I have automations set up to change my watch face to an analogue face at sunset (looks better and is less distracting at home/out at dinner) and then back again an hour before sunrise as well as different faces attached to different focuses.
I’m just wondering how other people choose to automate their watch face changes?
I use almost the same watch face all the time
I do. Day time is infograph, evening at home is palette
Palette is amazing
Agree
I just use focus for work and keep my default one otherwise.
The only downside is that my normal watchface has a complication for the medication app which I can’t use as easily at work to log new entries.
Didn’t know this could be done. Do you mind sharing the steps?
Go into the shortcuts app on the phone, create an automation, in the actions section search for watch, and one of the options is change face.
You can also do things with like cinema mode, set waterlock, or turn always on display on/off
Since it’s automation, you can trigger by time, place, a certain app is launched on phone, a certain wifi is joined, a focus mode is set and a few others.
Actually just looked, don’t see the watch item when making an automation, but it is in shortcuts, so you’ll need to make a shortcut that controls the watch, and then call that shortcut with an automation. It used to be available in automations, I have some made that way that still work, so it might be a bug and come back at some point.
Thank you, managed to do it. I haven’t ever opened the shortcut app so this will keep me entertained for a while.
Another method I use that is much more relevant to me is focus mode watch faces. If you don’t already use focus mode it’s just slightly intimidating, but super worth it. Lets me display only the specific apps I need when I’m doing things like work or school, working out etc… makes more sense to set watch face this way than by time of day
focuses are fine, I use them too for work, gym and sleep but the sunset/sunrise can’t be attached to a focus and I don’t like the icon there when I am home/doing my weekend errands.
I have a face for when I’m traveling and one for when I’m at home. I have it change on geofence when I get to my local airport, though the fact that you have to manually confirm it is annoying.
If you open the automation that does this, then open the shortcut where the face is set, you should have a button for shorcut settings. In here is a switch to disable the prompt before running setting.
I did for a while but turned it off, nice that we can do that though
Please share the steps on how to do this.
new automation
daily at sunset
then new blank automation
then search watch for what you want
Not the steps but you should take 30 mins to set up focus mode on your iPhone. Promise it’s worth it. You can set all of your iOS devices to display only certain apps and backgrounds during your routines like work, school, working out, sleeping without needing to use the shortcuts app at all.
Yes, my watch face changes when I leave the house.
I did for a day, then realized it wasn’t relevant for me.
I fly helicopters and I want a digital face with particular data when I’m in the air. I thought to myself “I’ll set it to change automatically when I arrive to work!” But then it seems the way to do that is set a radius bubble you have to stay inside where the watch face will “revert” once you go outside that ring. Well the second I takeoff it wants to depart from my “flying” face.
Also I didn’t like that it asked me to confirm in order to change the face upon arriving to the set location everyday (it’s been a year since I tried it, so maybe that’s changed?). That was annoying…I confirmed it by creating this setting man, I want it to change faces seamlessly.
I don’t but I think is how most people should be doing it.
I do. Have one face for work hours which includes time zones I’m interested in for work colleagues, one for evenings which hides any appointments and all that sort of thing, and another one for weekends which is just a fun one.
This is a great tip. I’ve just set mine to a more formal face every evening. Cheers!
Change every 4 hours to prevent burn in
Edit: and off from 23:30 to 6:30
I do. I don’t change my watch face all that much and my Series 5 was showing some burn-in within 2 years. I changed it up and have made two versions of the world time watch face that inverts the brighter elements with darker ones. One for daytime and the other for night time. It also switches the complications around. No idea if it’ll work but here’s hoping.
I let my partner know to be wary of it as she uses the same basic photo watch face, so she set up different faces for each day of the week which she seems really happy with. She has various themed albums of nice designs and the clock element changes position each day.
I use focus mode for that. I run media for my church so at a specific timeframe on Wednesday and Sundays my watch switches to a modular duo face with reminders that I need.