A Closer Look at watchOS 26.5's New Luminance Watch Face

Source: MacRumors

Overview

watchOS 26.5 introduces the Pride Luminance watch face, one of the most versatile and customizable faces available. It comes with pre‑configured color palettes, but also supports fully custom color selections.

Color Customization

• Choose 1 to 12 colors from a palette that includes every hue of the rainbow, intermediate shades, and neutral colors such as black, white, brown, and gray.
• The selected colors are distributed across the face in a gradient that can be displayed in either radial or linear style.
  • Radial creates a starburst effect.
  • Linear forms a series of rectangular lines.

Dial Options

• Rectangle: edge‑to‑edge color coverage.
• Circle: a smaller dial that supports up to four complications.

Animation

• When the wrist is down, the face contracts into slim lines of color on a black background.
• Raising the wrist expands the display to show the full color palette, with colors slowly shifting over time.

Use Cases

Apple’s default palettes represent various Pride flags, but the deep customization lets you:

• Match the face to your clothing.
• Show support for sports teams.
• Display any favorite colors.

Matching iOS Wallpaper

iOS 26.5 adds a Pride Luminance Wallpaper that can be customized in the same way as the watch face:

• Choose up to 12 colors for the Lock Screen and Home Screen.
• On the Lock Screen, the colors collapse onto a black background when the device is locked.

Availability

To use the new watch face, you need:

• iOS 26.5 on your iPhone.
• watchOS 26.5 on your Apple Watch.

Apple has released release candidates (RCs), and the public versions of the updates are expected as early as next week.