These are the best and coolest Apple Watch faces

Out of the many dozens of options, which is the coolest Apple Watch face? Every time I see someone wearing an Apple Watch, I try to scope out which watch face they use. Nine times out of 10, they use either the Modular face or the Photo face (with a Sport band).

This is despite the Apple Watch offering dozens of watch faces, allowing for all kinds of customizability.

If you want to spice up and individualize your Apple Watch, here are the best and coolest faces. And in our latest video, I rank every watch face on a tier list.

Coolest Apple Watch faces

How to add an Apple Watch face

First, let’s go over how to add a new Apple Watch face. If you’ve never done it before, it’s easy. Just tap and hold on your Apple Watch screen. Scroll all the way to the end of your list of currently installed watch faces, then tap the big + icon on the New screen. Scroll through the gallery and tap Add when you find a new Apple Watch face you want to add.

To customize the watch face, tap and hold on it, then tap Edit. On most watch faces, you can scroll with the watch’s Digital Crown to change styles or colors. Swipe left to edit the complications; tap on a complication to replace it with something else.

Best Apple Watch face for fitness: Activity

The best Apple Watch face for fitness is the Activity watch face. It comes in three versions — two analog and one digital — all of which put your Move, Exercise and Stand rings front and center, with room for three complications. By default, they complications come set to Weather Conditions, Workout and Heart Rate. You also can customize the color of the clock.

With your rings so prominent on your wrist all day, you’ll be less likely to forget to close them.

Best Apple Watch face for hiking: Wayfinder

The best Apple Watch face for hiking is Wayfinder. Exclusive to Apple Watch Ultra, the Wayfinder watch face has eight complications, which can be edited to provide a host of information great for hiking, from weather conditions to Compass Waypoints.

Tap the outer edge of the Wayfinder watch face and it switches to a compass, which also shows the current latitude and longitude. This can be edited to show Elevation/Incline instead. Wayfinder also has a great-looking Night Mode to preserve night vision.

Pro tip: Create multiple versions of the Wayfinder face for different activities — hiking, swimming, running — and swipe between them based on activity.

Best Apple Watch face for relaxation: Breathe

The best Apple Watch face for relaxation is Breathe: A simple analog clock with a choice of four beautiful animations. Every time you look at your wrist, you’re reminded to take it easy.

It’s practical, too, with space for three complications around the edge. By default, they launch the Mindfulness app and show your weather conditions and heart rate.

Best Apple Watch face for nurses: Modular Duo

The Best Apple Watch face for nurses and other busy people is Modular Duo. The Modular Duo watch face pushes the clock up to the top, leaving space for two of the bigger complications. You can have two big Calendar and Activity complications, for keeping an eye on your tight schedule. And with Mindfulness in the upper corner, you have a quick shortcut to take a breather.

Best Apple Watch face for two time zones: GMT

The best Apple Watch face for two time zones is the GMT watch face. It shows one time zone with the watch hands and a different time zone of your choosing in 24-hour time around the edge. Tap the screen to pick a time zone from one from the preset list or from a city you have set in the Clock app.

You will find four complications around the edge. Personally, I would swap out UV Index for Messages or Weather Conditions.

Best Apple Watch face for sleeping: Numerals Duo

The best Apple Watch face for sleeping is Numerals Duo. The Apple Watch has a built-in sleep feature, but some people find it annoying in use. The Apple Watch locks down, so if you want to check notifications or turn on its flashlight, you first have to hold the Digital Crown in.

If you want to wear your Apple Watch to bed without the sleep feature, you can still prepare yourself a nighttime watch face. Numerals Duo is a good choice for that — the big obvious numbers make it easy to read if you’re up in the middle of the night and bleary-eyed.

I recommend setting the color to red, which is easiest on the eyes in a dark room.

Apple Watch face with most complications: Infograph

The Apple Watch face with the most complications is Infograph. This watch face packs in an incredible eight complications. It’s no wonder Infograph is the watch face of choice for Apple CEO Tim Cook himself. Infograph gives you four corner complications and four more in the center, all cleverly arranged to still be legible.

I recommend the Your Schedule complication in the sub-dial top position, as it puts both the current date and your upcoming calendar appointment on the edge of the clock. Most of the preset complications are pretty good as is, but I would swap a few of them out for Messages, Now Playing and Maps.

Best Apple Watch face for Dexcom: X-Large

The best Apple Watch face for Dexcom, a continuous glucose monitoring device for diabetics, is the X-Large watch face.

Although the Dexcom complication can be added to multiple Apple Watch faces, the X-Large face displays it, well, extra-large. There’s no squinting at a tiny, hard-to-read complication with this face: it’s literally front-and-center.

Best minimal Apple Watch face: Nike Digital

The best minimal Apple Watch face is Nike Digital. The time is giant and easy to read from a distance. It gives you room for three small complications — two icons and a line of text on the bottom, useful for Calendar or Now Playing.

Unfortunately, you can’t replace the Nike logo with a fourth complication, but I was pleasantly surprised with this one.

Cool Apple Watch face: Numerals

A cool Apple Watch face prefect for the weekend is Numerals. The giant digital number makes it easy to read the hour, and the minute hand gives you a vague idea of the time. That’s all you really need on a lazy Saturday. There’s room for one complication, but I always use it without.

Coolest Apple Watch face: Chronograph Pro

The coolest Apple Watch face is Chronograph Pro, which resembles Paul Newman’s iconic Rolex Daytona watch — and what’s cooler than Paul Newman? Newman was an auto-racing fanatic, and his Rolex Chronograph was perfect for timing laps.

Tap the outer edge of the dial and it transforms into a chronograph. The tachymeter timescale can be used to measure speed based on time travel over a fixed distance.

Best Apple Watch face for pilots: World Time

The World Time watch face puts the biggest city from every time zone onto one watch face. In addition to your local time, you can see the time around the entire globe in a 24-hour clock around the edge.

And there’s still plenty of room for complications — for a pilot or flight attendant, I would recommend Calendar, Weather, Messages and Flighty.

More Apple Watch tips

To get more out of your Apple Watch, check out these tips:

• 3 tricks every Apple Watch owner should know
• What do the Apple Watch buttons do?
• How to edit Apple Watch widgets