Best Apps to Find New Watch Faces for Your Apple Watch

Apple Watch is one of the most popular smartwatches on the market, known for its sleek design, seamless integration with the Apple ecosystem, and customizable features. One of the most appealing aspects of the Apple Watch is the ability to personalize its watch face. However, Apple has traditionally limited users to a selection of built-in watch faces, leaving many people wondering if they can get more creative with their wristwear. Fortunately, there are apps that provide a broader range of watch face options, and in this article, we'll explore some of the best apps to find new watch faces for your Apple Watch.

Why Apple Restricts Watch Faces

Before diving into the apps, it’s important to understand why Apple has chosen to restrict third-party watch faces on the Apple Watch. Apple maintains a tight grip on the watch face ecosystem primarily for three reasons:

1. User Experience Consistency: Apple is known for its commitment to providing a seamless and consistent user experience. By controlling the design and functionality of watch faces, Apple ensures that all watch faces are optimized for battery life, legibility, and interaction, which is crucial on a device with such a small screen.

2. Security and Privacy: Watch faces are more than just static images; they often include complications that display real-time information, interact with your iPhone, and access personal data. By limiting watch faces to those developed in-house, Apple reduces the risk of malicious code or privacy breaches.

3. Brand Integrity: Apple has a distinct brand identity, and the watch faces are part of the overall aesthetic and experience of using an Apple Watch. By curating the watch faces, Apple maintains the visual and functional coherence of its product.

 How Do Third-Party Watch Face Apps Work?

Third-party apps that offer new watch faces don’t actually create fully custom watch faces like you might find on other smartwatches. Instead, they work within the limitations set by Apple, finding clever ways to expand your options. Here’s how they manage to convince the Apple Watch operating system (watchOS) to accept their watch faces:

1. Customization of Existing Faces: Most apps use the customization options available within existing Apple watch faces. They offer unique color schemes, custom complication layouts, and background images that can be applied to these built-in faces, creating the illusion of a new watch face.

2. Sharing Watch Face Configurations: Some apps allow users to share and download watch face configurations. These configurations are essentially presets for customizing the Apple watch faces, making it easy for users to apply a fresh look by importing a shared setup.

3. Image-Based Watch Faces: Certain apps leverage the Photos watch face, which allows users to set custom images as their background. These apps provide a wide selection of high-quality images that fit perfectly within the circular or rectangular screen of the Apple Watch, giving users a broader range of visual styles.

4. Complications Customization: Some apps focus on customizing the complications (small widgets that display information such as weather, activity, or calendar events). By providing unique or enhanced complications, these apps enhance the functionality of existing watch faces.

Now, let’s look at some of the best apps to find new watch faces for your Apple Watch:

 1. Watchsmith

Watchsmith is a powerful app designed for users who love to tweak and personalize their watch faces. It allows you to create custom complications for your Apple Watch that update dynamically based on the time of day. For example, you could set up your watch to show weather information in the morning, switch to calendar events during work hours, and then display your activity progress in the evening.

- Features: 

  - Dynamic complication customization

  - Wide variety of complication options

  - Integration with Apple's Health and Calendar apps

- How to Use: After downloading the app, open it and customize your complications. Once satisfied, save your settings and choose the watch face where you want these complications to appear.

 2. Facer

Facer is a well-known platform for custom watch faces, initially popular on other smartwatch platforms like Wear OS and Tizen. While it’s limited by Apple's restrictions, Facer still offers a vast collection of image-based watch faces that you can apply via the Photos face option on your Apple Watch.

- Features:

  - Extensive library of user-generated watch faces

  - High-quality image-based faces

  - Syncs directly to your Apple Watch

- How to Use: Download Facer, browse the collection, and sync your chosen face to your Apple Watch using the Photos watch face.

 3. Buddywatch

Buddywatch is an app dedicated to sharing and discovering custom watch face configurations. Users can browse through a wide range of styles, from minimalist to highly detailed, and easily import these setups into their own Apple Watch.

- Features:

  - Curated collections of watch face styles

  - Easy import of watch face configurations

  - Community-driven content

- How to Use: Download Buddywatch, explore different watch faces, and use the share code to import the configuration directly into your Apple Watch app.

 4. Watchfacely

Watchfacely offers a wide variety of stylish and creative watch faces that can be easily added to your Apple Watch. It focuses on providing users with configurations that can be directly imported and applied.

- Features:

  - Sleek, modern watch face designs

  - Simple import process

  - Regular updates with new designs

- How to Use: Open Watchfacely, find a design you like, and tap to sync it to your Apple Watch.

 5. MobyFace

MobyFace specializes in theme-based watch faces, such as designs inspired by popular movies, shows, and art collections. It offers packs of faces that you can purchase and sync with your Apple Watch.

- Features:

  - Themed watch face packs

  - High-resolution images

  - Exclusive designs

- How to Use: Download the app, browse the available packs, purchase your favorites, and sync them via the Photos watch face.

 Conclusion

While Apple’s restrictions on third-party watch faces may seem limiting, there are still plenty of ways to make your Apple Watch uniquely yours. Whether you want to create dynamic complications with Watchsmith, explore the creative designs on Facer, or sync theme-based faces from MobyFace, there’s an app out there to suit your style. These apps cleverly work within Apple's ecosystem, using existing customization options to expand the possibilities for Apple Watch users. So go ahead, explore these apps, and give your Apple Watch the personal touch it deserves!