It’s easy to underestimate the importance of a great watch face on a sports watch, and given the dazzling AMOLED displays now available on the best Garmin watches in particular, it’s worth spending some time considering what you want to see on your wrist 90% of the time.
The range of preset watch faces on Garmin devices is OK, but when I’m testing them over several weeks or months, I find I get bored of the stock options available, which is when I turn to the Connect IQ app store for more watch faces.
There are a couple of standout options in the app store, one being GB Fenix8 Like PRO that lets you bring the standard watch face from the Garmin Fenix 8 to other devices, which costs $4.99 (there is a limited free version as well).
My favorite face at the moment is completely free, however. It’s called Segment34 Mk II and is available on most Garmin devices, even including the new Garmin Venu X1.
I’ve been using the face on both the Venu X1 and Garmin Forerunner 970 during my long-term testing of both watches; here’s why I like it so much.
It has a simple, effective layout
While the Segment34 watch face doesn’t necessarily offer more style than standard Garmin faces, its simple layout is visually-appealing and allows you to see a lot of stats clearly at the same time.
Packing a lot of data onto a watch face without it looking unpleasantly cluttered is not easy and it’s something I think a lot of the faces in the Connect IQ app store get wrong. This face shows your stats but has enough space around them to look organized and clear.
The always-on face is clear
Even when the display is dimmed, the Segment34 face shows the time clearly thanks to the large, bright numbers, so you don’t have to turn your wrist to see it.
This is a failing of many faces on AMOLED watches, which are too dim to read the time without turning your wrist, especially when outdoors.
You can also customize some stats that show on the always-on display, so I have the temperature on there, for example. Speaking of customization…
It offers lots of stats and customization
Garmin does offer more customization of its standard watch faces than most sports brands, but the Segment34 face goes a step further in allowing you to adjust almost every element of it.
There are preset colors, which I stick with, but you can customize these to your exact preferences if you like, and you can change the style of the numbers as well.
You can then choose the exact stats you want across the entire watch face, to the point where I ended up running out of stats I wanted to show and hid those areas to have more blank space on the face.
If you like complete control over what you see when you flick your wrist, this watch face is for you.
It shows active calories
Active calories is a stat available on Garmin watches, but on the preset faces you can only see total calories burned each day.
I don’t find this stat useful because it includes ‘resting calories’ that are set at around 2000kcals burned per day automatically, which is a rough estimate and feels low for me based on tests I’ve done as well as online calculators.
As a keen runner I monitor my active calories fairly closely during marathon training to make sure I eat enough to offset what I burn so I don’t lose weight, and having this stat on show is more useful that total calories.
It doesn’t hit battery life hard
If you go hunting for new watch faces in the Connect IQ app store then you have to be wary of increased battery drain when using third-party apps, especially when using the always-on setting with AMOLED watches.
I’ve found that with the Segment34 watch face I’ve maintained the same battery life on the Forerunner 970 and Venu X1 as when using standard Garmin presets, so you can rest easy on that front.
