r/applewatchfaces

▲ 8 r/applewatchfaces+12 crossposts

The Elder Scrolls Official collection has arrived on Facer

Whether you're a fan of Skyrim, Oblivion, or The Elder Scrolls as a whole, the new collection is now available for Wear OS and Apple Watch. 

Check them out: https://www.facer.io/u/the-elder-scrolls

Out of curiosity, if you could have any Elder Scrolls-inspired watch face that isn't in the collection yet, what would you want to see? A specific faction, Daedric Prince, guild, location, artifact, or something else?

u/GetFacer — 3 days ago
▲ 88 r/applewatchfaces+8 crossposts

NOOP v4 — use your WHOOP band with no subscription, no account, fully offline (Mac · iPhone · Android) Now supports more than just WHOOP 4/5!

Short version: if you own a WHOOP, the band is dead weight without a ~$199–$359/year membership, and all your data lives on their cloud. NOOP is a free, open-source app that talks to your WHOOP directly over Bluetooth and gives you recovery, strain, sleep and a lot more — on your own device, no account, no cloud, no subscription. Your data never leaves your phone or Mac.

It's independent and unofficial (not affiliated with WHOOP). It's been going a while — 171 releases, 10,000+ downloads, 1,600+ GitHub stars — and v4 is the biggest update yet.

⭐ Standout features (the stuff that makes people switch)

  • No subscription, ever. Every feature unlocked, no account, no nag. Free forever.
  • 100% offline & private. No cloud, no sign-up — your raw heart-rate and sleep data physically stay on your device. You can export all of it whenever you want.
  • It runs on a Mac. WHOOP doesn't even make a Mac app. NOOP gives you a full desktop dashboard and a menu-bar live-HR readout.
  • NEW in v4 — a longevity engine: your Fitness Age, a Vitality score (0–100) and a Body Age in years, computed from data you already have.
  • Your strap can buzz back. NOOP uses the band's own haptic motor for HRV breathing biofeedback (it paces your breath with felt cues) and a silent HIIT interval timer (buzzes every work/rest transition — train hands-free, no screen).
  • Turn your strap into a remote. Double-tap the band to lock your Mac, mark a moment, or run any macOS Shortcut.
  • Bring your WHOOP history across in ~1 minute by importing your official export — then it's yours.

🆕 What v4 adds — the "Age & Longevity" engine

Three new on-device numbers, all framed honestly as wellness estimates (never a clinical age):

  • 🫀 Fitness Age — how fit your heart is vs your actual age, from resting HR + recent activity, built on the published Nes/HUNT VO₂max research. A "How accurate is this?" panel shows exactly which inputs went in.
  • ✨ Vitality (0–100) + Body Age — your longevity read, the way WHOOP's "Healthspan" works: resting HR, sleep duration + regularity, HRV and activity each weighed against published all-cause-mortality research. It even names the one habit helping you most and the one holding you back.
  • 🏃 Optional VO₂max estimate — add a waist measurement and NOOP shows it alongside your Fitness Age.

(v4.0.1, out today, also makes Today's Effort update live through the day instead of lagging, and fixes a sleep-time-edit bug.)

📋 The full feature list

Daily scores — NOOP's own, all out of 100 to go head-to-head with WHOOP:

  • Charge (recovery) from HRV / resting HR / skin temperature / sleep quality
  • Effort (strain), now computed live as your day builds
  • Rest (sleep) composite, with full sleep staging

The screens:

  • Today — home dashboard: recovery ring, a "today's synthesis" insight, stat tiles (recovery, strain, sleep, HRV, RHR, SpO₂, respiratory, steps, weight, calories) each with a 14-day sparkline, live strap battery %, HR trend and recent workouts.
  • Readiness — a "should you push today?" call built on real sports science: HRV vs baseline (Plews/Buchheit), resting-HR drift (Lamberts), respiratory drift, training-load balance (acute:chronic, Gabbett) and monotony (Foster) → one headline (Primed / Balanced / Strained / Run down) with the reasons.
  • Sleep — hypnogram, stage breakdown, efficiency, resting HR & HRV from the on-device sleep stager. Browse back through past nights, and edit bed/wake times.
  • Stress — day-level autonomic-load view. Health — full biometric overview (HR, HRV, SpO₂, skin temp, respiratory rate). Trends — long-range trends across everything.
  • Workouts — detected sessions with strain + HR detail, plus GPS workout tracking with route map, HR zones and a post-session summary. Live — real-time HR/frame stream.
  • Breathe — HRV haptic breathing biofeedback with pre/post HRV outcome (Relax 4-6, Coherence 5.5, Box 4-4). Intervals — silent haptic HIIT timer.
  • Mind — a daily mood check-in correlated against your own recovery/sleep/HRV (on-device, non-clinical).
  • Explore / Compare / Insights — interrogate any metric over time, plot two together, and surface correlations from your own data.
  • Data Sources — one-tap import of a WHOOP CSV export, an Apple Health export, or a nutrition CSV (Cronometer / MacroFactor).
  • Automations — double-tap → Mac action/Shortcut, lock-on-wrist-off, HR-zone haptic coaching, and a smart alarm that arms the strap's own firmware to buzz you awake even if the app's closed.
  • Coach — an optional AI coach you can ask about your data in plain language. It's off until you add your own key (Anthropic, OpenAI, or any OpenAI-compatible endpoint including a fully local model via Ollama / LM Studio) — and it only ever sends a short text summary + your question, never raw data. With a local model the conversation never leaves your machine.
  • Settings — profile, step calibration, units, the in-app What's new changelog, and an opt-in Experimental section.

Also in the box: Apple Health + Health Connect (reads in, writes your workouts back out), steps, strap battery alerts, rename your strap, a live-HR widget / Dynamic Island / Live Activity, raw sensor CSV export, a menu-bar extra on Mac, a first-run onboarding wizard, and a built-in scoring guide that explains every number and how it differs from WHOOP's.

📱 What devices are supported

Platforms — one feature set across all three:

  • macOS (13+) — full app + menu-bar extra.
  • Android (8+) — full app, install the APK.
  • iPhone / iPad — sideload the unsigned .ipa with AltStore / SideStore and sign it with your own free Apple ID (no App Store, no developer account). Newer and a little less battle-tested than Mac/Android.

Straps:

  • WHOOP 4.0 — ✅ the fully supported path: live HR, recovery, strain, sleep, full history offload.
  • WHOOP 5.0 / MG — 🧪 live heart rate works on real hardware; deeper overnight metrics (recovery, strain, sleep) are still being reverse-engineered, and the app tells you straight which ones aren't ready yet. (Note: pairing a 5/MG means closing the official WHOOP app first so it isn't holding the Bluetooth bond — there's a guide in-app.)
  • Multiple WHOOPs — manage several straps, switch between them, and see what each band can do.
  • Generic Bluetooth heart-rate straps (Polar and friends) — early support, with a Devices screen and guided pairing wizards.

💡 Why it beats the official setup

Feature NOOP WHOOP app
Cost Free, forever ~$199–$359 / year
Account None Required
Your data On your device, offline Their cloud
Mac app ✅ Yes ❌ No
Export raw data ✅ Yes Limited
Open source ✅ Yes ❌ No

📰 As featured in

AOL · Yahoo · Android Authority · TechRadar · BGR · Android Central · Android Police · Notebookcheck · Trusted Reviews

⬇️ Download (free)

https://github.com/NoopApp/noop/releases/latest

  • macOS: the .zip, or brew install --cask noopapp/noop/noop
  • iPhone/iPad: the .ipa (sideload + sign with your free Apple ID)
  • Android: the .apk

Questions, setup help & release news → r/NOOPApp.

♥ Keeping NOOP alive

Full honesty: NOOP is free forever, every feature unlocked, no nag — and it's built and maintained by one person, out of pocket. Keeping up with WHOOP's hardware and firmware takes real time and real test gear. The project continues if the people who use it help fund it.

Donations are crypto-only, on purpose — it keeps the project (and you) anonymous, no names attached. If even a small fraction of those 10,000+ downloads chipped in $50 (a fraction of one year's WHOOP membership), NOOP's future is secure for a long time:

  • BTC: bc1qn2gkl7wslwpws06mvazjn2uu689zlkv7kg3kf5
  • ETH: 0xd64D508b531c4b1297Ca4023C774e0E97aA67B7F

New to crypto? Cash App / Coinbase / Kraken will have you sending in ~2 minutes. Thank you for keeping an independent, no-subscription project alive. 🙏

github.com
u/TheNoopApp — 6 days ago
▲ 0 r/applewatchfaces+1 crossposts

Support of 3rd party watch faces

Pretty sure about I’m doing something wrong but here goes - I installed a 3rd party watch face app and tried installing a watch face from it. To my nightmare it says I must keep that app open for the watch face to remain appearing. That is to say the watch face did not actually install natively but just appears as a face on the app as long as I keep it open.
This is not how it should be isn’t it? Or is this really another restriction from apple?

Name of the app is watch faces gallery.

reddit.com
u/abhinavsays42 — 5 days ago
▲ 112 r/applewatchfaces+1 crossposts

Loving my new Apple Watch! This setup keeps me on track — weekday, next event, battery at a glance.

u/markg11 — 10 days ago

Anyone know how to get it to quit going dark and going to the widget page?

Night mode is off in the watch face and always on is on. Any tips or advice is appreciated. TIA

u/LightMyKush124 — 7 days ago

I want to switch Apple Watch battery

I had this apple watch as a present from my uncle long time ago ( I don’t even remember which Series)
**I love it so much and I still want to wear it**
It has one problem, which is battery. The battery doesn’t last more than 10 min.
I read that you can switch the battery at home
Is that possible?

u/FeelingAromatic5424 — 7 days ago

My gta vi watch face before gta vi

I’ve been having a lot of fun designing custom watch faces for my Apple Watch lately. I just finished making one inspired by GTA VI, and I’m really happy with how it turned out. It’s a small project, but it’s been a fun way to personalize my watch while waiting for the game. Anyone else here enjoy making custom watch faces? I’d love to see what you’ve created!

u/Confident-Set-3181 — 7 days ago
▲ 70 r/applewatchfaces+2 crossposts

How does my new Heart Rate Complication look?

Since the beginning I started wearing Apple Watch I've been disappointed with how the Heart Rate Complication looks so decided to make one for myself. 😊

u/Snoo-32401 — 11 days ago
▲ 14 r/applewatchfaces+3 crossposts

Venus phase display for Apple Watch

*Orb: On the Movements of the Earth* is a Japanese animated series centered on the proof of the heliocentric theory.

While it does not strictly adhere to historical facts, the characters are portrayed with a compelling sense of realism.

In the series, there is a scene featuring Count Piast, an elderly astronomer who has dedicated his life to proving the geocentric theory. He catches a glimpse of Venus in a "full" phase—an impossibility under the geocentric model—and, desperate to refute that memory, asks Ogzy, a young man with exceptional eyesight, to conduct an observation.

Count Piast had seen Venus fully illuminated just once. Despite his desire to deny it, he could not resist the urge to verify the truth.

The scene where Ogzy observes Venus in this full phase leaves a powerful impression.

However, I did not fully grasp why a fully illuminated Venus would disprove the geocentric theory.

I recently found the following simulation sites demonstrating how Venus appears, which helped me understand the concept.

●UNIVERSITY of NEBRASKA–LINCOLN

Venus's movement and appearance based on the geocentric theory

https://astro.unl.edu/classaction/animations/renaissance/ptolemaic.html

Venus's movement and appearance based on the heliocentric theory

https://astro.unl.edu/classaction/animations/renaissance/venusphases.html

Intrigued by the phases of Venus, I created a tool to observe them.

It is based on an astronomical clock app that utilizes the *Wadokei* (traditional Japanese clock) system—a timekeeping method rooted in the sun's movement.

It uses Apple Watch complications to display the times when Venus is visible, as well as its size and current phase.

Wadokei57 Astronomical clock

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/wadokei57-astronomical-clock/id6748839654

In addition to showing Venus's phases, apparent size, and rise/set times, the app features a diagrammatic view displaying the relative positions and distances of the Sun, Venus, and Earth.

An update including the Venus complication is currently under review, and I expect it to be released soon.

u/Alone-Lingonberry216 — 8 days ago