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

11 hours ago at 05:29 pm
This watch face is the reason we need 3rd party watch faces! Apple catering to a small demographic is missing the big picture.
Score: 15 Votes (Like | Disagree)
mavis Avatar
12 hours ago at 04:20 pm
I wish they'd spend even half as much time developing useful watch faces (like Modular Ultra) as they do pretty watch faces. 😞
Score: 14 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Madonepro Avatar
12 hours ago at 04:05 pm
It does look great, and its ability to display to select your own order of colours is good, but why call it ‘Pride’?
Score: 11 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Velin Avatar
8 hours ago at 08:32 pm
Looks stupid. And juvenile.
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
dmr727 Avatar
13 hours ago at 03:43 pm
My 5yo daughter loves changing and playing around with different faces on my Watch. She's gonna love this.
Score: 8 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Madonepro Avatar
12 hours ago at 04:24 pm

I wish they'd spend even half as much time developing useful watch faces (like Modular Ultra) as they do pretty watch faces. 😞
I agree. I’d like to see watch faces opened up, to allow third party faces with the same system integration.
We bought the watches, so we should be allowed to decide what we put on them.
Score: 6 Votes (Like | Disagree)