Build an animated Wear OS watch face from photos of the watch screen

A Redditor with no watch face experience had Claude remove 21 unused apps from a Galaxy Watch4 Classic over ADB, then draw, code and package an animated farm-scene watch face as an installable APK.

Done withClaude· Nov 11, 2026

What they did

The poster started by asking Claude (Opus, in the Claude app) to help clean up a Galaxy Watch4 Classic over ADB, which removed 21 apps they never used. They then decided to make their own watch face, something they had never done. They worked in small steps: describe the next feature, send a photo of the watch screen, and let Claude produce the next version. Claude drew all the artwork with Python, wrote the face in Google's Watch Face Format and packaged it as an APK that installs with adb. The result is a 45-second day and night loop with a farm scene, plus real data: time, date, a step arc toward the daily goal and the Samsung Health sleep score, with tap reactions and changes tied to battery level.

How it went

The face runs on the poster's watch, and the demo video is rendered from the same files. It did not load at first; Claude read the watch's error logs and fixed the problem. The poster published the APK and the full source on GitHub for free and called it one of the most fun things they have done with Claude. They give no time spent or cost.

Worth knowing

It has only been tested on a Watch4 Classic, so other Wear OS watches may not work. Installing it means sideloading with adb, which needs developer mode on the watch. The post does not say whether Claude ran the adb commands itself or the poster ran them from Claude's instructions.

Try it

With Claude· 4 parts to fill in

I want a custom watch face for my [watch model] running Wear OS. Write it in Google's Watch Face Format and draw any artwork with Python. The idea is [describe the scene or style], and it should show [time, date, steps, battery or other data]. Build it one feature at a time: after each version, give me the adb command to install it and wait while I send a photo of the watch screen. If the face does not load, ask me for the logs from [adb logcat filtered for the watch face] and fix the cause. Do not uninstall anything from the watch without listing it for me first. Stop when I say the face is done and give me the final APK and source.

Square brackets are the parts to fill in. The prompt is ours; the story is theirs.

Where they said it

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