New watch faces - Weather

I've been working on a couple of weather related watch faces, which focus primarily on providing a detailed forecast.

Both watch faces show the date and digital time in small at the top, with the current weather icon taking center stage.  Along the bottom is a full forecast for the week, showing the day, min/max temperatures, the forecast temperature and weather icon.  Also displayed are the sunrise and sunset times.

Weather Silver (download from Play store)

The first watch face has sleek silver weather icons...

Weather White (download from Play store)

The seconds watch face has flat white weather icons...

Both of these can be downloaded from the Play store (see links above).

View all my watch faces on the Play Store.

New series - Quarts

I've just discovered a series of watch faces that I made a few months ago, and forgot to do anything with.

These are all based on the same premise, which is that no one really needs to know the exact time - do we really need to worry about seconds?  Definitely not!  In fact, I argue you don't even need to know minutes, and just quarter-of-an-hour blocks is all you need.

All the watch faces show the time only, no fuss and bother, nice and simple.  Each hour is represented by an image, split into quarters for each 15 mins.  There is also a smaller image on the left/right to indicate am/pm.

Each of the examples below shows the time is between 10:45am and 10:59am.

Quarts Circle (download from Play store)

Quarts Square (download from Play store)

Quarts Star (download from Play store)

So relax, download one of these watch faces, and don't be hindered by the constant need to know the exact time!  What time are you meeting your friend?  Half past!  No one meets at 1:37 precisely :)

All of these can be downloaded from the Play store (see links above).

View all my watch faces on the Play Store.

New watch faces - Hack the planet!

I've been working on a couple of simple watch faces, inspired by the 1995 film Hackers, with the famous line "Hack the Planet!".

Both watch faces show the date, digital time, and both the watch and phone battery levels.

Hack The Planet (download from Play store)

The first includes the slogan and looks like this...

Hack The Planet 2 (download from Play store)

The seconds focuses in on the artwork and looks like this...

Both of these can be downloaded from the Play store (see links above).

View all my watch faces on the Play Store.

Deus Ex becomes FlickTek

Apparently the team at Deus Ex have received a letter from the Eidos lawyer, saying that they are infringing the Deus Ex saga trademark, so they have been pushed to change their name.  They are now called FlickTek! 

They are still using the website AriaWearable.com but are now also setting up FlickTek.com, although there's nothing but a footer there at the moment.

They keep teasing us with updates, but it looks like they might be very close to releasing the units now.  They've said...

We have worked a lot in the last months to ensure you will receive an Aria that could satisfy all our promises and all your expectations. At the end of June we received the first 35 units from the production and although some issues that are delaying the shipments, the devices work better than we expected!  

The recognition rate is top level, the new sensors are fantastic, no other device is even close to what we achieve and the communication is fast and reliable. Please check out this video...

At the moment they're having a little trouble with the on/off button so they're changing the component, and they're switching factory because they weren't happy with the quality of workmanship, so there are some tweaks to be made, and this is causing further delays.  Better to get it right though!

They're also planning to release an iCrap version as well, for those who are so inclined.

New watch face - Screensaver

Do you remember the days when computers had screensavers?  I'm sure they still do, but does anyone really use them now?  It's all about security and lock screens these days.

Well I wanted to do a little shout out to those days, with my own classic screensaver style watch face.  The time bounces and rotates around the screen, in a rainbow of different colours.  

If the colours aren't your thing, click the center of the screen and the text will change to white.

The fun continues in dim mode, but without the colour.

Download it now from the Play Store.

Here is a preview, exported directly from WatchMaker using the "Animated GIF" option...

This is the watch in normal/bright mode...

This is the watch in dim mode...

Download it now from the Play Store.

View all my watch faces on the Play Store.

New watch face - Command Prompt

I've had a vision in my head for a few months now, of a watch that looks like the Command Prompt in Windows.  

I didn't want to make it look identical, with the terminal window and everything, but I did want it to look like the commands were being typed in, and the results returned.

I played about with a few ideas before I was happy with it, but I really think it's turned out better than I anticipated!  It takes 4 seconds to show the full details.

Download it now from the Play Store.

This is a slightly sped up version, exported directly from WatchMaker using the "Animated GIF" option...

This is the preview in normal/bright mode, with the full details showing...

This is the dim mode, which just shows the time...

Download it now from the Play Store.

View all my watch faces on the Play Store.

New series - Ochs & Junior

I stumbled across the Ochs Und Junior website whilst looking for inspiration for a new watch face.  I decided I liked these watches so much that I'd try to replicate my favourites using WatchMaker, my go-to watch face app.

The designer, Dr Ludwig Oechslin's main design principle was that an analogue date display is more readable than a digital display from the same distance, and unlike large digital displays, the date dot is not a distraction when checking the time.


Date (download from FaceRepo)

Dr Ludwig Oechslin's date watch displays the essentials - time and date.  Lovely and minimalist.

Calendar (download from FaceRepo)

Dr Ludwig Oechslin's annual calendar watch displays the date, month, weekday and time. The 7 holes on the lower dial display the weekday (counterclockwise rotation), with Sunday at the top. The 12 holes on the upper dial display the month (counterclockwise rotation).

Moon Phase (download from FaceRepo)

Dr Ludwig Oechslin's moon phase watch displays the moon phase, date, and time.  The center represents earth and 12 o'clock represents the sun. Full moon is when the moon is opposite the sun and earth at 6 o'clock. New moon is when the moon is hidden between the sun and earth at 12 o'clock.

Charge (download from FaceRepo)

This watch is based on the same style as Dr Ludwig Oechslin's watches, but is a variation of my own design. The 10 holes on the lower dial display the charge remaining in your watch (the top hole pulses whilst charging). The 10 holes on the upper dial display the charge remaining in your phone (the top hole pulses whilst charging).

Perpetual (download from FaceRepo)

Dr. Ludwig Oechslin's perpetual calendar watch is designed for everyday use.  Analog dots represent the year, month and date to address a key usability challenge with calendar watches: making the date legible, without resorting to an oversized display which distracts from reading the time.  The 4 perforations in the month disk indicate the month, and also show whether it is a leap year or a common year. When the outermost dot is orange, it is a leap year (366 days), but when it is dark, it is a common year (365 days). The small circle beneath 12 o'clock is the power reserve indicator - the disk rotates counterclockwise. Just above the 6 o'clock marker is a seconds disk with a milled excentric dot, which shows the watch is running.  There is also a day/night marker, which uses the sunrise/sunset time to determine whether it is lit.

On each of these watch faces, tapping the center will change the watch face colour from grey to blue to green to yellow, although the original grey is definitely my personal preference.

WatchMaker - unpacking the .watch file - updated!

WatchMaker has been enhanced since I wrote this post originally, so I thought I'd post an updated version.

When you export a watch from WatchMaker, the app creates a ".watch" file.  This can then be imported by someone else, or uploaded to a face sharing website (such as FaceRepo) for others to enjoy.  

If you're like me though, you might be interested in how this ".watch" file is made up though, what it contains.  So let's take one of my first watch faces for example...

Teal Hands - 339 downloads

The file itself is a ZIP archive, so the first step is to extract the files.  Personally I prefer 7-Zip, but you can use the tool of your choice for this.

After you've unpacked the files, you should see a structure something like this...

The files included in this example are...

• fonts
• Roboto-Regular.ttf
• images
• .img25.jpg
• .img60.png
• .img61.png
• .img62.png
• .img63.png
• preview.jpg
• preview_dim.jpg
• watch.xml

So any fonts and images that are used in the watch face are included in their respective folders.  For example, the ".img60.png" and ".img61.png" are Sprites that hold multiple images in one, for the battery levels.  There is also the background (".img25.jpg") and both watch hands (".img62.png" and ".img63.png").

There are also two preview images, for both the normal/bright preview ("preview.jpg") and the dimmed preview ("preview_dim.jpg").

The final file (watch.xml) is probably the most interesting, as this contains all of the settings and configuration of the watch face and the layers that make it up.  You can open this file to view in a web browser, or you can edit it in any text editor (I prefer Notepad++)...

This ".xml" file has a root <Watch> tag, with attributes that contain the settings for the watch face, and then a number of <Layer> tags, with attributes that contain the configuration for each layer.  Whilst you may or may not be familiar with XML, it should be easy enough to tell from the attributes and their values how these match up with the different properties in the WatchMaker app.  

The main addition in recent months is the "features" attribute of the <Watch> tag - this is automatically updated as you edit the watch face and add/remove tags.  It is then used by sites (such as FaceRepo) to list the features that your watch face has.

This includes the layers of type "image" which have a "path" and those of type "text" which have a "font", both of which link to the included files above.  Also there's the "display" attribute, which is "b" for bright only, "d" for dimmed only and "bd" for always.

Next time I'm working on a complicated LUA script, I may well export it to Dropbox so I can write it on my laptop, then import it back into the WatchMaker app - much easier than typing curly braces on my phone keyboard!

There is also the option now to export a watch face in "protected" mode.  This creates a slightly different set of files...

Now there is an extra file called "watch.pxml", and the contents of the "watch.xml" file are quite different...

Now "watch.xml" only contains the <Watch> tag, with the "protection" attribute set.  

All of the layers are in "watch.pxml"...

...but they're encrypted!  This is great for when you've created a watch that you want to sell on the Play store, or upload without the risk of someone copying and modifying your watch face.

Hopefully you've found this update useful.

New watch face - Pokemon Go

Pokemon Go is probably the biggest craze right now, enticing adults and children alike into running around catching and hatching Pokemon.  

The game divides people into 3 teams...

1. Team Instinct, Colour - Yellow, Leader - Spark, Mascot - Zapdos
2. Team Mystic, Colour - Blue, Leader - Blanche, Mascot - Articuno
3. Team Valor, Colour - Red, Leader - Candela, Mascot - Moltres

To celebrate the fun I'm having playing this game, I decided to create a watch using WatchMaker which, just like the game, allows you to choose a team (by tapping the center of the watch face)...

You can download the watch face from FaceRepo.

I hope you enjoy!

International Watch Co

I've recently received the following email from FaceRepo...


Sadly, we've had to remove a face you uploaded to FaceRepo.

Face name: International Watch Co 
Face URL: https://facerepo.com/app/faces/details/international-watch-co-14c4db00cdb 

This face was removed for the following reason: 

Removal was requested by the copyright and/or trademark holder of elements used in the face. 

We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused. Please feel free to reply to this email with any specific questions you may have. 

- FaceRepo.com



Exciting - not had one of those before!

The watch face in question looks like this...

It's certainly not one of my better watches, as none of the cogs move, which was my original intention.  I planned to come back and do a better job of it, but apparently it's not allowed!

If you're interested in downloading this watch face, it may or may not appear on a popular file hosting site... Don't click here to download!

New watch faces - Divergent and Total Annihilation

It's been ages since I spent time working on new watch faces, so I thought I'd get back into the swing by creating a couple of simple watches I'd been thinking about, and here they are.


Divergent - download from FaceRepo

Anyone loving the Divergent film series (based on the novel by Veronica Roth)? Well I am! Abnegation, Erudite, Dauntless, Amity or Candor - click the center to choose your faction.

Total Annihilation - download from FaceRepo

Anyone remember the old Cavedog game Total Annihilation? Well I do! Core vs. Arm - click at the top to choose your side.

I hope you like the new watch faces - hopefully there will be more coming soon- watch this space!