You will also be able to use the new fitness features that showed up on Watch26 OS, like your AI-powered Workout Buddy that delivers personalized, and perhaps overly peppy, advice and encouragement as you’re working out. It will also have satellite messaging, live translation, and the new Liquid Glass face that Apple debuted at WWDC earlier this year. It will be available in 40 mm and 44 mm sizes and in Starlight and Midnight finishes.
The SE 3 starts at $249 and is available on September 19.
Watch Series 11
The big update on the more expensive watches this year is hypertension notifications. Blood pressure is monitored from the watch’s optical sensor. It will work by monitoring data over a 30-day period, after which it can start notifying users if there are symptoms of hypertension. At that point, the user should probably consult a doctor and use a more accurate blood pressure monitor.
Undiagnosed hypertension is actually a health condition that affects one out of three adults globally and can lead to long-term problems like heart attacks, strokes, or kidney disease. Apple expects the feature to be FDA-cleared soon. The company says it was developed from studies with over 100,000 participants.
The second big update on the Series 11 is a full 24 hours of battery life. Battery life is a perennial problem on the Apple Watch; even last year’s Series 10 could offer no better update than faster charging (which also shows up on this year’s watches). This makes it much easier to get a Sleep Score if you actually wear your watch throughout the night, instead of missing out on sleep tracking because you need to take it off and charge it every night (like me).
It also has the latest S10 chip and thinner body that showed up on last year’s Series 10, along with live translation in messages, 5G connectivity, and WatchOS 26 workout upgrades. It will be available in aluminum in Rose Gold, Silver, Space Gray, Jet Black finishes and in titanium in Gold, Natural, and Slate finishes.
The Series 11 starts at $399 and is available September 19.
Watch Ultra 3
The Watch Ultra 3 is Apple’s rugged outdoors watch, but I’ve always backed away from using it for many outdoors excursions because of its limited battery life. With 42 hours of battery life on the new Watch Ultra 3 (and up to 72 hours in low-power mode), that makes it significantly more useful for weekend-long snowboarding or camping trips. That, combined with the new satellite messaging services, makes this a more useful outdoors watch than ever.
Hardware upgrades for the Watch Ultra 3 also includes the wide-angle OLED display that showed up on last year’s Series 10. The upgrade makes the Watch Ultra 3’s screen the biggest screen ever to show up on an Apple Watch. A new, dynamic Waypoint watch face will keep you continuously oriented when you run it on the always-on display, which lets you see where you are at a glance even if you’re careening down a mountain on two wheels.
You will now be able to use satellite messaging to text your friends and family and also contact emergency services. Crash or fall detection will also send situation and location information to emergency services and emergency contacts, even if you’re unconscious. (It’s important to note here that you do have to be within the line of sight of a satellite, which might make it harder to operate under tree cover.)
In addition to the hypertension detection available in the Watch Series 11, Sleep Scores, and workout updates available in WatchOS 26, the Watch Ultra 3 will also have a series of sport-specific updates and features, like Swolf scores for swimmers to track their stroke efficiency and a track-running detection feature for runners.
The Watch Ultra 3 starts at $799. Like the others, it can be preordered now and will be available starting September 19.
