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 - 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 - highly configurable

There's loads of great default functionality in WatchMaker, stuff that can be easily added in to your watch.  Basically it works in layers, so you add a background image, and then say the hour/minute markers round the edge, then the numbers, then the hands, etc., building it up as you go.  You can reorder the layers, duplicate them, delete them, etc.  It's really easy to do, and very intuitive.

When you click the big plus icon to add a new layer, you get the following types...

• Text
• Curved text
• Watch background
• Shape
• Numbers
• Hour+minute markers
• Freeform markers
• Watch hands
• Image
• Animated GIF
• Date
• Time
• Weather
• Moon phase
• Battery
• Compass
• Wifi signal
• Calendar
• Countdown
• Stopwatch
• Expression

They are all very customisable, with the ability to reference many different tags.  For example, just for time you've got so many options (using 18:49 as the example time)...

• {dh} - Hour in the day (1-12) - 6
• {dh11} - Hour in the day (0-11) - 6
• {dh24} - Hour in the day (1-24) - 18
• {dh23} - Hour in the day (0-23) - 18
• {dht} - Hour in day text (1-12) - six
• {dh24t} - Hour in day text (1-24) - eighteen
• {dhz} - Hour in day (1-12) (with leading zero) - 06
• {dh11z} - Hour in day (0-11) (with leading zero) - 06
• {dh24z} - Hour in day (1-24) (with leading zero) - 18
• {dh23z} - Hour in day (0-23) (with leading zero) - 18
• and 29 other tags!  Just for time!!

As you can see, there are just so many options, you can choose whatever you want.  

And if you can't find what you're after, check out the Feature Requests - this allows you to search for features that others have requested, and vote on the ones you like, as well as adding your own, for others to vote on.  You can vote on as many as you want, so please feel free to vote on all the stuff that I want :)

Next I want to talk about the conditionality that is simple and yet so powerful.