Layout Editor
The iPhone app is where you design your watch layout. Everything syncs automatically.
The Preview
Section titled “The Preview”A watch-shaped preview at the top of the editor shows roughly how your layout will look on your wrist. It matches your actual watch screen size — what you see is what you get. The preview shrinks automatically when you tap into a text field so the keyboard doesn’t cover your workspace, and restores on dismiss.
Adding Devices
Section titled “Adding Devices”Tap the + Add button on the right-hand side toolbar to open the Add Entities overlay. A 4-column grid of entity categories — Controls (lights, switches, locks, covers, scenes, scripts), Climate, Media, Automation, Sensors, and Inputs — fills the screen. Tap a category and the matching entities from your Home Assistant appear. Each tap commits the entity immediately, so you can keep adding without leaving the overlay. Pull down from the top of the grid to dismiss, or tap Done in the pinned bottom bar.
The bottom bar also has a tappable search field that opens a full-entity search sheet for finding anything by name or entity ID.
- By type — All lights, all switches, all cameras, and so on — grouped into one tidy category tile each.
- Search — Full-text across every entity in your Home Assistant.
- Smart Pages — Auto-generated pages based on rules (e.g., all lights currently on, all doors open). See Smart Pages.
The same unified category picker is used across the app — Control Center, Status Page editor, and preset sheets all share it.
Arranging Tiles
Section titled “Arranging Tiles”Drag tiles to rearrange. Resize by tapping a tile and adjusting the size stepper, or dragging the resize handles.
Editing a Tile
Section titled “Editing a Tile”Tap any tile to open its settings.
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Size — Make important tiles bigger, keep secondary ones compact. Default is 6x4. Tiles go from 1x1 up to 12 wide by any height — a single tile can fill the entire screen.
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Entity-specific tabs — When editing a tile, domain-specific tabs (like Remote, Camera, Music, Template) appear first in the tab bar with a highlighted border so you can find the relevant settings immediately. Tab labels adapt to the entity type — “Data” becomes “Remote” for remotes, “Vacuum” for vacuums, “Assist” for voice hubs.
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Icons — Thousands of SF Symbols to choose from, with suggested icons tailored to each entity type. Default icons change automatically based on state — lightbulb fills in when on, lock shows locked/unlocked. Or pick any icon you want. Long-press any icon in the picker to favorite it — favorited icons get a star and are pinned to the Favorites chip in the category row, so the ones you reuse are always one tap away. Long-press again to unfavorite.
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Colors — Set background, icon, and label colors independently. Different colors for active and inactive states.
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Labels — Show the entity name, custom text, or hide the label and go icon-only. Numeric values can display as plain text, a fill bar (like a battery indicator), or a pill badge. Sensors show their value in a top-left corner badge — including named states like Open/Closed, Motion/Clear, Low/Normal on binary sensors (Home Assistant device class labels).
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Patterns — Background patterns help differentiate tile types at a glance. Choose from stripes, dots, crosshatch, checkerboard, lines, grid, diamond, gradient, waves, zigzag, sunburst, concentric, triangles, hexagons, corner glow, vignette, and noise. Adjustable color, opacity, and scale.
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Borders — Custom borders with adjustable width, color, and corner radius. Borders can also be animated — pulse, shimmer, rainbow, chase, sparkle, comet, and others. Animated borders may use more battery.
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Animations — Tiles can animate on state change, while a device is active, or on tap — pulse, shake, bounce, glow, and others. Tiles can also have overlay effects — animated backgrounds like aurora, rain, fire, sparkle, snow, stars, confetti, bubbles, bokeh, wisps, matrix, plasma, radar, fireflies, scanlines, electric, and more. Animations may use more battery.
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Value Bars — For tiles showing a percentage (brightness, volume, position), add a visual bar across the top, bottom, or as a fill.
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State Text & Status Icon Size — On the State Display tab (named Brightness Display, Speed Display, Value Display, Count Display, etc., depending on the domain), drag the State Text Size slider (4–16 pt) to resize state badges — OFF, percentages, sensor values, countdowns, alarm state. For domains whose activity badge is an icon (climate heat/cool, fan/vacuum running, media play/pause, lawn mower active, remote modes), a separate Icon Size slider (8–24 pt) tunes the overlay icon. Each slider has a reset/clear control so you can drop back to the auto-sized default.
Confirmation Prompts
Section titled “Confirmation Prompts”Add a confirmation prompt to any tile so it asks “Are you sure?” before toggling. This prevents accidental activations — especially useful for garage doors, locks, alarm panels, or anything with real-world consequences.
Set it up by tapping a tile → Action tab → Confirmation toggle.
Custom Tap Actions
Section titled “Custom Tap Actions”Override the default tap behavior for any tile. For example, set a light’s tap to “turn on” instead of “toggle”, or pick a specific service call. Configure per-tile in the Action tab.
Hold-and-Slide Actions
Section titled “Hold-and-Slide Actions”Beyond tap and long-press, any tile can respond to a hold-and-slide in four directions — up, down, left, and right. Hold a tile and drag to trigger a second action without lifting your finger. Great for lights (hold + up = brighten), covers (hold + down = close), media (hold + right = next track). Configure directions per tile in the editor’s action tab.
Automation Skip Conditions
Section titled “Automation Skip Conditions”Automation tiles get an extra Skip Conditions picker on the Action tab (and on individual radial / quick-action slots). Three options: Default (uses the global setting from Watch Behavior → Interactions → Automations), Skip (run the actions without re-checking conditions), or Don’t Skip (evaluate conditions first — fire only if they pass). Triggers are always bypassed in either mode. Default is Skip, matching Home Assistant’s automation.trigger service.
Calendar Tile
Section titled “Calendar Tile”Calendar tiles get a dedicated Calendars tab that turns one tile into a merged view of multiple calendar.* entities — useful for combining a personal and work calendar, or for stitching family members’ shared calendars onto a single tile.
- The first calendar is the primary: it drives the tile’s icon and title.
- Tap + Add Calendar to merge another
calendar.*entity. Events from every source are fetched in parallel, combined, and sorted by start time. - Each source gets a swatch-row picker for an accent color — events on the watch draw a thin colored bar so you can tell calendars apart. New sources start with a stable auto-color derived from the entity ID; pick a different swatch to override, or slash the swatch to clear the color.
- Tap the red − to remove an extra; if you remove the primary, the next calendar in the list is promoted automatically.
Alarm Tile
Section titled “Alarm Tile”Alarm panel tiles add an Alarm tab with PIN-entry behavior:
- Auto-Submit — Once the minimum digit count is reached, the watch submits the code automatically without an explicit Submit tap. Saves a step on short PINs; leave it off if your code length is variable.
Remote Tile
Section titled “Remote Tile”Remote tiles (for TVs, streaming boxes, receivers) have their own editor tab with extras no other tile needs.
Button Layout
Section titled “Button Layout”Tap Customize Button Layout to open a dedicated editor:
- Resizable watch-size preview pinned at the top with a red Reset pill overlay and Save at the top-right.
- Button palette scrolls on a darker surface below — Back, Home, Menu, Select, Power, Play, Stop, Prev, Next, −10s, +10s, Shuffle, Repeat, Seek, Source, Sound, Vol arc, Vol+, Vol−, Mute, and Clear.
- Drag-and-drop a palette button into any of the 12 slots (drag slot-to-slot to swap), or tap-to-edit: tap a slot to select it, then tap a palette chip to assign. Selected slots stay active so you can iterate quickly.
- Palette chips dim when the linked media / volume player doesn’t support that capability (seek, stop, shuffle, repeat, source select, sound modes, volume steps). Tapping a dimmed chip flashes the reason.
Duplicates and empty slots are allowed. Leave a tile’s layout untouched to get the default: Back / Home / Power, Prev / Play-Pause / Next, Menu / Seek / Source, Volume arc / Select / Mute.
Quick Actions (Scripts)
Section titled “Quick Actions (Scripts)”Add Home Assistant scripts as one-tap buttons on the remote’s Quick Actions tab. Each action gets:
- A label editable inline (tap the chevron to expand; the keyboard includes a Done toolbar with a blue submit key).
- A color via the theme swatch picker — leave empty to fall back to the remote’s accent.
- A custom icon from the full SF Symbol browser.
Turn on Require Confirmation (default on) to make buttons tap-to-arm / tap-again-to-fire — buttons show “Confirm?” on first tap and fire on the second within 3 seconds.
The watch lays out quick actions dynamically: 1 button fills the screen, 2 stack tall, 3–4 become 2×2, 5–6 become 3×2, 7+ use 3 columns with the last row centered.
Watch Input
Section titled “Watch Input”Control how the watch reads input inside the remote:
- Select with Crown — Digital Crown rotation triggers Select (the most common remote action).
- Reverse = Back — Sub-toggle under Select with Crown (default on). Forward rotation sends Select; backward rotation sends Back. Toggle off for “any direction = select.”
- Edge Volume Slide — Slide along a screen edge for quick volume changes. Pick left or right.
Tile Visibility
Section titled “Tile Visibility”Any tile can be hidden based on entity state — active only, inactive only, state match, numeric threshold, or based on another entity entirely. Combine with per-page reflow mode to have other tiles slide up and fill the gap. See Tile Visibility for the full list of rules.
Quick Menu
Section titled “Quick Menu”Configure up to 8 quick menu slots per tile. Tap a tile → Quick Menu → add slots with custom icons and colors. Each slot can toggle a device, run a scene/script, switch pages, send a TTS message, open a camera, broadcast audio, or show a status page.
Managing Pages
Section titled “Managing Pages”Tap back to return to the Pages tab. From here you can:
- Add pages — Tap “Add Page” to create a new one
- Reorder pages — Drag to rearrange
- Rename pages — Tap the page name
- Delete pages — Swipe to delete
- Mark hidden — Keep a page out of the swipe flow and switcher; only reachable via peek, jump, or room mapping
- Reflow mode — Per-page toggle so hidden tiles (visibility) don’t leave empty space
- Page title style — Minimal, Pill, Glass, or hide per page
- Background image — Per-page image with fill, fit, or stretch
- Themes — Apply a color scheme to an entire page
- Smart Pages — Create auto-populating pages based on rules
Multi-Select
Section titled “Multi-Select”Tap the Multi action in the right-hand toolbar to enter multi-select mode, then tap tiles to add or remove them from the selection. With one or more tiles selected, the bottom panel exposes batch edits:
- Color — apply the same theme color to every selected tile
- Border — None, Extra Thin, Thin, Medium, or Thick
- Pattern — background pattern shared across the selection
- Icon — pick one icon from the categorized grid for every selected tile
- Verify — turn confirmation prompts on/off for the whole selection
Multi-select also supports batch resize and delete. Tap Done in the header to leave the mode.
Syncing to Watch
Section titled “Syncing to Watch”For the initial sync, make sure both the watch app and the iPhone app are open and in the foreground. After that, changes sync whenever the iPhone app is active and the watch is connected. Toggling any setting forces a sync.