The best Garmin watch faces for your Fenix, Forerunner, Venu, and more

Garmin watches come with various built-in watch faces, but part of the fun of owning a Garmin device is customizing it to your liking. Using Garmin’s Connect IQ app, you can download and customize hundreds of first- and third-party watch faces for any Garmin watch, from the Fenix line to the vivoactive or Venu series. These are the best Garmin watch faces we could find.

The best Garmin watch faces

What to look for in the best Garmin watch faces

There are lots (and I mean lots) of Garmin watch faces to choose from, thanks to Garmin’s Connect IQ SDK and open watch face APIs. This allows anyone with some coding knowledge to create their own Garmin watch faces. Thus, there are plenty to choose from, from digital to analog, data-heavy to simple.

Not everyone wants to scroll through their watch’s widgets just to see how many steps they’ve taken. If you value seeing your data front and center, consider downloading a watch face with customizable data fields. If you’d rather have a clean or more professional look to your watch, consider downloading an analog watch face or one that focuses on the time instead of data.

Finally, you should know how much you’re willing to pay for a Garmin watch face. Since many of the watch faces in Connect IQ are made by third-party developers, you’ll either run into paywalls, suggested donations, or completely free options. Some developers allow you to download their watch face on a trial basis, and you’re expected to pay up after ~24 hours. We’ve found that if you want the best Garmin watch faces, you should be open to spending a dollar or two for the developer’s hard work.

Note: Not all watch faces featured on this list are compatible with all Garmin devices. Check the app listing on Connect IQ before trying to install it on your device.

Colourboard

Price: $1.25

Another paid watch face, Colourboard, from developer Lignite, offers many customization options. You can change the background color scheme, customize the data fields, and add phone notification indicators to each style. There’s also an always-on display option for AMOLED-touting Garmin watches, which is not something every Garmin watch face offers.

You can buy Colourboard for $1.25 or save 70% by purchasing the lifetime bundle for $3.99. This gets you access to all of Lignite’s current watch faces, plus any new ones published in the future.

Crystal

Price: Free / optional donation

Crystal is among the most popular watch faces on the Connect IQ Store, and it’s not hard to see why.

It supports a host of old and new Garmin smartwatches with circular and angular displays and comes with three customizable data fields, three customizable indicators, and two customizable meters on either flank. Adding to the package is a move bar, a dozen color schemes, the ability to tweak the face to improve battery life, and more.

Data Lover

Price: Free / optional donation

Data Lover is a classic Garmin watch face compatible with most Garmin watches. It’s popular for a few reasons. First, it’s completely free. But if you do choose to donate to the developer, you’ll get rid of the occasional donation encouragement notification, and the weather field will update more frequently.

As for the watch face itself, Data Lover shows the time, date, weather, battery percentage, active heart rate data, sunrise/sunset data, status icons, steps/stairs history, and much more. It even displays its own Move Circles system that encourages you to move every hour. If we had one gripe, the watch face isn’t the prettiest. It’s tough to pack in that much data while leaving room for a sleek design. Data Lover might not be your first choice if you’re looking for something to wear to the office. But if you always want all of your stats front and center, there’s no better Garmin watch face.

Digital for TactixD

Price: Free / optional donation

This watch face shows some incredible promise. Stay well away if you’re averse to tinkering, but for those who love fooling around with a screwdriver and the hood up, this face has plenty to keep you occupied.

For starters, the default face is quite a looker, but you can configure every data type, the indicators’ placements, the fonts, colors, and more can be tweaked to the user’s desire. This makes for one of the most extensive faces available on the Connect IQ platform.

As we mentioned, the face is in its development phase, so issues are likely. However, considering the community reviews, there really aren’t too many deal-breaking issues.

Enduro (PlayItLoud)

Price: $1.99

The Garmin Enduro is an expensive piece of kit, but it has one of the best-looking stock Garmin watch faces the company has put out in a long time. You can save some cash by downloading a customizable Enduro-themed watch face from developer PlayItLoud.

The Enduro watch face is my personal favorite and has been a mainstay on my Fenix 6 Pro since its release. Why is the Enduro face great? First, it replicates the clean, data-packed look of the stock Enduro face. Eight sections show your data, from steps to distance to weather. The two dividing lines can double as a step counter, battery gauge, move bar, and more. You can also add custom text to the top or bottom of the face, and the bottom three data slots can be swapped out for an in-depth heart rate, pressure, elevation, sensor temperature, or steps graph.

The Enduro face can be downloaded for free, but you’ll eventually need to pay $1.99 to keep access to it. Not a fan of PlayItLoud’s Enduro face? We’re also a big fan of the dev’s SkyTracker watch face.

Glance Pro

Price: $2.99

Glance, as its name suggests, makes it easy to peek at essential data on your wrist quickly. It’s a great Garmin watch face for larger screen models, like the Venu 3, Fenix 7 Pro, and Epix Pro series.

Notably, Glance Pro is the premium version of the face. Still, it does include touchscreen support for newer watches, additional color options, and a host of extra metrics available to use on screen. It makes full use of always on display, too, and is highly customizable.

Horizon

Price: Free / $4 unlock

Horizon’s a well-presented, legible watch face that can house a host of data fields you choose. These can also include bars and graphs, percentages, and text readouts. The face also includes specific weather information, like tide data and air quality, but both fields require API keys from their respective sources. Those interested in moon phases can also access an entire lunar-related data readout.

Some items are locked behind a paywall, while the theming system is much more intricate than most watch faces. Nevertheless, Horizon strikes a good balance between aesthetics and functionality.

NoFrills

Price: Free / optional donation

As its name suggests, NoFrills by HermoT is a wonderfully simple, easy-to-read watch face for a host of Garmin watches. Its primary feature is the large digital time display with a water gauge that meters the wearer’s step goal. There are a fair amount of customization slots, too. You can configure the data display, choose to display a battery percentage, or display live heart rate data for supported watches. Best of all, it’s free with an optional donation to the developer.

PokeWatch

Price: Free

The PokeWatch watch face might be the coolest watch face on this list. First, it’s completely free, so that’s a major win. PokeWatch lets you relive the magic of the very first Pokémon games for the Game Boy, right on your Garmin watch face.

You can select from five Pokémon to fight for you: Pikachu, Squirtle, Flareon, Mew, and Mewtwo. Your Pokémon’s opponent will grow stronger and stronger as you progress toward your daily step goal. At the beginning of the day, your Pikachu might be fighting Squirtle. But toward the end, you might be taking on Blastoise.

Furthermore, your watch’s battery level is represented by your Pokémon’s HP. You can even give your Pokémon a custom nickname, just like in the Game Boy games.

Oh, and it shows the time and date at the top because that’s an important feature of a watch face.

Rails

Price: Free / Optional unlock

Rails is a customizable face that suits circular watches. Plenty of features are available in the free version, but users can unlock additional features with a premium unlock.

The watch itself has plenty of information front and center. The time is large and centered, while more than 12 configurable data icons and fields are dotted across the face, and two rail gauges make peeking at your steps or distance goals much easier. The face has plenty of color options, with six baked-in themes and three font options to boot.

RStudio watch faces (Infocal, Infograph, and Casio 3000)

Price: Free / optional donation

Developer RStudio only has four Garmin watch faces in its lineup, but they’re all clean, customizable, and free.

The first watch face that jumped out at us is Infocal, which mimics the Garmin Fenix 6 Pro’s sleek red and black watch face. You can customize all of the data around the edges of the watch face. The clock style can also be changed to give it a completely different look while keeping your data to the edges of the screen. It’s a definite upgrade over the Fenix 6’s watch face.

Infograph is one of the sleekest analog Garmin watch faces we could find. It offers plenty of data front and center while keeping most of the watch face clean and minimal.

Finally, RStudio’s Casio 3000 brings classic digital watch flair to your Garmin watch. You can change all of the data fields on the screen, plus choose from various color themes.

SHN watch faces (SHN EDO, SHN Tactical, SHN Active, and more)

Price: Free / pay what you want to unlock pro features

Developer SHN offers a variety of customizable, attractive Garmin watch faces. There are many to choose from, but our favorites are SHN EDO, SHN Tactical, and SHN Active. SHN’s watch faces offer a mix of data-heavy layouts and stylistic designs. You can find sleek technical watch faces and robust analog faces. There’s even a habit-tracking watch face if you’re having trouble staying away from that extra cup of midday coffee.

All of SHN’s watch faces are free to use. You can pay the developer a few bucks via PayPal to unlock additional pro features, like more graphs and data sections.

Simple Info Analog

Price: Free / optional donation

Looking for an analog watch face? Simple Info Analog is among the best third-party options for your older Garmin watch. For one, it’s free. It also includes a highly legible design with two base styles: a traditional analog and a more performance-orientated one for runners.

The biggest issue with Simple Info Analog is its lack of official support for several watches launched after 2019. But if you have an older model you want to spruce up, this is a great, reliable face.

Simple TDB

Price: Free / optional donation

Simple TDB is just that — simple. A clean watch face that prioritizes the time, date, and weather display, it’s among the more popular faces on the Garmin Connect IQ store.

Plenty of customization settings are available, but the standard layout should display everything you need, including battery life, steps, current heart rate, and sunrise/sunset time.

Summit Watch Face V2

Price: Free / optional donation

Attractive dual-display Garmin watch faces are few and far between, but the Summit Watch Face V2 is worth a mention. Its primary display is an analog watch face, with deep red indicators and visually arresting white needles. You can adjust these colors as you see fit, of course. However, the face also displays the time in digital or military time.

The other three complications can be tweaked, too. You can display the current weather, heart rate, caloric burn, and more.

This Is Fine

Price: Free / optional donation

A faithful recreation of the popular webcomic, the This Is Fine watch face simply shows the time and KC Green’s relatable dog accepting its fate in a burning house. It’s a great reminder “to be okay with the events that are currently unfolding.”

VAW.BE watch faces (Edge, Complete, Big, and more)

Price: $1.49 (+VAT) / watch face bundles up to $6.99

VAW. BE’s watch faces are customizable, pretty, and come in various styles. There are clock-focused watch faces that emphasize the time, data-packed options that try to show you as much as possible on a single screen, and artsy ones that feature geometric- or nature-themed backgrounds. Our favorites are Edge, Complete, Big, Seasons, and Flora.

VAW.BE watch faces cost $1.49 apiece. You can also pay for watch face bundles if you want to download all of the floral, stats-heavy, or time-focused watch faces. There’s also an option to pay $6.99 to get all of the developer’s watch faces, saving you 82% overall.

Honorable mentions

That’s it for our list of the best Garmin watch faces. We also want to give an honorable mention to the following:

• Stock Garmin watch faces: There’s a reason many people use the stock watch faces that ship on their Garmin devices. First, each Garmin watch usually comes with a handful of exclusive Garmin watch faces that you can’t find in the Connect IQ store. These watch faces can also provide unique data that no other watch face can offer.

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