Is there a way to create a compass complication for the Galaxy Watch 7, but not a shortcut to open the compass app, but a compass image that appears directly on the watch screen?
Yes, but the only options I can think of wouldn’t be easy.
If you don’t use WFS, you could use WFF XML to make a custom complication slot that displays anthing that’s possible using the WFF XML drawing elements. Those should be sufficient for drawing a compass. This way, the compass complication wouldn’t only need to pass the heading value to the watchface, and all compass complications probably do that. You’d need to lock your complication slot to a particular compass complication because it could look silly if someone tried to display steps (etc) in it.
I think it’s possible for a complication to construct an arbitrary image, and then pass that to a complication slot of type SMALL_IMAGE (or similar). This would be difficult, and may not be good for battery life. But it would allow you to continue to use WFS for the watchface.
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I believe it is possible. You would have to create a custom complication using Android Studio.
Do you have any examples of how to do this?
My watch is the Galaxy Watch 7, and there is a watchface for the 7 Ultra that has an active compass on the screen, that’s what I want to reproduce on my watch face in Watch Face Studio
If there is a tag to use at an angle in a radial indicator, that would solve it.
@froberfuzi
from Watch Face Studio you will only be able to add complication slots. The complication itself will either be provided on the device, or you can download third party one.
You might be able to find a complication that uses compass on the Play Store.
Or you can create your own.
I want to create my own project, I already have the images for creation, but I looked in the wach face studio and tried in every way and I couldn’t find a way to do this, the idea is to link an image to the compass sensor so it appears on the screen
Ah, I don’t want to copy this watchface, I just want to make the compass work on another one of mine, I have other face projects ready in Watch Face Studio, I just need to make the compass work
If someone did it because it is possible for wear OS 5, but I want to find out how it was done, if it was in the watch face studio or in the android studio, if anyone has a simple example project that works on the watch please send it to me so I can understand how it is done
WFS (and WFF) don’t provide access to the compass sensor. You must use a complication that has access to the compass sensor.
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@froberfuzi . Ask the Maker of the Face . Probable an expert coder in Android studio . CODE only Composition . No GUI .
The Ultra watch face wasn’t created in WFS, it was coded in Android Studio. It does things we can’t. I want to learn how to do this in Android Studio, but it seems pretty daunting.
Modern watch faces that run on Wear OS 5 must all use WFF (XML). WFF can do some things that WFS can’t, but not many. If this watch face is significantly different, it may be using a deprecated API. WFF and WFS are much more limited than earlier APIs.
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That would be ironic, since its only available on the Ultra. The other thing it can do that no other face can do is show Blood Oxygen directly in a complication without having to tap on it.
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I actually just want to reproduce this on a watch face that I make myself in watch face studio, or know if it was done in android studio, or if there was a manual on how to do it or an example that someone has already done this.
@froberfuzi
You can build the watch face using Jetpack Watch Face API.
Build a watch face service | Wear OS | Android Developers
But keep in mind, it is deprecated.
This is what it says on the documentation:
"The Watch Face Format is required for watch faces to be installed on devices with Wear OS 5 or later pre-installed and for all new watch faces published on Google Play.
Starting in January 2026, the Watch Face Format will be required for watch faces to be installed on all Wear OS devices."
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Yawn, another sign of how limited WFS is relative to similar apps for previous watch face formats. Those apps will catch up and Support Wear OS watch faces rendering WFS redundant in time. It’s shameful that sensors like the compass and weather data like the wind direction are not available by default in WFS and have to coded by the developer from scratch. I wonder how is it that the “most popular contact” is more useful than than the compass or wind direction/speed. At least I can say I now have WFS for Windows running in wine on linux so don’t have to boot any Windows or Mac system that I don’t have or use.
Having installed Android Studio Narwhal (that’s the version number). It doesn’t look very difficult to create a complication that provides the compass or wind direction/speed from weather. If it was created then a Wear OS screen object should be able to use it’s value within a numeric range to display it. The default example is a text complication that gives the day of week in text and it’s less than 50 lines of java where the implementation if pretty obvious. Accessing the compass sensor itself is also pretty easy and probably also less than 50 lines of java and I can already see how to replace the text day of the week complication with a numeric range complication that could provide the compass range, the actual sensor is a magnetic field sensor and would sense the earth’s polar magnetic field if there is no local distrurbance. However, I don’t know how to make any WFS object aware that it exists and be a retriever for it’s value (what’s required to display a compass). Given that WFS appears to only provide access to the enum of pre-defined complications at the moment I assume that would require a WFS plug-in to make WFS aware of the additional numeric range data source added by a magnetic field complication. I assume that part is more significant than the complication but I believe there are a couple of open examples. A WFS user designing a watch face they like the look of shouldn’t have to think of these things.