A single-hand watch face with dynamic hour disks and unobscured complications

A single-hand watch face with dynamic hour disks and unobscured complications for Wear OS.

Recall a time when time was read from a single shadow cast by the sun.

The Hours Watch Face shows the time in an ancient way that is nevertheless new.

Each of the twelve hours is centred in its own disk that changes in a meaningful way. As the single hand rotates, the future hours approach and grow, while the past ones shrink and recede. All the disks change simultaneously to direct your attention to the current hour.

The watch hand meets every hour on the hour exactly in its customary place.

It takes an hour for the hand to traverse every disk. It enters thirty minutes before, and exits thirty minutes after the disk's associated hour. Entry and exit take place at the points where the disks touch. Tick marks are spaced five minutes apart and are only shown on the disks closest to the hand. The hand's length tracks the placement of the tick marks on the periphery of the disk. Since the current hour number is most prominent, this is a unique display of digital hours and analog minutes.

Your chosen complications are anchored to the hand. Their consequent movements let them stay away from the current hour disk and also prevent them from ever becoming obscured.

The single hand, the hour disks and the complications together combine to form a pattern pointing to the current time. You only need to glimpse.

In ambient mode, just the hand and the closest hours remain illuminated.

With everything dynamic, including the hand's pivot point and the complication positions, screen burn-in is reduced.

The Hours Watch Face can be customized:

* Select colors for the hour disks, the single hand and the complication highlights

* Choose the content of up to eight circular complications

* Decide whether the complications will be always on, or only shown in active mode

* Decide whether unread notifications will be indicated at the bottom

* Activate a fast-forward response to double-tapping on the watch face

Color selection is achieved using the playful Glimpse interaction: A chain of colored disks appears, surrounding a central disk. Move the central disk by touch to enlarge the opposite disk, then lift and tap the desired color. See the linked video to see how this is done.

When activated, a double tap on the watch face (outside a responsive complication) will toggle between normal and fast-forward movement of the hand, the hour disks and the complications. This can be used to quickly familiarize yourself with the working of the Hours Watch Face, and to demonstrate it to others.

You can donate to support development of this and related apps by selecting the item below the customizations.

Despite the bright logo, the background is actually dark to extend battery life.