Apple Watch Series 11 hands-on: Feels and looks the same, but real changes are deeper
Though the Apple Watch announcements may have paled in comparison to the iPhone news at Apple’s event today, there were still some noteworthy updates to the smartwatch lineup to talk about. This year, we’re getting the Watch Series 11, Watch SE 3 and Watch Ultra 3, and each of them have some interesting features. At a hands-on session here at Apple Park, I spent some time with the devices, and believe the most intriguing is the Series 11.
At first glance, the Series 11 is no different from the Series 10 I wore to the event. They’re the same thinness and have pretty much the same dimensions, and the main change is that the new smartwatch has an IonX glass covering that’s a bit more scratch resistant. There’s also a new space grey case option that looked nice, though I was a bigger fan of the rose gold band and case pairing. I especially like the loop band that was on the unit I checked out.
I put the Series 11 on my wrist next to my Series 10 and truly could not tell them apart. There might not be much reason to upgrade from last year’s model to this, which isn’t a bad thing. We don’t want to be too wasteful, anyway. The real updates coming to the Series 11 include the new “Possible hypertension” alerts, using data gathered from the existing optical heart rate sensors to study patterns in the constriction and expansion of your blood vessels in relation to your heart rate. This tells the watch whether there are differences in your blood pressure — keyword: differences.
This tool isn’t meant to give you readings of your blood pressure. It’s more meant to tell if there are concerning variations and alert you to see a medical professional if so. This is similar to many other Apple Watch features like sleep apnea detection or high heart rate alerts, and since it requires data trends to work, wasn’t something I could just test here at Apple Park.
I also didn’t get to test the sleep score feature that’s coming watchOS 26, but that isn’t exclusive to the Series 11, and any Apple Watch compatible with the latest software will be able to get it. I did like how you’ll get scores once you’ve worn the watch to bed, and don’t have to wait for a required number of nights for the insights to surface.
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This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/wearables/apple-watch-series-11-hands-on-feels-and-looks-the-same-but-real-changes-are-deeper-200438367.html?src=rss
