watchOS 26: More Apple Watch faces using improved Series 10 display

The Apple Watch Series 10 features an improved display with a faster refresh rate. This enables a selection of watch faces to display the ticking seconds indicator even in always-on mode. However, most of the watch faces do not use the new hardware yet. The watchOS 26 software update coming this fall will change that.

Series 10 improved face

At launch, three watch faces support updating seconds in always-on mode: Flux, Reflections, and Activity Digital. Apple later introduced 2025 versions of the Pride and Unity watch faces, expanding support to five faces.

While watOS 26 doesn’t make support universal, it does bring the feature to the number of watch faces available. Notably, both California and Utility display the seconds hand in always-on mode in watchOS 26. Both of these faces can display numbers alongside the analog watch face. None of the first five supported watch faces featured this traditional watch face.

Among the Apple Watch faces that display analog seconds, these faces are in the supported phase in watchOS 26 beta 1:

Functional Analog, Functional Digital, California, Color, Contour, Count Up, Flux, GMT, Infograph, Meridian, Metropolitan, Nike Analog, Numerals Mono, Pride Harmony, Reflections, Stripes, Solar Analog, Unity Rhythm, and Utility.

That replaces most watch faces with standard analog seconds hands. Separately, this watch face can display seconds but still lacks support for always-on mode:

Chronograph Pro, Kaleidoscope, Lunar, Mickey Mouse, Modular Compact, Palette, Pride Analog, Pride Celebration, Solar Dial, Snoopy, Unity Bloom, Unity Lights, and World Time.

Most uncut watch faces don’t feature a standard seconds hand and instead have a custom design. The Chronograph Pro, which displays analog seconds on the sub-dial, is the only shortcoming that disappoints me. The Modular Compact has a digital seconds indicator that would be a good candidate, and the analog clock on the Solar Dial and World Time could be technically updated.

Even with the rest left, watchOS 26 adds traditional watch-style faces making the Apple Watch Series 10 the best analog watch face display.

View the face gallery

watchOS 26 does not yet include any new watch faces, although the graphical faces incorporate Apple’s new Liquid Glass design language. Apple will likely hold off on any new watch faces for later display alongside new Apple Watch models later this year.

Instead, Apple has organized the watch faces into categories that make up the new watch face gallery. Categories include:

• New watch face
• Health and Fitness
• Pictures
• Clean up
• Data is Rich
• A collection of pride
• Dress Watch
• A viewing tool
• The highlight
• It’s funny
• Unity Collection
• Colorful
• Astronomy
• World Literature
• Movement
• The Nike Collection
• The Digital Age
• Analog Time

Apple Watch Ultra and Hermes have their own categories too. Categories can be viewed on the Apple Watch when you select a face or in the Watch app on the iPhone.