MD242 Hybrid watch face

Review by eFreeware

The most interesting thing about MD242 Hybrid is how much of it you can rearrange. It is a watch face, not an app in the usual sense, and its appeal lies in the number of slots the developer leaves open for you to fill with the data you care about. Rather than locking you into one layout, it hands over three complication slots, two custom shortcuts and a set of color controls.

That puts it in a specific corner of the Wear OS market. If you own a Wear OS 4 or later watch and you want your face to show steps, heart rate and a couple of your own chosen readings without giving up a traditional look, this is the sort of purchase worth considering. It costs $2.29, carries no ads and offers no in-app purchases, so the transaction is a single one.

What you actually get on the dial

The face is built around a digital time readout that follows your phone's 12- or 24-hour setting, with the date alongside it. Steps and heart rate are part of the core display, and the heart rate element includes intervals. There is also a battery dial, which can be swapped out for one of the customizable complications if you would rather use that space for something else.

Beyond the basics, the developer includes a week-of-year and day-of-year reading and a moon phase. These are small additions, but they are the sort of detail that separates a face designed with care from one that simply shows the time. Daily step goals sync with the Health app, so the step display can reflect a target rather than just a raw count.

The watch face supports Always On Display, and the colors used in that mode can be changed. That matters more than it might sound: an always-on screen is what you glance at most often, and being able to tune its appearance keeps it consistent with the rest of the face.

Complications and shortcuts

Three complication slots are available, and the developer's point is that you can put whatever data you prefer into them. Weather, steps, time zone, sunset and sunrise, barometer, next appointment and distance walked are among the examples given. The face also ships with three preset app shortcuts: Calendar, Battery and Measure HR. Two further shortcuts can be assigned to whatever you choose.

One caveat comes with the complications. Some of the data types you might want to place in those slots may require additional third-party complications to be installed first. That is a normal part of how Wear OS handles this kind of data, but it is worth knowing before you buy if your plan involves a specific reading.

The developer also notes that certain features might not work on every watch. That is a broad statement, and it means the exact set of working elements can vary by device rather than being identical everywhere.

Making it yours

Customization happens on the watch itself. You touch and hold the screen, then tap the customize option. From there you can change the LCD colors, the hands, the date, the rings, the brightness and the general colors. There is a fair amount of surface area to adjust, which is unusual for a face at this price.

The developer flags a specific problem for Galaxy Watch owners. Complex faces like this one often fail to load in the Samsung Wearable app's editor. The developer is explicit that this is not a fault of the watch face, and recommends customizing directly on the watch until Samsung addresses it. If you own a Galaxy Watch, that is the route to take from the start rather than fighting with the phone-side editor.

Named devices include the Pixel Watch line and Samsung's Galaxy Watch 4 through 9, plus the Ultra and Ultra 2. If your watch runs an older version of Wear OS, this face is not built for it.

Fit and finish

The face has been available since mid-2022 and was updated as recently as August 2025, with the most recent change being a companion app update. A 4.5 average across more than 4,700 ratings, on a paid face with over 100,000 installs, suggests the formula has held up for a lot of people. That is a meaningful signal for a niche purchase, since watch faces are easy to abandon.

The price is modest but real. The feature set depends on your watch supporting the underlying data, and the complication slots may need extra pieces installed before they show what you want. Customizing on the watch is also a smaller canvas than a phone screen, which takes a little patience.

None of that undermines the core proposition. What you are buying is a flexible hybrid face with a lot of adjustable parts, made by a developer who specializes in this category and who is upfront about the Samsung editor quirk rather than leaving buyers to discover it.

Who this face is built for

The clearest audience is someone with a Wear OS 4 or newer watch who treats the face as a dashboard rather than decoration. If you want steps, heart rate, battery and a couple of personal readings visible at a glance, and you want to choose which readings those are, the three complication slots are the feature that justifies the purchase.

It also suits buyers who like to tinker with appearance. Color controls for the LCD, hands, date, rings and brightness, plus separate colors for the always-on display, give you room to match the face to a band or a mood. Someone who wants to set a face once and never touch it again will still get a competent layout, but they will be paying for options they may not use.

Galaxy Watch owners are a natural fit provided they customize on the watch, as the developer advises. Pixel Watch owners are covered too. Anyone whose watch predates Wear OS 4 should look at what their device supports before spending anything.

A flexible face for Wear OS tinkerers

MD242 Hybrid earns a recommendation for Wear OS 4+ owners who want a hybrid face they can reshape. The combination of three customizable complications, two assignable shortcuts, preset Calendar, Battery and Measure HR shortcuts, and broad color control gives it more depth than most faces in its price bracket. At $2.29 with no ads and no in-app purchases, the cost is easy to justify if you use even a few of those options.

The caveats are worth repeating once. You need a compatible watch, the Samsung phone-side editor may not load it, and some complication data may require additional third-party pieces. The developer has documented the first two, which counts for something.

If you want a face that shows what you choose, in the colors you choose, on a watch running current Wear OS, this is a reasonable buy. If you are on older hardware or you prefer a face you never have to configure, your money is better spent elsewhere.

What's new

- Companion App updated.