One UI 8 Watch Glitch: Third-Party Faces Showing Ghosting

A major One UI 8 Watch bug causes third-party watch faces to show Always-On Display elements together with active mode, creating ghosting. Users can use stock faces or devs can set transition duration to zero while Samsung and Google investigate.

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One UI 8 Watch Glitch: Third-Party Faces Showing Ghosting

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Samsung’s One UI 8 Watch (Wear OS 6) update brings visual polish — but also a frustrating bug. Many Galaxy Watch owners are seeing third-party watch faces fail to transition cleanly from Always-On Display (AOD) to active mode, producing ghosted UI elements and a messy screen wake-up.

When AOD and active mode overlap: what users are seeing

Owners of Galaxy Watch models from the Watch 4 through the Watch 8 report that waking the watch sometimes leaves the AOD layer visible along with the active face. Instead of a smooth fade into the interactive view, the display appears stuck halfway, with remnants of the dimmed AOD elements layered on top of the active UI. The result: ghosting, visual artifacts, and an awkward, semi-usable watch face.

Which watches are affected?

Reports cover a broad range of Galaxy Watches running One UI 8 Watch — including Galaxy Watch 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8. Importantly, the problem appears limited to third-party watch faces; stock Samsung faces generally transition correctly.

What’s causing the glitch?

The issue seems tied to Wear OS 6’s AOD opacity-fade animation. That transition fades the AOD layer in or out when the watch wakes or sleeps. If the animation doesn’t complete before the screen suspends to save power, the rendering engine can get stuck and display both layers at once. Developers and users suspect the bug lives at the system level rather than in individual face designs.

Workarounds for users and developers

  • Use a stock Samsung watch face for now — official faces aren’t showing the same ghosting.
  • Developers can edit the watch face XML to set the AOD transition time to zero, for example using duration='0' on the transition element to skip the fade.
  • Keep your watch updated and monitor official patches — Samsung has acknowledged the bug and pointed to Wear OS 6 behavior as the root cause, indicating a joint fix from Samsung and Google may be needed.

Multiple reports surfaced via outlets such as PiunikaWeb, and some users hope a fix could land as early as 12 January 2025. For now, the simplest relief is switching to stock faces or applying the XML workaround if you’re a developer.

Source: sammobile

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