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

With watchOS 26.5, Apple is introducing a Pride Luminance face, and it's one of the most versatile and customizable watch faces. There are pre-configured color options, but the face also supports custom colors.

ios 26 5 luminance colors 2
You can select 1 to 12 colors from a palette that has every color of the rainbow, some in-between shades, and black, white, brown, and gray.

ios 26 5 watch face color options
The colors you pick are distributed across the watch face in a gradient, available in either radial or linear styles. The first style looks like a starburst, while the second style is a series of rectangular lines.

ios 26 5 watch face design options
The dial can be set to Rectangle for edge-to-edge color, or Circle for a smaller dial that supports four complications.

As with most of Apple's faces, the Luminance face is animated. When the wrist is down, it shrinks into slim lines of color on a black background, but when the wrist is raised, the full color palette is displayed. Colors will also shift slowly.

watchos 26 5 luminance wrist down
Apple's pre-selected colors represent different Pride flag colors, but with the deep customization options, the Pride Luminance face can match clothing, show off support for sports teams, or just display your favorite colors.

watchos 26 5 luminance color options
iOS 26.5 also has a matching Pride Luminance Wallpaper option that can be customized in the same way. You can 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.

ios 26 5 luminance wallpaper
To get the new watch face, you need iOS 26.5 and watchOS 26.5. Apple has released RCs, and the public versions of the updates are expected as soon as next week.

Note: Due to the political or social nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Political News forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Related Roundup: watchOS 26
Related Forum: Apple Watch

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Top Rated Comments

Jumpthesnark Avatar
3 weeks ago
Every year Apple releases watch bands and faces for Pride and other months that recognize different groups and ethnicities. And each time we get similar comments here about “pandering,” “minorities,” “demographics,” “woke,” etc. It’s like a litmus test for people in the Forums.

If this is the kind of innocuous thing that triggers you, you can simply not install the face, buy the watchband, etc. It’s okay if Apple makes a thing that isn’t for you.
Score: 38 Votes (Like | Disagree)
mavis Avatar
3 weeks ago
I wish they'd spend even half as much time developing useful watch faces (like Modular Ultra) as they do pretty watch faces. 😞
Score: 29 Votes (Like | Disagree)
dmr727 Avatar
3 weeks ago
My 5yo daughter loves changing and playing around with different faces on my Watch. She's gonna love this.
Score: 22 Votes (Like | Disagree)
3 weeks ago
This watch face is the reason we need 3rd party watch faces! Apple catering to a small demographic is missing the big picture.
Score: 18 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Velin Avatar
3 weeks ago
Looks stupid. And juvenile.
Score: 16 Votes (Like | Disagree)
3 weeks ago

Every year Apple releases watch bands and faces for Pride and other months that recognize different groups and ethnicities. And each time we get similar comments here about “pandering,” “minorities,” “demographics,” “woke,” etc. It’s like a litmus test for people in the Forums.

If this is the kind of innocuous thing that triggers you, you can simply not install the face, buy the watchband, etc. It’s okay if Apple makes a thing that isn’t for you.
Exactly. Also, it's a small thing included in 26.5 that Apple isn't even making a big deal about. The people who found it and are reporting on it are *making* it a big deal because they know the release of a simple wallpaper will get people riled up. If Apple were to release a wallpaper with another forest no one would notice--but some folks are pretty much trained to get angry at anything even remotely considered "woke".
Score: 12 Votes (Like | Disagree)

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