There are three new faces with the Pixel Watch 3. Two of them are completely new, while the third is a thorough revamp of an existing design.
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The Active face, which is the default one out of the box and most advertising, is pretty great. It’s info-dense while remaining clean and glanceable. The Minimal layout shows the digital time housed in a pill, with two circular complications above and below. These are the smallest slots, with the ones next to it slightly larger. This is the perfect size for a complication, and allows for appreciably thicker and more visible rings compared to those on all other watch faces. All existing faces should be updated to match.
The right-most complication is the biggest, and I find it ideal for the four-digit step count. It’s a bit too big for Media Controls as the resolution sent by the phone is very small and ends up being pixelated. That should be updated in a future update.
Meanwhile, some people don’t like how the filled-in digital time hollows out in always-on display mode. I don’t mind as it provides a contrast with complications, but I can see the complaint.
Then there’s the Plus layout that adds a ring of four complications. I think the numbers next to them are on the small/short side, but it looks fine on the 45mm Pixel Watch 3. I’m surprised it was even included on the 41mm model.
Lastly, the Active face has very interesting dual-tone color combinations with names like Azalea, Hibiscus, Bloom, Autumn, Cottoncandy, and Rosebush. They’re a bit stark for me and look like Owala water bottle lids, but it’s not not fun.
Google uses the Field face to demonstrate the additional screen real estate this year, especially on the 45mm. The Bulbs layout has four circular complications, as well as both minute (bars) and hour (pills + circles + triangle) markers.
Top comment by 4 C
This is an area Google has not tried to compete with Apple in. They look like they were created in a week by one of their in house graphic designers. Apple licenses designs from actual artists and brands, their watch faces are extremely high quality with a lot of variety. Google needs to take watch faces more seriously and spend a little money on artists instead of just having one of their designers do it, I don't know how the product manager there does not see any value in that, one look at Apple Watch marketing shows how important a sexy watch face is.
The Arcs layout adds four radial complications in between those two sets of indices for a pretty dense look.
Then there’s a Simple layout with 3/6/9/12 hour markers that I quite like. There’s no room for complications, but you do get the date at the bottom, with the color combos working well here.
Finally, there’s the Track face. (So, that’s Track & Field.) The defining characteristic of this redesign is the ring for a metric. The Single layout just shows one with the (non-centered) time stacked, while Bulb adds a solo complication below the linear clock. Double splits the ring in half with two complications appearing above the time.
On the Pixel Watch 1 and 2, this face was much simpler with room for one complication that was displayed in one line, while the matching ring was much thicker. It was very distinct, if not a natural Material You fit, and glanceable, with the Pixel Watch 3 face featuring very thin rings.
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