I would like to ask you, those who are into watchface designs.
Why are so many watchfaces has the AOD, same face (layout) like the main one? With the only difference, that the hand for the Seconds are not present in AOD mode.
Am I missing something here?
I looked and inspected many faces lately and many had the issue from above. Me, who don’t know much about watchfaces, only that they are showing you different infos and they are battery consumers.
My logic says that AOD should be minimalistic and as much battery saver as possible. Please correct me if I’m wrong.
I bet some of you has the answer, and will share it here. Or not . Thank you and cheers.
Yeah. Different watches di different things in AOD. My watch has Two Classic and Dimmed. Dimmed is absolutly no use to me at all .Classic I can just see if it is white on black and bold. So High contrast Eco. It will be good to see the answers .
You are correct in saying that dim or AOD mode should be less bright so that you save battery. That is my opinion anyway. I do not make the AOD as minimal as possible, I like to reflect the face in AOD mode too. But what I tend to do is keep the background black and grey out the pictures.
Of course, it takes some effort to create a face and a second one for AOD. I once create a AOD face, and I liked it so much, I created a new face out of it . I think some creators may be lazy to create both faces.
And if you personally want to save battery, then usually your watch has options to set brightness, theatre mode, flight mode, etc - my ticwatch has several of these options. But as a creator, my battery is dead early evening anyway, due to testing, I do not use my watch for anything else…
The main point of having the AOD is to see the information on the watch face without having to activate the face. AOD is ALWAYS dimmed by the watch itself to meet that less battery usage need. The second hand not showing in AOD is because in ambient mode the watch face only updates once per minute. If the second hand was there in AOD mode, it would stop when the face stops being active and then jump to the 12 position on the next update. After that it would always be in the 12 position.
I try to remove as much color in my AOD ambient mode face as possible. That way it’s a grayscale face which is less demanding on the battery than some colors are from an OLED perspective.
I used to do glow in the dark versions of my faces, but I found that I didnt like NOT having the main face showing when it went into AOD.
I got a smartwatch so i could use different faces and make my own. I feel like most people who buy a face, want to show that face off. The watch is in AOD MOST of the time, so I figured, why shouldn’t it be the face you bought?
Now I make all of my faces with active and aod mode the same, minus the second hand.
The only deviation ive made was this collection which is analog in active, tap for digital, then a hybrid in AOD.
My feeling exactly. So for my taste, and since my faces are classic analog dials, my AOD mimics what a real dial would look like in the dark: a duplicate of the normal face+hands, reduced to 15% opacity on a black background, plus fuzzy lume. And because of the AOD limitation, I park the second hand at 12 then I bring it back to life when coming out of AOD. But, that’s just my taste!
As far as I’m concerned, the answer is simple.
I prefer to see the image of the dial all the time, like in a classic watch.
I have GW 1 and GW 3 and have done some tests. I have found that with DIM mode active the battery life is almost the same.
Cheers
For me it is not an issue, just preference thing. I only seldom use AoD or dim mode and when its on, I prefer it to be in the style of the active dial as it is natural on mechanical watches, just with reduced background info-texts. For a request I made faces with dim mode full informational same as completely minimal or different (analog dim, digital active mode)
The Tizen operating system is much better at managing battery usage. WearOS on the other hand is a battery hog and anything that can be done to save battery helps. I personally don’t use AOD except on very rare occasions. My GW1 will last several days on a charge, but both my GW4’s are a day and a half at best. All without using AOD.
Hi @mrantisocialguy
I agree with you regarding Wear Os.
In my opinion it is a poorly made operating system. He always had problems, never solved, with the battery.
I have a TicWatch Pro 4G LTE and I don’t like it at all.
Wear Os is also the reason I stayed at GW3.
I didn’t get the 4 and, I assume, not even the 5.
Of course, it will be difficult for Samsung to return to the beloved Tizen
I never keep my watch always on and don’t even know how to activate the AOD mode. In the past, I just made the watch face dimmer for the AOD mode, but recently have been experimenting with using desaturated images of the same face, and in the case of primarily light faces, inverting the image as well. When I have a lot of components (including hands) that means creating them in desaturated and inverse as well. It adds to the challenge. I’ve even received some compliments for the AOD versions of the faces
I think the AOD mode is a great way to create 2 designs in one face. I think it’s totally uninteresting to have the Dim mode be nothing but a bare-bones version of the Active mode. Exercise your creativity.
I have excellent battery life and so the faces I purchase are the ones that don’t change. My criteria is aesthetics vs function, so I would like to appreciate the face I selected all day long. The AOD should look like the original watch face not a shadow of it. Otherwise, the watch looks like it’s in night mode all day long.
The best solution is a button that allows you to keep the same face in AOD and some designers have implemented this.
The Issue is Power drain . On WFS the platform will not let you sync a Face that has more than 15% illumination across all the Pixels . These manufacturers do not want Bad Press about Battery Drain . Facer lets you Publish White AOD Faces .Often the Partners are embarked on their own programmes of development and will not modify a Face . But if you see a face that has been published by a Free or Pro ( premium ) Maker that you like and would make a Full on Face ask them . Most will happily make a custom face for you . I actually never use AOD .
You should be aware that in AOD Mode some things will never work like Seconds Analogue and Digital and Many Animations , as they use the SUB second Timers to move them . Sequences will not run either .
I completely understand it for faces with animations, etc; however, for just plain analog faces, I just hope designers recognize that some users want to approximate a real watch so just add a button, like some designers have so thoughtfully done, to allow users the option to display the original face all day long.
Some designers that I am aware of that have the button, are: Dario Marnoni and Tombot.
The designers that have faces that automatically dim after sunset are: B# and GWC.
You see . The face has to be premium /. Made By a pro or a Partner to have the BUTTON on it . As I am Not a Premium user I have not used many of those Faces . I would be very Grateful if you could post a link to one of the faces you are talking about . I know TOM @tom.vannes , leaves his work open but not sure how many of his were Premium .
. Thank you and cheers.
. I think some creators may be lazy to create both faces.
