Flap Segment Clock Watch Face

Before LEDs, petrol stations and scoreboards showed their numbers with flap segments: every stroke of every digit a separate plate on its own axle, painted bright on one side and black on the other. This watch face is one of those signs - a brushed-metal housing turned toward you, so you see the plates' thickness, their axles and their shadows on the black backplate.

Plates that turn
On each new minute only the plates that change turn over - you see them edge-on mid-turn, a glint running along the metal edge, before the new digit lands.

Tap for a wave
Tap the watch face and every plate of the time turns in a wave, left to right to a full 88:88 and back. On the hour the wave runs by itself.

Readings on small flap displays
Steps, unread notifications and battery show on three small displays made of the same plates, right-aligned like a counter, each with its icon on a plate of its own. Put another app's complication there and it shows that app's icon and its reading in flap segments.

Three colours
• Yellow on black, the classic sign.
• Pearl white, like an airport board.
• Fluorescent orange on charcoal, in a bronze housing.

Easy on the battery
Nothing moves at rest: the plates turn only when the minute changes, on a tap and on the hour. Always-on shows only thin outlines of the lit plates, dim on black.

Make it yours
• Colours: yellow, pearl white or orange.
• Three complications.
• 12- or 24-hour time, as your watch is set.

To customize, touch and hold the watch face, then tap Customize.

Works on watches with Wear OS 6 or later. Made in Watch Face Format: no permissions, no data collected. The phone app is optional: it shows the watch face and opens it in Google Play on your watch.

Part of Tempus Arcanum, a collection of watch faces.