Wear OS 5 makes setting new watch faces on your Pixel Watch easier

Google unveiled Wear OS 5, based on Android 14, at I/O 2024. The latest Wear OS release packs underlying performance and battery life enhancements and an updated Watch Face Format supporting new complications and data types. Other smaller improvements include a new grid-style app drawer and improved camera control. A minor change in Wear OS 5 that seems to have slipped under the radar makes setting a new watch face on the Pixel Watch significantly faster and easier.

On the Pixel Watch running Wear OS 5, downloading a watch face from the Play Store will display a prompt asking you to set it as the new watch face. It also has an Always set watch faces toggle. If enabled, your Pixel Watch will automatically switch to any new watch face you download from the Play Store. To set only the current downloaded watch face as your Pixel Watch’s new face, leave the toggle disabled and confirm your selection by tapping the check mark.

Google notes that this option will only appear for selected watch faces and is limited to Wear OS 5-running Pixel Watches.

Don’t worry if you don’t see the option after downloading a new watch face on your Google smartwatch. Navigate to the Play Store on the watch, scroll down, tap Settings, and enable the Always set watch faces toggle.

Directly apply a watch face from the Play Store

Alternatively, opening the Play Store listing of an installed watch face on the Pixel Watch will show a Set option. Again, this is faster than using the companion Pixel Watch app on your phone to switch to a recently downloaded watch face. Sadly, the Set option will not appear on the Play Store listing of the watch face on the phone itself.

I frequently download new watch faces on my Google Pixel Watch 2 from the Play Store as and when I come across them. However, I mostly forget to switch from my existing watch face to the newly installed one. The process itself is also cumbersome. You cannot apply new watch faces directly from the Play Store; instead, you must use the companion Pixel Watch app.

This small change in Wear OS 5 addresses the issue, making it faster and easier to try out new watch faces on your Pixel Watch.