Apple’s latest wearable operating system, watchOS 11, arrives today with a slew of new features for the Apple Watch Series 6 and beyond, as well as the Ultra, and the Apple Watch SE 2.
Unveiled at WWDC 2024, watchOS 11 comes replete with a heavy focus on health and wellbeing, an emphasis that broadly reflects the shift Apple Watch has undergone over the years. Where Apple might previously have touted communication as Apple Watch’s primary function, in 2024, it’s indisputably a health and well-being accessory.
To that end, there are five major health and fitness upgrades you’ll encounter when you download watchOS 11, along with some other tweaks. Here are the best:
watchOS 11’s health features
watchOS 11’s best health features
1. Vitals
WatchOS 11 features a new Vitals app that tracks several key metrics while you sleep. Apple Watch will take your heart rate, respiratory rate, wrist temperature, sleep duration, and blood oxygen levels, summarizing them to let you check your daily health status.
If two or more metrics are out of whack, you’ll get a notification and more information. Apple says the Vitals app can help highlight the impact of alcohol consumption and illness or even subtle things like elevation changes.
2. Pregnancy
If you log a pregnancy in the Health app on your iPhone or iPad, cycle tracking on Apple Watch will show gestational age and let you log symptoms frequently experienced during pregnancy, such as nausea.
watchOS 11 will also prompt reviews of high heart rate notifications and alert users more quickly of a potential fall risk using Walking Steadiness.
3. Training Load
A new training load insight in watchOS 11 will help you understand the impact of your workouts on your body over time. Workouts will be measured on a scale of 1 to 10 to monitor intensity.
Specifically for cardio-based workouts, there’s a new algorithm that can employ data such as your age, height, weight, heart rate, and elevation. Combined with your own adjustments for stress and soreness, you’ll get a 28-day training load readout that can help to plan your workouts. Understanding the impact your training has on your body is vital in order to prevent injury, but it can also be a solid indicator of progress or stagnation.
4. Customize rings and plan rest days
A feature gym goers have been begging for, watchOS 11 introduces customizable Activity Rings and rest days. Whether you just need a day off or you’re nursing an injury, you can now pause your rings for a day, week, or months without losing your award streaks.
5. Workout app enhancements
The final big fitness feature is some tweaks to the workout app. You can now track distance using GPS for a range of sports including Soccer, American Football, skiing, snowboarding, golf, and more.
watchOS 11's other upgrades
There are several other tweaks coming to watchOS 11, here’s a quick summary of some of the other changes:
- Smart Stack gets new widgets and can suggest widgets based on time, date, and your daily routine
- Photos Watch Face now picks your best photos using AI
- Apple’s Check In safety feature is now available on Watch, including during workouts
- The Translate app arrives on Apple Watch
- Apple Maps features hikes for all U.S. national parks that can be saved to your Watch and accessed offline
- Summarised notifications powered by Apple Intelligence forwarded from iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16
- Tap to Cash lets you send and receive Apple Cash funds using your Watch (only available in the US at the moment)
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