Samsung Stock Watch Face is not refreshing Time-dependent Complication in Ambient mode. This is not happening with third-party Watch Faces or Pixel emulators. They update Time-dependent complications every minute in Ambient mode.
Correct there is no second tick in Ambient Mode What complication isn’t being updated?
Ron
Samsung Developer Relations
The value will be shown as hours and minutes. Seconds are not displayed.
For example this ComplicationText:
TimeDifferenceComplicationText.Builder(
TimeDifferenceStyle.SHORT_DUAL_UNIT, CountDownTimeReference(
Instant.ofEpochMilli(calendar.timeInMillis)
)
)
Other Watch Faces built with the Jetpack Watch Face API, the Complication is updated every minute in Ambient mode, as they should.
What are the specific complications that are not updated? Generally they should act consistently on all Watch Types but it may be a Samsung battery saver issue. I’d need to know what doesn’t work.
Ron
Hi @r.liechty_SDP
Thank you for your replies.
I just noticed that custom complications don’t refresh in Ambient mode on the Samsung Stock Watch faces. They do refresh after entering Active mode.
This is not happening on 3rd party Watch Faces or other devices as well.
This is the “Time” complication from the Samsung Clock app. They change to an icon once entering Ambient mode, while on 3rd party Watch faces, they keep showing up-to-date complication data on Ambient mode.
Samsung Watch Face
3rd Party Watch Face
Maybe this is a feature that Samsung Watch Faces has to save a little battery but kills such as essential features.
Sorry if I’m in the wrong forum. I just got SGW 6 Classic and was confused by the different behavior.
Thank you.
These would be the complications and those complications may display that way. I doubt that World Clock updates in Ambient mode because if you tap on it to set the time zone it will wake up 
I don’t that complication in the other Watch Face.
Health features can be updated every second but it is frowned upon on a watch face only in the App itself. In a watch face they would only update once a minute. Steps and battery are certainly not updated ever minute even in Active mode only at least they have never been on any of my watches.
It is a very poor design feature to have any complications in Ambient mode for many reasons. Waste of Battery and poor user experience since they will not likely perform the same as in Active mode.
Finally I don’t think those are user selected complications in the ones you show as available in Ambient mode are they user selectable or just a display component.
Ron
Samsung Developer Relations
Yes, only user-selected complications are affected. The “Time” complication I’m showing is user-selected. They available in Ambient mode and updated every minute.
Google also has an API called TimeDifferenceComplicationText that represents a time difference. Like “4 minutes to meeting”, etc. They are refreshed automatically every minute. On Samsung Watch Faces, they are stuck in Ambient mode.
https://developer.android.com/reference/androidx/wear/watchface/complications/data/TimeDifferenceComplicationText
I’m a Wear app developer and my app supports Complication data. I used to test on the Pixel Watch and the emulators, and they work as expected. I’m just curious why the Samsung Watch Faces is different.
Thank You.
I can’t duplicate this at all, perhaps it is your expectation? Since when it goes into ambient mode the second tick is not allowed so it does not update until the next full minute and if you go into ambient mode a bit before the minute it often doesn’t update until the next full minute.
Time and Date work and World Clock complications work just as expected, I have no idea why your complication is not working maybe there is a permission missing.
I need something I can duplicate before I can report it and everything I see in Ambient mode seems to update on the minute as expected.
Ron
Samsung Developer Relations
It doesn’t work only on pre-installed Watch Faces (Stretched time, Pro analog, Color Duo, Analog dashboard, etc.) based on SGW 6.
Other Watch Faces made by WFS work as expected.
Thanks, Ron.
I see what you are saying now the user complications are “grayed out” at least the time and world clock. I suspect that is because the built in Watch Faces work on a level below what Watch Face Studio does so they can do things differently than WFS can.
There isn’t anything I can report about this but if you want to mention it in The Samsung Members community you can.
Ron
Samsung Developer Relations