Do You Actually Want a New Apple Watch if You Already Have One?

Reviews for the Apple Watch SE 3, Series 11, and Ultra 3 got here out at this time. I’m within the strategy of reviewing them. I solely have two wrists, and there are three Apple Watches to overview—so yeah. Besides, I would like to gather extra well being information earlier than I really feel snug giving my definitive take. If you’re studying opinions and asking your self whether or not or not you must get any of the brand new fashions after they change into out there this Friday, Sept. 19, possibly I can assist you decide.

As I mentioned in my hands-on with the Apple Watches after the Awe Jawdropping event final week, Apple’s trio of recent smartwatches are a comparatively easy refresh. All three fashions can be found in GPS-only or GPS + mobile fashions, include 5G connectivity (for mobile fashions), have S10 chipsets, and embrace 64GB of inside storage.

Get the Apple Watch SE 3 when you don’t want the most recent and best that Apple has to supply in a wrist pc and solely want the fundamentals like glorious well being and health monitoring, an always-on show for telling the time (lastly), and also you don’t wish to pay an excessive amount of. The Watch SE 3 is a terrific worth beginning at $250. The SE 3 will get as much as 18 hours of battery life with a single cost.

See New Apple Watches at Amazon

See New Apple Watches at Apple

Get the Apple Watch Series 11 if you would like some extra bells and whistles like barely bigger and brighter shows, a barely thinner design, ECG, blood oxygen monitoring (through the iPhone app), and a extra superior optical coronary heart fee sensor for extra correct well being and health monitoring. The Series 11 additionally is available in titanium finishes, whereas the SE 3 is on the market solely with aluminum instances. The Series 11 will get longer battery life in comparison with the SE 3—as much as 24 hours with a single cost.

The Apple Watch Ultra 3 is essentially the most feature-packed smartwatch that Apple sells. It’s bought every thing the Series 11 has, plus a fair greater show, satellite tv for pc connectivity (emergency SOS and messages), and the longest battery of any Apple Watch at as much as 42 hours with a single cost.

That all sounds self-explanatory—choices for good, higher, and greatest—however what when you already personal an Apple Watch? Should you improve past getting longer battery life? Because let’s be actual, when you’ve had your Apple Watch for even a 12 months and also you’re constantly utilizing it to trace exercises, the battery is dying at a quicker fee than when you’re simply utilizing it to inform the time and get notifications. Also, the batteries in Apple Watches aren’t going to final eternally; they’ll inevitably go kaput in the future or simply not maintain as lengthy a cost with time.

If you’re in that boat, you actually need to ask your self: Do you care about hypertension notifications and the brand new Sleep Score?

Hypertension notifications

Hypertension, additionally identified generally as persistent hypertension, is a life-threatening situation that may oftentimes trigger coronary heart assaults or injury your organs. It’s known as the “silent killer” since you usually received’t see signs. That’s the place hypertension notifications are available. The characteristic acquired FDA clearance on Monday and will likely be made out there in over 150 nations. The Series 11 and Ultra 3 can ship hypertension notifications utilizing information collected from their optical coronary heart sensors, which is then processed by means of a “machine learning-based algorithm” designed from research that included over 100,000 individuals, in line with Apple. “Apple Watch looks at your heart data and searches for patterns associated with hypertension,” reads the hypertension notifications setup display screen throughout the Health app. The Apple Watch isn’t measuring blood strain; it’s merely searching for the patterns which will match with hypertension victims.

Setting up hypertension notifications is straightforward sufficient, but it surely’s not one thing you’ll be capable of hearth up on command in your Apple Watch. “The algorithm works passively in the background reviewing data over 30-day periods, and will notify users if it detects consistent signs of hypertension,” Apple states in a press release. Basically, when you’re 22 years or older and also you’re not pregnant, there’s no purpose to not flip it on. Ideally, you’ll by no means get a hypertension notification, which might point out you’re a wholesome human and don’t have anything to fret about. But when you do, on the very least you possibly can take some preventive care if it’s not but critical. The notifications might doubtlessly save your life.

Sleep rating

The different massive Apple Watch characteristic that Apple introduced final week is Sleep Score. This is a characteristic for all three of the brand new Apple Watches, together with the SE 3. For me, it’s an enormous lastly second, as I’ve lengthy discovered the sleep monitoring on Apple Watches to be missing in comparison with wearables made by different firms. Similar to the Activity Rings, Sleep Score is a method to measure three sleeping metrics: length, bedtime, and interruptions. These three items of information are represented in a hoop or “donut” as Apple informed me (see photograph on the very high), and so they seem thicker or thinner primarily based on the way you obtain every one. You’re then assigned a rating and one in all 5 classifications (very low, low, OK, excessive, and glorious). The thought is that, at a look, you possibly can shortly see how nicely you slept and doubtlessly make adjustments to enhance any of the three metrics. In a means, it’s nearly like gamifying sleep by guilting you into bettering your Sleep Score after which sustaining it.

I’ve been an insomniac for the previous 12 months and, admittedly, my Sleep Score has been rating “low” the previous week. Has the Sleep Score made me really feel ashamed that I’ve not corrected my sleep? 100%. But I’m additionally excellent at ignoring it, even once I know I’ve sleeping issues. Of course, that’s simply me; I additionally ignore my Activity Rings greater than I ought to and don’t stand when my Apple Watch tells me to. Just a couple of minutes earlier than scripting this, I noticed the notification and simply blew it off! Setting my very own dangerous habits apart, Sleep Score is thoughtfully designed.

Now, again to the query of whether or not you can purchase any of the brand new Apple Watches for these two options. If you need the most recent and best Apple Watches, then by all means. But there’s actually excellent news! If you personal a Watch Series 6 or later, SE 2, or Ultra and later, you get Sleep Score free of charge within the just-released watchOS 26. If you could have an Apple Watch Series 9 or later, or an Ultra 2 (sorry, OG Ultra house owners), you get hypertension notifications free of charge in the identical software program replace. So examine your Apple Watch mannequin and assume just a little bit about whether or not these options attraction to you or not. You could possibly save a number of hundred bucks simply by downloading the brand new replace.

See New Apple Watches at Amazon

See New Apple Watches at Apple