Creating Watch Faces

Watch faces in Android Wear leverage a dynamic digital canvas to tell time using colors, animations, and relevant contextual information. The Android Wear companion app provides watch faces with different styles and shapes. When users select one of the available watch faces on the wearable or on the companion app, the wearable device previews the watch face and lets the user set configuration options.

Android Wear enables you to create custom watch faces for Wear devices. When users install a handheld app that contains a wearable app with watch faces, they become available in the Android Wear companion app on the handheld device and in the watch face picker on the wearable device.

This class teaches you to implement custom watch faces and to package them inside a wearable app. This class also covers design considerations and implementation tips to ensure that your designs integrate with system UI elements and are power-efficient.

Note: We recommend using Android Studio for Android Wear development, as it provides project setup, library inclusion, and packaging conveniences. This training assumes you are using Android Studio.

Lessons

Designing Watch Faces

Learn how to design a watch face that works on any Android Wear device.

Building a Watch Face Service

Learn how to respond to important events during the lifecycle of your watch face.

Drawing Watch Faces

Learn how to draw your watch face on a Wear device screen.

Showing Information in Watch Faces

Learn how to incorporate contextual information into your watch face.

Creating Interactive Watch Faces

Learn how to enable the user to interact with your watch face.

Providing Configuration Activities

Learn how to create watch faces with configurable parameters.

Addressing Common Issues

Learn how to fix common problems when developing a watch face.

Optimizing Performance and Battery Life

Learn how to improve the frame rate of your animations and how to save power.