Source: Ara Wagoner/ Android Central CEED By Almarinov From Facer ($1.99)
My Galaxy Watch 4 finally arrived after all the waiting, waiting, and waiting. Over the past 48 hours I have been tearing it apart, looking for the nooks and crannies that are hiding problems from the sleek look Samsung displayed at Unpacked. My main grievances are the usual ones of a new generation: notifications still take too much time and notifications still don't work well. The most annoying problem is the fact that the watch doesn't have non-Samsung tile options. While Wear OS watch faces have been varied and customizable for a long time, there are many frustrations once you leave Samsung's carefully curated selection. VPN Deals: Monthly plans starting at $16 and a lifetime license for $16. There are many frustrations even with Samsung's watch faces.
Source: Daniel Bader / Android Central
Samsung makes some great watch faces, I'm not going to lie. The My Photo+ face is my favorite. It allows you to set a photo, clock style and up to four complications. But Chris Wedel, Tshaka Armstrong and Tshaka Armstrong like Digital Dashboard, with its unique color palettes and five different Complications. Samsung's watch faces can be edited in the Galaxy Wearable App. Long-pressing the face and then tapping "Customize" doesn't do anything on my Galaxy Watch 4. It doesn't even open up the customization page in its companion app. Although it is easier to customize the watch face on a bigger screen, this also means that you cannot change any aspect of your watch face if your phone is not nearby. You can choose from many different color styles and then select each Complication from your list. The problem is that you can't select from the entire complication list. Although there are some common Complications, they don't include popular options such as App Shortcuts and Google Pay. Worse, many of the Google-based Compplications that you can use are just glorified shortcuts. It won't show you a specific Google Fit goal, stat, or even show you a particular app. Instead, it will show you the name and open the application when you tap it.
Source: Ara Wagoner/ Android Central MyPhoto+ from Samsung with a Tapet background
Even with these... complications the Samsung watch faces experience is better than the Complications NNAFU 3rd-party watch faces right now. The Galaxy Wearable app cannot change third-party faces, and some of these complications are broken. I want a watch with HR functionality and a Google Keep shortcut. Right now, this is impossible. This is partly due to the fact that many watch faces have not been updated for Wear OS 3. They're meant to interface with Google Fit, rather than Samsung Health. However, it's an issue that could have been resolved if Google and Samsung worked better together with developers and each other to ensure more watch faces were available at launch. However, heart rate can be broken on any non-Samsung face. Some faces won't show data while others will. This is regardless of how often you update Samsung Health. Facer was the only option I found. However, I had to return to Samsung faces due to slow and inaccurate heart rates in complicated faces. (Most Facer faces work well beyond health functions and I was delighted with the animated Star Wars Face I found.
Source: Ara Wagoner / Android Central
Broken or missing complications were even more common on my Wear 2.0 watch face, which was highlighted by Google in Wear's Watch Faces section. The Quoti watchface has been my favorite from my Moto 360 days to the Fossil Generation 5e this spring. I was able to set album art as my background and then current song information in the complication, making it a great watch face for music lovers like me. Quoti was the first face pack I installed on my Watch 4. Once I had Quoti set up, I went to Customize as usual. Two problems occurred: the Background options were gone and the Media controller Complication didn't work at all. It will show the song title if the version has one wide complication. However, tapping it may or not pause the music. To open the Media controller, tap the tiny music note at the bottom of your face. The heart rate was not displayed and the step count wasn't updated every 10 minutes.
Source: Ara Wagoner/Android Central. How Quoti should look from the Fossil Generation 5e
Watch Faces hasn’t been updated since 2017. I don’t blame the watch face (though seriously, Utswo, get it on). But I do blame Google for showing an outdated, broken watch face collection front-and-center to Wear OS users. Because it is one of few 100% free watch face packs, users are more inclined to give it a try. Google should pay more attention to Wear OS's progress and show it has finally got its act together. Many watch faces that were updated to Wear OS 3 this month are still experiencing Complication issues with health data. This could be a bug that Samsung or Google will need to fix.
