Daliclock

Melting digits for your wrist. A Wear OS watch face with the original XDaliClock letterforms, a surreal dusk landscape, and a seconds dot that glides around the dial.

Recorded in the Wear OS emulator at normal speed.

The digits stretch and flow into the next time, with a brief blue-white highlight and a faint trailing image. In always-on mode, only the hours and minutes remain, in gray on black.

• System 12- or 24-hour time
• Optional seconds and date
• White, green, or amber digits
• Minute-progress ring and continuous seconds dot
• English and German settings

Requires Wear OS 6 or later (API 36). Daliclock uses Watch Face Format 4; Wear OS renders the face directly. The package contains no executable app code, network permissions, ads, or analytics.

Download and install

Download the latest preview APK · Build details and checksum

Enable wireless debugging on your Wear OS 6 watch, pair and connect it with ADB, then install the APK and choose Daliclock in the watch face picker:

adb devices
adb -s SERIAL install -r daliclock.apk

Replace SERIAL with your watch's identifier. Preview builds share a dedicated signing key, so you can install updates over an earlier preview. A local debug build or Play Store build uses a different key; uninstall it before switching. Uninstalling removes the watch face's settings.

The Build APK workflow runs on pushes to main and can also be started manually. Successful builds update the preview download and keep an APK artifact for 30 days.

Build

You need JDK 17, Python 3.13, Android SDK Platform 36, and Build Tools 36.0.0. Gradle 8.13 is included through the wrapper. CairoSVG also needs the Cairo system library; on macOS, install it with brew install cairo.

Point ANDROID_HOME at your Android SDK, then run:

python3.13 -m venv .venv
.venv/bin/python -m pip install -r requirements-dev.txt
./gradlew :watchface:assembleDebug :watchface:bundleRelease \
  -PpythonExecutable="$PWD/.venv/bin/python"

The build generates the watch face resources from the checked-in digit curves and artwork. It does not download fonts.

Output	Path	Signing
APK	watchface/build/outputs/apk/debug/watchface-debug.apk	Debug key
AAB	watchface/build/outputs/bundle/release/watchface-release.aab	Unsigned by default

See release instructions to configure an upload key and prepare a Google Play release.

Try it

Install the debug APK on a Wear OS 6 device or emulator, replacing SERIAL with its identifier from adb devices:

adb -s SERIAL install -r watchface/build/outputs/apk/debug/watchface-debug.apk

Choose Daliclock in the watch face picker. The environment notes include the tested Apple Silicon emulator configuration and Vulkan workarounds.

For a local browser preview of digit transitions:

.venv/bin/python tools/preview_morphs.py

Open build/preview/index.html. This previews the shared digit geometry; the image above is a generated preview of the complete face.

Development

The Python generator turns coordinated digit curves into short, connected WFF lines. Each shared point has one native animation owner; adjoining endpoints follow it through references. Position and stroke width change together over 650 ms. The generator simplifies all ten digits together while preserving shared junctions and limiting contour and stroke-width changes. Unchanged active digits use build-rendered images of those same strokes. Shortly before a digit changes, its connected lines activate in preparation for the native morph and its accents. Always-on uses a separate bitmap-font time field.

• assets/glyphs/ — original outlines and derived digit curves
• config/daliclock.json — layout and animation settings
• tools/daliclock/ — shared geometry, preview, and WFF export
• tools/generate_watchface.py — resource generation
• watchface/ — Android resource-only package

Run the geometry and exporter tests:

.venv/bin/python -m unittest discover -s tests -v

After building, run Google's WFF schema validator and memory evaluator with:

tools/validate_wff.sh

The validator requires WFF_VALIDATOR_JAR and WFF_MEMORY_JAR; SETUP.md records the pinned upstream revision and tool configuration.

Active morphing, ambient minute changes, and wake have been exercised on the Wear OS 6 emulator. Physical-watch performance and battery use have not yet been measured.

Credits

Daliclock's digits are derived from Jamie Zawinski's XDaliClock artwork, including its tapered strokes and serifs. The original artwork, conversion notes, and permission notice are preserved in assets/glyphs/xdaliclock.