How to Change a Smartwatch's Screen Orientation

For all of you southpaws

Southpaws frequently receive the short end of the stick when it comes to watches. Lefties must learn to wear timepieces on their dominant hand, not the nondominant hand as is recommended, unless they get a destro watch. But not all smartwatches must have that limitation. Some watch makers have provided lefties with the option to rotate the screen orientation so that it looks "upside down" because smartwatches feature touchscreens. Consequently, users have more control over where the watch's buttons are located, which makes it simpler to use a gadget worn on the right hand.

Although not all smartwatches have this feature, two of the top competitors, Apple and Samsung do. Although Google allegedly plans to include the ability to switch screen orientation on future Wear OS watches, you now have to utilize third-party apps to rotate the screen on Wear OS devices. Unfortunately, neither the Fitbit Sense nor Versa 3 nor more modern Garmin devices presently support it.

But wait, you could protest, didn't my smartwatch ask me to select the wrist I intend to wear it on during setup? Yes, this is a common request made of users the moment they turn on a brand-new smartwatch. Remember though, this isn't necessarily referring to screen orientation. Generally, depending on whether you wear your device on your dominant or nondominant hand, this prompt is meant to assist the watch in running the proper fitness tracking algorithms.

Although it's unfortunate that not all smartwatches have this feature, here's how to accomplish it on the Apple Watch and Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 models. If and when more smartwatch manufacturers choose to enable this feature in the future, we'll be sure to let you know.

Samsung did not allow users to change the screen orientation when the Galaxy Watch 4 rangewas first introduced last year. If you wore the watch on your right wrist and wished to use the new body composition feature, this presented a significant challenge. This is due to Samsung's requirement that you touch the watch's buttons with two fingers in order to establish a circuit for bioelectrical impedance analysis. On the left wrist, this was simple enough, but southpaws would have to reach awkwardly all the way over to make advantage of the feature.

Thank goodness, Samsung has resolved this issue. Now, lefties or people who prefer to wear their watches on their right hand have the choice to use the new feature without worrying about a button placement that isn't perfect.