Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4: The Health Update Worth Knowing About
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Apple announced two new watches at yesterday's event: Apple Watch Series 12 and Apple Watch Ultra 4. The design hasn't changed much. What's inside has, and for once the health features are the kind I'd point a customer towards rather than a marathon runner.
The new Health Sensing System
Both watches get new optical and electrical heart sensors. The practical result is that your watch now measures heart rate every five seconds, all day, rather than sampling now and then. Heart rate variability, the measure doctors use as a signal for stress and recovery, is taken up to 24 times more often than before.
Apple has built a new daily Readiness score on top of that. Each morning it looks at your recent activity, your sleep and your overnight vitals and gives you a score from 0 to 10, with a plain suggestion: Recover, Pace Yourself, Ready, or Go For It. It updates through the day. If you've ever wondered whether you're run down or just tired, that's the question it's trying to answer.
Apple also says the step counting has been rebuilt with machine learning, and that it's now the most accurate of any smartwatch. I'll take that with a pinch of salt until I've walked around with one, but the old pedometer did have its moments.
Audio Intelligence, coming later this year
This is the part I want to highlight, particularly for anyone who is hard of hearing or looks after someone who is.
Sound Recognition uses the watch's microphone to alert you to sirens, alarms, doorbells and a baby crying. Live Rewind lets you double-press the Digital Crown to see the last 15 seconds of a conversation as text, for the moments when you missed what someone said. Siri Recap can summarise a conversation afterwards. And Shazam can identify music from the Smart Stack.
On privacy, Apple has been unusually specific. No audio is recorded or stored. The processing happens in a sealed-off part of the new S11 chip, the raw audio is deleted straight away, and any text is end-to-end encrypted so Apple can't read it. These features arrive as a beta later in the year, and Apple says they won't initially be available in the EU. The UK isn't the EU, so we should be fine.
Series 12: from £369
Two sizes, 42mm and 46mm. Three materials:
Aluminium in dark bronze, black, light gold and space grey, now with Ceramic Shield 2 glass, which Apple says is 60 per cent tougher than before
Titanium in radiant gold and natural
Ceramic, a new option, in pearl white and night blue
Battery is up to 24 hours of everyday use, and a 15-minute charge now gives you 12 hours. That last number matters more than the first. It means you can charge while you shower and wear it to bed for sleep tracking.
Ultra 4: £749
Same sensors and S11 chip in the rugged titanium case, in natural or black. Up to 50 hours of normal use, 84 hours in Low Power Mode, and a 15-minute charge gives 18 hours. There's a Max Extended Workout mode for up to 45 hours of GPS tracking, which is for ultramarathon runners and not for me.
Dates and compatibility
Both are available to pre-order now and in stores from Friday 18 September. watchOS 27 arrives on Monday 14 September for Apple Watch Series 9 and later, SE 3, and Ultra 2 and later, paired with an iPhone 11 or newer on iOS 27. It brings Siri AI to the wrist, a new one-handed tap gesture, and perimenopause and menopause support in Cycle Tracking.
Should you upgrade?
Series 8 or older: yes, especially if the health features are why you wear one. Your watch won't get watchOS 27 or any of the new intelligence, and the battery is probably tired by now.
Series 9: it depends. It gets watchOS 27 and Siri AI. What it doesn't get is the new heart sensors, Readiness, or the Audio Intelligence features. If those matter, upgrade. If you mostly check the time and the odd notification, wait.
Series 10 or 11: no. Enjoy the software update.
Ultra: only if you need the battery or the ruggedness. For most people the Series 12 does the same job for £380 less.
If you'd like help setting up the health features, sharing them with a family member, or getting a new watch paired and moved over from an old one, book a session. It's one of the things I do most often.