6-Bit Color Wheel

A color picker

November 2025

In late 2025, I found myself working on a fun and creative project: to build a new watch face for my Garmin watch. I found after wearing a smartwatch for most of a year that I didn’t enjoy any of the default faces and I wanted to build my own. So I started making watch faces.

The Problem

My Garmin is only capable of displaying 6-bit colors. That means colors like #FF0000 and #AA0000 can be displayed, but colors in between like #B80000 cannot be displayed. When trying to display a color in between, the watch would just render it as whatever color is closer. This meant I had to be careful when picking colors to use.

I found a website that lists and displays a 6-bit color palette, but it’s hard to see how those colors relate and compare to one another in a simple grid. I wanted to see if I could create a tool that would help me visualize and compare those colors in a more meaningful way. I decided instead to build a dedicated 3D color cube that would allow me to see all of the colors at once.

Technical Evolution

To achieve this, I created a 4x4 grid of colors that sits on top of the layer below, 4 layers high. I also added hover effects to highlight the layer you are interested in and hide the others.

This project was simple and served its purpose. I had been incredibly useful for my own design work, helping me find the perfect colors for each Garmin watch face.