Apple Watch Series 11 includes 5G and a hypertension tracking feature
Apple announced three new smartwatches at its “Awe Dropping” event today. Along with new iPhone 17 models, we now have the Apple Watch Series 11 as the rumors predicted. The Apple Watch Series 11 is available for pre-order today with a starting price of $399 and will ship out September 19. Engadget’s Cherlynn Low, Sam Rutherford and Billy Steele are on the ground at the event, so we’ll have hands-on coverage soon, followed by full reviews in a week or so. In the meantime, here’s everything we know about the newest Apple Watch.
The Apple Watch Series 11 can deliver hypertension alerts
The keynote speech started off with dramatic testimonials of how the Apple Watch has helped people with their health and well being, alerting people to health issues and calling for help that saved their lives. The new model will help identify hypertension.
Apple's VP of health, Dr. Sumbul Ahmad Desai introduced a feature that can help detect high blood pressure, aka hypertension, which affects over a billion people world wide and often has not obvious symptoms. It relies on the same optical heart sensor the Apple Watch has had for years, but now a new algorithm informed by both machine learning and a study involving more than 100,000 participants looks for high blood pressure. It works in the background over the course of a month to identify patterns associated with hypertension.
Desai made sure to state that it can't detect all cases of hypertension, but that Apple expects to notify more than one million people that they may have undiagnosed hypertension in the first year of the feature being available later this month — of course, that depends on FDA clearance and Apple expects to gain that soon.
A screen that's twice as scratch resistant
As for what else is new this year, we heard from Stan Ng, VP of Apple Watch and health product marketing, who called the Series 11 the thinnest and most comfortable ever. The ionX glass now has a ceramic coating bonded at an atomic level making it two times more scratch-resistant than before.
There's a new color (Space Grey to go along with the Rose Gold, Jet Black and Silver from prior models) and the case is now made from 100 percent recycled aluminum, up from 95 percent on the Series 10. There's also a slate of colors in polished, 100 percent recycled titanium. Battery life is now up to 24 hours, thanks to a battery redesign, meaning you can wear it all day and night.
The Apple Watch will now award a sleep score
If you do wear your watch all night, you'll be rewarded with a new sleep score (much like you already get from a Galaxy watch or a Pixel Watch/Fitbit). The sleep score analyzes the quality of your sleep based on duration, consistency, your time awake and other metrics to give you a score along with details on what affected your score and what you can do to get better sleep next time. The Apple Heart and Movement study provided sleep data to help inform how the sleep score works.
5G connectivity for cellular models
If you opt for the cellular model, you’ll get access to 5G networks, instead of just LTE. That’ll allow for speedier data connections on your wrist even if you leave your phone at home. 5G cellular connection will be available from most carriers at launch. The modem and antenna architecture should provide wider coverage as well, while being more power efficient.
The wearable will ship with watchOS 26, which showcases the new Liquid Glass design — and the Apple Watch is getting a new watch face to showcase those translucent look: Flow. There's also the Exactograph watch face, which Ng described as a "modern reinterpretation of a traditional regulator clock."
Apple Watch Series 11 pricing and availability
The Apple Watch Series 11 is available for pre-order today with a starting price of $399 for the 42mm case and GPS-only connectivity. The larger 46mm case starts at $429 and adding 5G cellular connectivity tacks on $100. The titanium models start at ship out September 19. The titanium case bumps the starting price to $699, but cellular is included. Of course, there are also a slew of new bands that can add more dollars to your Apple Watch purchase.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates... This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/wearables/apple-watch-series-11-includes-5g-and-a-hypertension-tracking-feature-172451506.html?src=rss
