date and keep the bottom complication turned off for a cleaner look.
11. Artists
The Artist watch face doesn’t really offer much in the way of customisation or even information for that matter (which is why it’s quite low on my list), but it’s still a neat face to have. There are two watch faces to choose from in this category, and I personally prefer the first one.
This one has been created with artist Geoff McFetridge. So what’s special about it? The portrait algorithmically changes every time you raise your wrist. You can tap on the face to change the portrait to a new design as well. It’s pretty neat, and as an added bonus, the always on display looks good.
The other watch face here has been created with artist Joi Fulton, and features the time as characters which react if you tap the watch face. It’s definitely a novelty watch face, but you’ll likely be bored of it fairly soon.
12. Activity
Another watch face that’s aimed at people who love to fill up their Activity rings every day, the aptly named Activity watch face comes in two styles — one with concentric rings for Move, Stand, and Exercise goals, and another with each ring assigned its own sub-dial, kind of like a chronograph watch arrangement.
It’s a simple enough watch face to keep a track of your activity goals for the day, and it even supports 3 complications — two on the top corners, and one in the bottom. Apart from that, the only customisation here is the ability to choose from a bunch of color options which subtly shade the bezel and the seconds hand.
13. Nike Globe
For a more sporty look when you’re out for a jog, you should check out the Nike Globe watch face. This watch face brings in a digital clock to show you the time, and the globe’s lines actually fill up with the passing seconds to give your watch a nice dynamic look.
In terms of customisation, you get a lot of color options, and the watch face supports 4 complications (one on each corner), so you can have important information displayed there. This one is a fairly simple watch face that offers a nice sporty look, while also not being too cluttered with complications or animations.
14. Numerals Duo
If you’re looking for a watch face that’s perfect for a casual outing with your friends, or maybe a trip to the beach, check out Numerals Duo. This watch face displays just the time in two-toned numerals on your watch screen and looks pretty nice.
There are a bunch of color-schemes that you can choose from, and a couple of styles as well. This watch face doesn’t support any complications however, which is why it’s best used for casual use cases like heading out to the beach.
15. Reflections (watchOS 11)
Reflections is another new watch face in watchOS 11, and the only reason it’s down at the very bottom of this list is because I personally think Apple could have made this a lot better than it is.
That said, this watch face is inspired by the materials that are used to make your Apple Watch and reflects light according to the movement of your wrist. You get to choose from a few color options and styles, and if you choose the circular dial style, you get support for 4 complications as well.
Best Apple Watch Faces by Use-cases
- Most Informational: Infograph
- Best for Exercising: Infograph (with custom complications) or Nike Compact
- Most Minimal: Simple
- Best for Formal Wear: California
- Coolest Looking: Flux
- Best for Informal Wear: Numerals Duo
- Best Always on Display: California
- Best for Kids: Snoopy or Toy Story
- Best for a Digital Watch Look: Modular
No matter which Apple Watch face you liked the best on our list, if you’re going to start using one, you might be wondering exactly how you can go about editing the face to use your favourite complications, or to change the color themes and more. Fortunately, it is really easy to customise your Apple Watch face and you can do it directly on the watch as well as on your iPhone.
If you’ve been using a watch face that’s completely customised to your needs, and you want to share it with your friends and family so that they can start using it too, it’s easier than ever before. Since the release of watchOS 7, you can easily share your Apple Watch face with other Apple Watch users. Check out the linked article for a step-by-step guide on how to do just that.
