Personalize your Apple Watch with these unique watch apps

The original, chic $10,000 gold Apple Watch Edition was long discontinued, but the popular Apple Watch has since become the company’s most personalized product. A lucrative market for watch bands and a choice of aluminum and stainless steel case colors provide nearly limitless combinations of looks.

But what about the most decorative part of the watch, the watch face? The digital screen means you can display anything you want on it, but Apple keeps a tight rein on the designs it offers. Luckily, third-party watch face apps can greatly expand the ways you can express your own style. The best part is that you don’t have to hack or modify your watch to greatly expand your options.

Read more: Apple Watch X: Everything We Know About Release Date, Rumors, Leaks, and More

First, we’ll show you how to switch between watch faces on your Apple Watch

Apple’s collection of watch faces includes dozens of designs and variations, from simulated analog dials reminiscent of minimalist real-world watches to information-dense displays that cram as much data into as little space as possible. You can have up to 50 preset watch faces, which are easiest to switch between by swiping from the left or right edge of your Apple Watch’s display. (If that doesn’t work, 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 via iPhone.

On your watch:

1. Tap and hold the clock face until you see the selection interface – the clock face will shrink to make room for the name, share button, and edit button.
2. Swipe left until you see New screen and touch + button.
3. Scroll through the options. They are listed alphabetically, so if you know which one you want, quickly scroll with the Digital Crown to go alphabetically. Tap To add for the one you want.
4. Change any of the face options, such as color and complications (features embedded in some faces).
5. Press the Digital Crown to finish editing and activate the dial.

On your iPhone, do the following:

1. Open the Watch app and tap Face Gallery at the bottom.
2. Select and configure your desired appearance.
3. Click To add button.

Complementary complications make it possible to create custom faces

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

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

Third-party developers have seized this opportunity by creating their own complications to run in these spaces. In fact, the applications I refer to provide a framework that allows anyone to create their own projects—which opens up hundreds of possibilities.

Please note that some of the designs in the app are free to use, but to access most of the designs you will need to purchase a paid subscription.

Change the complications with Facer

Facer swaps out its own complications for existing Apple faces. For example, the licensed Atari design is built on the Portraits face, using its own images as backgrounds. Many other faces use Apple’s Modular faces, adding custom designs and features to the complications.

Under the hood, the Facer app sits on your iPhone and communicates with the companion Apple Watch app that populates the watch faces. To add a new watch face, follow these steps:

1. Open the Facer app on your iPhone and tap the one you want to activate.
2. Click the blue Add button with an arrow icon on your watch. This will take you to the Watch app.
3. To obtain Add to My Faces.

After a moment, the watch face will activate and your custom complications will load.

Facer also has an app for Android smartwatches. Some of the watch faces, especially those that mimic high-end watches like MVMT’s official designs, are only available for round Android models and aren’t shown for Apple Watch.

Take over the entire clock face with Clockology

Like Facer, the Clockology app includes watch faces that work with Apple’s existing frameworks. However, some watch faces use the Full Screen option, which breaks away from this pattern, with some limitations.

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

Yes, but there is nothing stopping Clockology app to display whatever it wants. To bypass the default clock — which is a separate Clock app that has special system permissions — Clockology runs as a top-of-the-line app. So you run a separate app on top of the Clock app that is also a clock.

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

1. Open the Clockology app on your iPhone and tap the project you want to add.
2. Make sure the Clockology app is open on your watch.
3. Click Synchronization button on iPhone.

To prevent the regular Clock app from taking over every time you leave your wrist, you need to change an important preference. On your Apple Watch or the Watch app on your iPhone, go to Settings > General > Back to Clock and choose After 1 hour. This keeps the last app you had open active. If you don’t check your watch or do anything about it after an hour, the Clock app becomes the most visible. Open Clockology to start the timer and keep it visible: Double-press the Digital Crown to show recent apps, then tap Clockology.

Keep these trade-offs in mind when changing watch faces

The novelty of using new watch faces isn’t going away anytime soon, but there are some downsides to using alternative watch faces that you should be aware of. In exchange for shaking up the Apple Watch’s visuals, you’re giving up some functionality.

For faces that create custom complications, tapping them takes you to the Facer or Clockology app, rather than the primary data sources like Weather or Heart Rate. That means no quick-access tools like the Timers app. However, you can replace any complications with those from other apps once you install the face.

Most Clockology Full Screen faces aren’t interactive at all. They display information in various ways—like battery life and daily step count—but tapping the face doesn’t provide more data. The exceptions are a few Clockology faces, which feature a layer of buttons that change what’s presented when you tap. You also won’t see the notification indicator (the red dot at the top of the screen) when the Full Screen face is active.

And one minor annoyance: Pressing the Digital Crown normally takes you to the app list, but if you’re using the Clockology app, pressing it takes you to the Clock app. Press it again to go to the app.

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