Rondel Hybrid Watch Face

Rondel is a roulette wheel you can read the time on.

THE BALL IS THE MINUTE HAND

Inside the numbered pockets runs the ball race - the smooth track a real ball rides before it drops - and on Rondel that race is graduated in sixty minutes: a tick every minute, a longer one at each five, longer again at each quarter. The ivory ball rides it at exactly the angle a minute hand's tip would point, so there is no minute hand at all.

That is the whole idea. The wheel is not decorated with the time; it is the minute track. And because the ball laps a little way into the pockets, the number underneath it changes as the hour runs, so the pocket is a consequence of the time rather than a picture of a game.

The pockets are the real arrangement: thirty-seven of them in the single-zero European order, red and black alternating perfectly, with the green zero at twelve.

THREE COMPLICATIONS

Across the centre plate, laid out the way a roulette cloth prints its dozens, there are three complications. Press and hold the dial, open Customize, and point each one wherever you like.

All three accept the same things:
- a short text reading
- a ranged value, drawn as a number with its own span bar behind it
- an app's monochrome icon, or its own small image
- or nothing at all, in which case the cell offers to be filled instead of showing a zero or a dash

They arrive filled. Out of the box the three come up on Wear OS's own data sources - the date, your step count and your heart rate - so there is nothing to install and no account to make.

TWO APP SHORTCUT SLOTS

At nine and three, on the flanks of the plate, sit two more slots, and these take a picture rather than a reading. Put an app in each and the watch face becomes the way into it: one tap, with no launcher to scroll. Leave one empty and it draws nothing - no ring, no reserved gap, no invisible rectangle to memorise.

FIVE DESIGNS

Bordeaux Art Deco, Green Table, Noir VIP, Electric Roulette and Monte Carlo Ivory. These are five complete faces rather than five palettes: the surface, the framing, the ornament and the hands are drawn separately for each one. The wheel itself is never recoloured, because a roulette wheel is red, black and one green zero, and repainting it would turn the instrument back into wallpaper. Every overlay on every design was measured for contrast before it shipped.

TWELVE OR TWENTY-FOUR

In the middle of the wheel is a digital hour, and its format is chosen on the watch rather than inherited from the phone: pin it to 24 hour, or to 12 hour with AM and PM. It is independent of the design, so five designs by two hour formats. Under it runs a small hub clock - twelve applied marks, an hour hand and a sweeping second hand.

ALWAYS-ON

The ambient screen drops the decoration rather than dimming it. No wheel, no pockets, no plate, no second hand. What stays is the digital hour and the ball, drawn hollow at the same angle, so the always-on display still reads the minute. Measured at 0.8 percent of the display lit.

WHAT IT DOES NOT DO

There is no companion phone app, no account, no ads and no subscription, and nothing is locked behind a purchase inside the app. The face asks for no permissions of its own and reads no weather, so nothing on it can sit blank waiting for a signal. There is no betting, no odds and no money anywhere in it. The wheel is a dial.

GETTING IT ONTO THE WATCH

Buy it on the phone, then open the Play Store on the watch, where it will be waiting in your library. Press and hold the current face, swipe to Rondel, and tap Customize to choose the design, the hour format, your three complications and your two shortcuts.

If you have a question, or something is not working right, please write to us at [email protected].