Difference between Full screen and Complications templates for Apple watchfaces

Support
1

HI guys, I’m new here.

I design watch faces and publish in Playstore and Facer, so I’m familiar with designing watch faces for Apple and Wear OS smart watches.

Yesterday I checked the studio to build Apple watch faces and I came across the templates. I saw Complications and strangely full screen templates. As a designer from Facer I know the limitations designing Apple watch faces. Complications templates I can understand but can you design a Full screen watch face like Wear OS with no boundaries and limitations. Do the Full screen watch faces work like Complication watch faces?

Can anybody help what I’m missing and what I need to know?

2

Hey, good question — this catches a lot of people out when coming from Facer/Wear OS.

Full screen templates aren’t the same as a “true” watch face on Apple Watch. They’re more like a foreground experience — they can stay on screen for up to ~70 seconds, allow interaction, and give you much more flexibility (animations, frequent updates, etc).

Complications templates are the actual Apple Watch face system. That’s what lives on the wrist permanently, but it comes with heavy limitations — fixed layouts, limited styling, and updates are controlled by the system (often around every 15 minutes).

So in short:

  • Full screen = flexible, interactive, but temporary

  • Complications = permanent, but restricted

You can’t create a fully custom always-on face like Wear OS using full screen — Apple still requires complications for the real watch face experience.

Hope that clears it up :+1:

3

Thanks. Yes that clears it up.:+1: