Apple likes to keep a tight control over many aspects of its devices. The infamous walled-garden that Apple devices exist in also extends to the Apple Watch, perhaps more than any other. While Apple has started support sharing Apple Watch faces, it still doesn’t really let third party watch faces on the Apple Watch. Fortunately, there are some workarounds and apps that can let you make your own watch face on watchOS and use that. So if you want to get a custom Apple Watch face here are 5 apps to create and set custom Apple Watch faces that you can use.
There are a lot of apps that claim to be able to create custom watch faces. However, only a few are actually worth your time (and in some cases, money). We have tested a lot of these apps, and come up with the five best options you can try. Plus we have a bonus section also for people who may want to learn and try something new.
- Watchsmith
- Watch Maker
- Facer
- Watch Faces
- Use Photoshop to Create Custom Watch Faces
- Bonus: Create Watch Faces with SpriteKit
- How to Set Custom Watch Faces in Apple Watch
1. Watchsmith
Watchsmith is the app I use most often to create custom Apple Watch faces. This app offers an impressive amount of customisability. Plus, there are loads of useful features.
Another app you can use to get new Apple Watch faces or create your own is Watch Maker. This app offers the ability to create your own watch face for Apple Watch. However, in the free version of the app, the faces you can create are extremely limited. So limited that it’s basically useless as is.
However, you can purchase the pro version of the app for Rs. 349/week (3 day free trial available) and create highly customised watch faces for watchOS. You can add backgrounds, hour, minute, and second hands, and a lot more.
3. Facer
If you’re simply looking for some third party Apple Watch faces, this is great app to try. Facer offers a lot of watch faces that you can download on your watch. Plus, most of these are available for free, so you don’t need to spend a penny.
Download Facer from the App Store (Free, offers subscription)
You can also check out Watch Faces for creating custom faces for watchOS. This app lets you use any picture from your iPhone gallery, find something on the internet, or one of the images included with the app.
5. Use Photoshop to Create Custom Watch Faces
If you’re feeling creative, you can use Photoshop (or an app like Photoshop) to create your own watch faces as well. Basically what you will do is create a background image for your Apple Watch. You can then sync this image to your Apple Watch and display the time, along with two other complications on top of it.
Once you’ve created the blank project, create your custom design on it. You can use Photoshop’s tools to do this, or download images and add them to your design. You may want to remove backgrounds from these images as well, so they look better with your chosen background.
Sync your new album with the Apple Watch by heading over to the Watch app -> Photos. Select your album under the synced album option.
You can also create Apple Watch faces with Xcode if you have a flair for programming. This method basically requires you to create an Apple Watch app, which will have the watch face as the UI. You can then install this app on your Apple Watch, and run it to make it look like it’s the watch face.
How to Set Custom Watch Faces in Apple Watch
Depending on the app you’re using, you will have to set the custom watch face on your Apple Watch in different ways.
For Watchsmith, you don’t need to do anything. Simply edit the complications on your current watch face and choose the complications you created with Watchsmith. The actual watch faces will be the ones made by Apple, so you don’t need to worry about creating your own.
In Watch Maker, you can set your custom watch face by following the steps below.
Open the Photos app, and you will see the new watch face saved as a photo. Tap on the share icon.
Find the watch face you want to use, and tap on the icon shown below.
Select the watch face you just added, and tap on ‘Set as current Watch Face’.
Once you’ve created your watch face, tap on the ‘Save’ option.
Go to the Photos app, and open the new photo that has been added. Tap on the ‘Share’ button.
