Ready to give your Apple Watch a fresh look? watchOS 26 brings some exciting changes to your watch faces, and it's all about making your wrist-worn companion even more personal and functional. Let's dive in!
#1: Brand New Faces to Adorn Your Wrist
As with any major watchOS update, watchOS 26 introduces a set of fresh watch faces to choose from. You're getting four new faces in total, each with its own unique flair:
- Exactograph: A modern twist on the classic regulator watch, separating hours, minutes, and seconds for precise timekeeping. Think of it as a sophisticated, streamlined design.
- Flow: This face uses Liquid Glass numerals that create a fluid, colorful orb that reacts to your wrist movements. It's all about adding a dynamic, artistic touch.
- Waypoint: A live compass, guiding you with your saved locations in Maps or points of interest. (Exclusive to Apple Watch Ultra.)
- Hermès Faubourg Party: Animated shorts that change based on the time of day or your movements, featuring a cast of characters. (Exclusive to Apple Watch Hermès.)
It's always great to have more options to express your style, isn't it? The new Flow and Waypoint faces are particularly eye-catching.
#2: Upgrades to Your Favorite Faces
Your existing watch faces aren't left out! watchOS 26 also brings improvements to some of the most popular ones.
The Photos face, a fan favorite, gets a couple of upgrades:
- Liquid Glass Time: A new 'Glass' color option for the clock allows your photos to truly shine through.
- Featured Photos Option: This setting ensures you see the best images from your library.
Beyond the Photos face, Apple has also expanded the support for ticking seconds with the always-on display to many more faces. Remember when this feature was limited? Now, it's available on more hardware and software.
Apple Watch Ultra 3 and Apple Watch Series 11 now offer ticking seconds in always-on mode, and the list of supported faces has grown significantly.
#3: Watch Face 'Hints' - Your New Personal Assistant
After installing watchOS 26, you might notice a new UI element on your watch face. It's a feature called 'hints,' appearing at the bottom of your screen, resembling a Liquid Glass complication.
These hints offer suggested apps and actions, linked to the Smart Stack. This is how they work:
In watchOS 26, the Smart Stack improves its prediction algorithms by incorporating more contextual data, sensor data, and data from a user’s routine to provide Smart Stack hints, a proactive prompt for actionable suggestions that are immediately useful. Made of Liquid Glass, Smart Stack hints will appear on the display as a gentle visual prompt. For example, a hint for Backtrack may appear when a user is in a remote location with no connectivity, or a hint for a Pilates workout may show up when a user arrives at a studio location at their usual time.
The Smart Stack has long offered suggested data and actionable prompts, but you had to manually open it. Now, these suggestions come directly to your watch face, making them more prominent and potentially more helpful.
But here's where it gets controversial... Do you find these hints helpful, or do they clutter your watch face? Some might love the proactive suggestions, while others might prefer a cleaner look.
And this is the part most people miss... The Smart Stack is learning from your habits, offering personalized suggestions. The more you use it, the smarter it gets.
What are your thoughts on these new watch face features? Do you find the new faces appealing? Are the hints useful or intrusive? Share your opinions in the comments below – we're eager to hear from you!
