ClockSkin Animated Wallpaper
Use Android ClockSkin watchfaces on your phone
In this article I'm not going to talk about smartwatches, apps for them, or watchfaces. I'm gonna talk about an app to use in Android phones.
And why? Well... many users of Android phones who doesn't have a smartwatch compatible with watchfaces in ClockSkin format could think:
"If they're watches with Full Android... shouldn't Android on phones be able to use those watchfaces too?". And at the same time, the users of Android watches could also think the same, and want to use similar watchfaces on their phones.
The answer to this question is
YES. It's possible. But for this, it's necessary to install and app. And here's where the app i'm gonna talk about fits:
CloskSkin Animated Wallpaper.
Truth is, I was suprised to find this app
NOW, for two reasons. The first one is that it's been developed by Eric Crochemore, the creator of the
Universal Launcher New Gen that many users of Full Android smartwatches are using. And the second is that it's an app
¡from the year 2017! How come I didn't know about it until now? My fault.
Well, with this app we can use in our Android phone any watchface in Android ClockSkin format (like the ones I have published in this blog), but with some limitations that I'll talk about later. According to the app's information, it's also compatible with some watchfaces created with Watchmaker for Android Wear. But that's an option I didn't try.
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Where to download the app to install it
ClockSkin Animated Wallpaper is available in the Google Play Store ( click here), as well as other sites to download Android apps. And it can be also downloaded in my "Smartwatch Apps" section in this blog ( click here), below the download of the Universal Launcher New Gen.
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How to use it
Once installed, the first thing we have to do is to go to the storage media our phone is using as default (internal storage or SD card) and create a folder called ClockSkin (as a precaution, we must type the name respecting the uppercase and lowercase letters). Once created, we'll copy inside the folders containing the watchfaces we want to use with the app. We must not forget that those folders must contain inside the files of the watchfaces, NEVER inside any subfolder.
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Once we have all the watchfaces copied, we must open the Wallpaper settings on our Android phone (in my case I'm using for this example an old phone with Android 4.4) and choose the one that shows a watch image and the name "ClockSkin Wallpaper". When it's selected, it will show the background with an image of one of the watchfaces we copied, and an option to edit the wallpaper settings.
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After opening these Settings, we can choose the watchface we want to use sliding the screen left and right. We also have in the top side, under the watchface name, a "minus" button to delete the watchfaces we want to remove.
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When we choose the watchface we want to use, we just have to tap on it with our finger and, then, tap in the Set Wallpaper option. Once done this, we have our new wallpaper showing the watchface. And every time we want to choose a different one, we'll just have to double-tap with the finger on the watchface and choose the new one.
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Drawbacks/incompatibilities
I've talked before about some limitations when it comes to use Android ClockSkin watchfaces. Well, these drawbacks are the incompatibilities with some of the information used by the watchfaces. Specifically, the info related to the heartrate sensor, the pedometer, the weather and the temperature.
In the case of the two first ones it seems obvious, because these sensors are not present in mobile phones. Regarding weather and temperature, the reason can be the fact that the watch takes the values to show it from the weather management apps they have, and probably these values differs from the ones obtained in the apps on the mobiles. Even so, we must not forget the other app from the creator, Universal Launcher New Gen, has its own weather management. And the programming of that management could have been used to integrate it in the ClockSkin Animated Wallpaper settings, just like it has been done with the watchfaces display engine.
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Besides the mentioned incompatibilities, there are a couple drawbacks I must mention.
The first one is the fact that this is a wallpaper. For this reason, we'll always have it in the background, regardless if we move to other screens we have in the left or the right. And also, we can not move the watchface to other position different than the one in which it appears. As anybody could guess, this is a problem when we have screens where there are many icons, because part of them will be positioned on top of the watchface. It makes almost mandatory to have a screen with one, two, three or four icons (or a small Widget) where we can see the watchface.
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The other disadvantage is the black color that fills the background, and the lack of an option in the settings to let us change it with another. This option should be available, because it could be used to place the watchface on top of a background where we would use our favorite wallpaper.
These two problems could have been solved creating this app as a Widget, so it would have solved the two problems: we could place it wherever we wanted (even in the lock screen), and it could be used in any wallpaper of the phone.
Final conclusions
Despite the mentioned disadvantages, I think it's a very good app for those ones who doesn't have a watch with Full Android and would like to use Android ClockSkin watchfaces. True, there are some incompatibilities with some info that can appear in the watchfaces. But excepting this, it shows the watchfaces exactly as the smartwatches. And, specially, in a bigger screen than the ones the watches have.
It may surprise that since the app was launched there has not been updates. Probably Eric Crochemore created it as a temporary project and decided not to continue developing it, and only focus on his launcher for Android watches.
For all this, considering it fulfills its purpose and also the disadvantages I've found, I'd rate it 7 out of 10.
