Watchsmith: My New Favorite Apple Watch Complication

David “Undercore” Smith has a new app, appropriately called “Watchsmith“. I think about this app as the watch complication to end all watch complications.

There are two components to this app. First is the actual complication itself. You can customize it to show a lot of different data including date, time, calendar, activity, weather, tides, astronomy, time zones, battery level, and even blank. These views are highly customizeable and you can set the font, color, and background color for each one. For a long time now, I have wanted a simple date complication that just shows a date with a large number so I can read it with my glasses off. Remarkably, Apple’s own complication doesn’t offer that. This app does that and so much more. The app also has a mechanism to change the complication by time of day. Maybe you want the date to appear all day but then have it switch to activity rings at 5PM? Watchsmith can do that.

There are different configurations of the complications for different watch faces. Once you tap the complication it opens up the Watchsmith application, which lets you get information from a variety of sources including workouts, weather, health, calendar, time zones, games, and astronomy. David Smith has been making watch apps for a long time and his experience shines through here. In essence, the complication becomes a trigger for a rather sophisticated control center on your Apple Watch. I’ve been using the beta a few weeks ago and it’s a fixture on my watch. The app is free, but to unlock all of the complications and features you’ll need to subscribe. I’ve already subscribed.

I’ve always liked the round California watch face but never been able to read the date on it because Apple‘s version of the date complication for this watch face is too small. Watchsmith fixes that for me and gives me a whole lot more to boot.