Apple Watch Series 10 is the first model to refresh the seconds hand even while the always-on display is dimmed. On earlier models, including Series 5 through Series 9, only the hour and minute hands update when the display is dimmed. At launch, however, only three watch faces supported this new capability.
Flux and Reflections are the first two. Both continue showing ticking seconds even when the screen is dimmed.
Flux uses a vertically rising line to represent the passing seconds throughout each minute. Reflections offers traditional analog watch hands, with a seconds hand that sweeps when the screen is fully on and ticks once per second when dimmed. Reflections also comes in two styles: a full-screen layout and a circular version with four complication slots.
The third is an update to Activity Digital. Since the Series 5, this face has included an option to show seconds, but they previously disappeared when the display dimmed. On Series 10, the watch face updates once per second in always-on mode, so the digital seconds continue counting in both display states.
Unfortunately, Apple hasn’t brought this improved display behavior to any other existing watch faces. However, it has added support to two new faces released since the launch of Apple Watch Series 10.
The 2025 Unity Rhythm face arrived in January, featuring analog hands that update seconds just like Reflections. Most recently, Apple introduced the 2025 Pride Harmony face with watchOS 11.5. It too uses analog hands and supports dimmed-second updates.
That brings the total number of watch faces optimized for Apple Watch Series 10’s display to five. Meanwhile, more than 40 watch faces still don’t take advantage of the new hardware. After 10 generations, Apple Watch can finally match the real-time second updates of a basic analog or digital watch—but 90% of watch faces still don’t support this level of timekeeping.
Hopefully, watchOS 12 brings seconds-hand support to all faces. A standard analog clock design with hour numbers around the dial like Utility or California deserves this feature — especially if Apple doesn’t plan to update each face individually. Every face should make use of the hardware’s full capabilities.
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