Apple unveiled three new Apple Watches at its September 9 event, introducing upgrades across the Series 11, SE3 and Ultra 3. The Series 11 is now Apple’s thinnest watch ever, with 5G support, a background blood pressure alert system, along with improved sleep tracking that includes a new sleep score. The SE3 adds an always-on display, wrist temperature sensing, faster charging, gestures and sleep apnea notifications. The Ultra 3 gets the largest Apple Watch display to date, along with satellite connectivity and better battery life.
Other hardware launches at the event included AirPods Pro 3 and a refreshed iPhone lineup, but this article focuses only on what’s new for the wrist. All three watches run watchOS 26 which will be released on Monday, September 15th. The new range is available to pre-order now, with shipping set to begin on September 19.
Apple Watch Series 11 gets thinner, smarter and finally learns to check blood pressure
The Series 11 leads the charge this year, and it does so with a slimmer build than any Apple Watch to date. But that doesn’t mean it’s fragile. In fact, the new timepiece is reportedly twice as scratch resistant as the Series 10 thanks to an improved front crystal.
The other major hardware update is 5G. The watch now supports the latest cellular networks, which should help in weak signal areas and reduce the energy cost of staying connected.
Battery life sees a bump as well. Thanks to a reworked internal layout and more efficient parts, the Series 11 now offers up to 24 hours of battery life on a single charge. That’s up on 18 hours of the previous generation.
Two new watch faces make their debut, Flow and Exactograph. As usual, these will likely remain exclusive to the newer models, at least at launch.
Essential reading: Top fitness trackers and health gadgets
Health tracking gets a proper headline feature with the ability to flag potential hypertension. Apple says it won’t detect all instances of high blood pressure, but it runs in the background and looks for patterns. If it spots something unusual, it will alert the user.
This is a global rollout feature, coming to 150 countries including the US and most of Europe, with FDA clearance said to be on the way. Given that hypertension affects over a billion adults and often goes undiagnosed, this could be a quietly important addition. Apple says the algorithm was developed using data from over 100,000 participants and validated in a clinical study of 2,000 people. And that they expect it will identify over one million people with undiagnosed hypertension in the first year.
Just to make it clear, it is not a fully fledged blood pressure monitor. Meaning you will not get an exact read-out. But the watch should be able to spot signs of high blood pressure by looking at your last 30 days of data.
The obvious question is – whether this will be coming to older models. It appears hypertension alerts use existing sensors coupled with computational algorithms. And Apple has confirmed it will be coming to Apple Watch Series 9 and later, and Apple Watch Ultra 2 and later. So that’s good new for owners of older watches.
Sleep tracking also levels up as part of watchOS 26. There’s now a sleep score shown every morning, giving you a quick view of how well you’ve rested. It also adds classification and better breakdowns alongside the existing sleep stages and trends.
The Series 11 comes in four colour options using 100 percent recycled aluminium, and three finishes in titanium. You can pick it up in a choice between 42mm and 46mm case sizes in Wi-Fi only and cellular models. The watch starts at $399.
Apple Watch SE3 adds always-on display and fast charging
The SE line finally gets some proper attention. That’s after three years of no attention.
SE3 includes Apple’s S10 chip, which helps power a range of upgrades. Most notably, this is the first SE to feature an always-on display. That alone changes how the watch feels in daily use.
There’s now support for wrist gestures, temperature sensing, and more detailed insights in the Vitals app. Sleep tracking brings in the same sleep score system seen on the Series 11, and sleep apnea detection joins the feature set as well.
Battery life stays at 18 hours, but charging now happens much faster. Apple says the SE3 charges up to twice as fast as before. Just 15 minutes on the charger can give up to 8 hours of runtime, which makes overnight tracking much easier to manage.
You can also now play audio directly through the watch speaker. It won’t replace headphones, but for podcasts or short clips, it’s a handy option to have.
The SE3 starts at $249. This one is available in Starlight and Midnight, in 40mm and 44mm sizes.
Apple Watch Ultra 3 goes bigger, adds satellite connectivity
The Ultra 3 builds on Apple’s most rugged model and brings with it the biggest display ever on an Apple Watch. The screen is not just larger, it also refreshes more frequently, improving both clarity and responsiveness. Apple says it has used LTPO3 technology and wide-angle OLEDS. The always-on mode now runs at 1Hz for better battery efficiency.
5G makes its way to the Ultra line for the first time, and it’s joined by satellite connectivity. This works for SOS alerts and location sharing in supported regions. Messages and Find My also work via satellite, but those require a cellular plan. The emergency SOS feature is free for the first two years.
Battery life gets a boost, now reaching up to 42 hours and up to 72 hours in Low Power mode. With GPS on, Low Power Mode lasts 20 hours with full heart rate monitoring. For comparison purposes, the respective figures for Ultra 2 are 36 hours, 72 hours and 17 hours. Fifteen minutes of charging provides 12 hours of battery life.
All of this is not a huge leap, but paired with the display and connectivity updates, it makes the Ultra 3 an even more capable outdoor tool.
The Ultra 3 is priced from $799.
A quick note on watchOS 26
As mentioned, all three new watches come with watchOS 26 preinstalled. It brings a handful of system updates, including a redesigned interface, Notes app, and a new feature called Workout Buddy. This gives voice-based coaching prompts during exercise, based on your own fitness history. Other improvements include wrist-flick to dismiss alerts, the above mentioned sleep score, richer Smart Stack context, automatic audio volume balancing, and live message translation.
While not a huge leap, it does offer smoother navigation, better voice feedback, and smarter suggestions. The update supports devices going back to Series 6.
So there you have it folks. Nothing groundbreaking here or an exclusive killer feature update, but some solid improvements across the line.
You can read the full Apple press release on this link.
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