How to Make a Custom Pixel Watch Face Without Coding

The Pixel Watch has a beautiful round, edge-to-edge screen, and it deserves a face that's yours. You can make one on your computer without writing any code, and have it on your wrist the same day.

This guide uses WristForge, a free watch face editor for Windows, Mac and Linux. It builds Google's own Watch Face Format, which is what every Pixel Watch runs.

What you need

• A Pixel Watch (any model).
• WristForge, free. Download it here.
• Your watch and computer on the same Wi-Fi.

1. Start a face

Open WristForge Hub, click New project and pick Watch Face. Start from a template (Analog, Digital, Fitness, Hybrid, Big & Bold) or Blank.

Designing for the Pixel's screen

The Pixel Watch's domed glass and thin bezel make the edges of the screen part of the design. A few tips:

• Use the edge. Tick rings, progress arcs and segmented gauges that hug the rim look great on a Pixel.
• Keep text in from the edge. Leave numbers and labels a little inside the rim so the curve of the glass doesn't distort them.
• Go dark. Black backgrounds blend into the bezel and make the screen look borderless, and they save battery.

2. Design it

Use Add Object to place:

• Analog Clock or Digital Clock
• Date Text
• Battery Level, Step Count, Heart Rate, Weather and Moon Phase
• Complications, so you can show data from Fitbit or your other apps
• Your own images, shapes, text and fonts

Then add some life:

• Color Styles you can switch in the watch's face settings
• Wrist-tilt parallax, so layers shift as you move
• A Timeline to change the face over the day. See How to Make a Watch Face That Changes With the Time of Day.
• A Photo Slot for a picture you choose on the watch

3. Design the always-on look

Click the moon (Ambient) at the top of the Scene. Each object's dot in the Hierarchy decides whether it stays on in always-on mode. Thin, light time on black is the classic Pixel look.

4. Preview

Press F5. Use the Simulate tab to try late times, low battery and always-on mode before it ever touches your watch.

5. Turn on developer mode on your Pixel Watch

You only do this once.

1. On the watch, open Settings, then System, then About, then Versions.
2. Tap Build number several times until it says you're a developer.
3. Go back to Settings, then Developer options, and turn on ADB debugging and Wireless debugging.

6. Put it on your watch

1. In WristForge, open Build, then Build…. The first time, it offers to download the Android tools it needs.
2. Pair your watch from Build, then Devices….
3. Pick Debug APK and build. It installs straight onto your watch.
4. Long-press your current face and pick yours.

Stuck? See Getting Your Face Onto a Real Watch.

7. Share it (optional)

• Face Hub: publish free, with no Google Play account. Wearers need Wear OS 6 or newer to install from Face Hub.
• Google Play: sell it under your own name. See How to Publish a Watch Face on Google Play.

The same project also builds for Galaxy Watch and other Wear OS watches, and for Amazfit, so one design can reach a lot more wrists.