Pixel Watch Faces: How to Change Them and Add New Ones
To change the face on a Google Pixel Watch, press and hold the current face, swipe to the one you want and tap it — or tap Watch faces in the Pixel Watch app on your phone and pick one there. Google ships its own set of analog, digital, fitness and photo faces; new designs come from Google Play or from a gallery app that sends faces to the watch over Bluetooth. Watch Lux works on any Pixel Watch running Wear OS 6 or later.
Change the face on the watch itself
- Press and hold the current watch face. It shrinks into an edit view with your other faces waiting on either side.
- Swipe left or right — or turn the crown — to move through the faces already on the watch.
- Tap the face you want. It becomes the active face immediately.
- To add a face that is not in the carousel, swipe to the end and tap Add new, then choose from the full list.
- To edit a face, tap Customise under it in the edit view. Swipe between its settings — colour, style, complications — and turn the crown to change each one. Press the crown to finish.
To tidy up, swipe up on a face in the edit view and remove it; you can add it back later from the same list. Google's official guide to changing your watch face keeps the current menu names for every Wear OS watch.
Add a Watch Lux face to a Pixel Watch
- Install Watch Lux from Google Play on the Android phone your Pixel Watch is paired with.
- Browse the catalog. Start with this week's new collection, or look through the full gallery in your browser first — 500+ original faces across 13+ categories.
- Tap a face and send it. The phone passes it to the watch over the Bluetooth connection they already share; keep the watch close while it transfers.
- Wear it. The face joins your carousel next to Google's own, and you switch to it the same way — press, swipe, tap.
Picking faces that suit a Pixel Watch
The Pixel Watch has a round OLED screen under a domed glass edge, and both details matter when you choose a face. OLED means black pixels are switched off, so a dark or OLED face is the easiest on the battery and looks like it floats on the glass. The dome means the outer edge of the display curves away from you, so faces that keep their important numbers toward the centre read more cleanly than ones that pack detail against the rim.
A practical set to keep in the carousel: one from the minimal faces for the working day, a dark one for long days away from a charger, and one from the live and animated faces for when you want the watch to be the thing people notice. The free faces rotate weekly and need no subscription, so they are a fair way to judge the catalog before paying for anything.
Watch Lux is free to download on both stores. Pro unlocks the full catalog, with pricing shown in the store you install from — and a purchase on Google Play does not carry over to the App Store, or the other way round. If you also own a Samsung watch, the Galaxy Watch faces guide covers the Samsung side.
Download on the App Store GET IT ON Google PlayWhat watch faces come with a Pixel Watch?
Every Pixel Watch ships with Google’s own set of faces: analog and digital dials, activity-focused faces that put Fitbit stats such as steps and heart rate front and centre, and a photo face. Each one can be customised with different colours, styles and complication slots. Anything beyond that set comes from Google Play or from a watch face app on your phone.
The stock faces are designed for the Pixel Watch's round, domed screen and are genuinely good — most owners customise one and stop there. The limit is variety: Google adds new faces only occasionally, with software updates. If you want designs that change with your mood or the season, that is where Google Play and gallery apps come in.
Can you change the Pixel Watch face from your phone?
Yes. Open the Pixel Watch app on the Android phone your watch is paired with and tap Watch faces. You will see the faces already on the watch; tap one to make it the active face within a few seconds. Tap Add new to install another face from the list, and open any face to change its colours and complications on the bigger screen.
The phone is the better place to set up complications, because you can see every slot and every option at once instead of scrolling through them one at a time on the watch. Menu labels shift a little between app versions, but Watch faces has stayed the entry point.
Can you use a photo as a Pixel Watch face?
Yes. The Pixel Watch includes a photo face that shows pictures from Google Photos behind the time. Add it from the Pixel Watch app on your phone, then choose which photos or albums it should use. The watch cycles through them, and you can change the selection at any time from the phone without touching the watch.
A photo face keeps Google's clock styling on top of your picture, so it is closer to a personal wallpaper than to a designed face. Busy photos can make the time harder to read; a picture with a dark or plain area where the clock sits works best. For artwork that was made to be a watch face, see the photo-style faces in the Watch Lux gallery.
Does Watch Lux work on a Pixel Watch?
Yes, on any Pixel Watch running Wear OS 6 or later, paired to an Android phone on Android 8.0 or later. You install Watch Lux from Google Play on the phone, choose a face, and it is sent to the watch over Bluetooth. Each new face you send replaces the previous Watch Lux face; Google’s own faces are left untouched.
To check your software, open Settings on the watch, then System and About. The Pixel Watch 4 shipped with Wear OS 6, and Google has pushed updates to earlier Pixel Watch models — but support windows end, so check the version on your own watch rather than going by model name.
A Pixel Watch needs an Android phone — it cannot pair with an iPhone — and Apple Watch faces cannot be moved onto it in any case, because the two platforms use unrelated formats. The guide to Wear OS watch faces explains how the Wear OS side works in full.
Why has a watch face disappeared from my Pixel Watch?
Usually because of a software update or the move to Google’s Watch Face Format. Recent Wear OS versions favour faces built in the new format, and older faces built the previous way are being phased out, so a face that stopped working or vanished from Google Play after an update is most often one that its developer has not rebuilt yet.
Check the face's listing on Google Play first — if the developer has released a new version, reinstalling brings it back. If the listing is gone, the face has been retired. Faces from apps that already use the Watch Face Format, Watch Lux included, are not affected by the transition.
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