Get ready to use your Apple Watch like never before! watchOS 11 will analyze your vital signs to find trends, let you set your fitness goals with more flexibility, and offer more customization options. Let’s take a look at all the changes.
The Apple Watch is the most personal device you can own: not only does it save you from having to check your iPhone multiple times by putting important information right on your wrist, but it also monitors your vital signs and health so you can improve your habits and stay fit.
watchOS 11 will improve this aspect to better adapt to our daily activity: our Apple Watch will understand daily exceptions, and will inform us much better about our health trends. Let’s review all the new features of watchOS 11!
What’s new in watchOS 11
Vital Signs: all your vital signs in one place
watchOS will feature a new app called Vital Signs , which will summarize in a single section everything you need to know about your vital signs: how you have slept, the quality of your breathing, the evolution of your blood oxygen levels… a new and powerful algorithm will be in charge of analyzing and interpreting all this data.
If any of these constants change or show an unusual variation from your daily routine, Vital Signs will alert you by marking it with a special color, helping you relate these variations to situations. Changes in your breathing or body temperature may be the result of having traveled far away or to higher altitudes, having consumed alcohol, or being incubated with an illness. You can keep all these changes under control!
Training load: monitor your progress when exercising
If you’re someone who likes to go out for a run, you’re going to love the new Training Load section in watchOS 11 workouts. With it, you’ll go beyond just viewing workout data: an algorithm will tell you how much effort you’ve put in, with various levels that you can adjust to set goals.
The benefit is clear: if you’re training for something like a half marathon, watchOS 11 can tell you how hard you’ve been working and how you’re doing. You’ll know at all times if you’re on track, if you’re pushing yourself too hard, or if you need to push harder to achieve your goal.
Other new features of watchOS 11
watchOS 11 has many more new details compared to watchOS 10 , let’s review the most relevant ones:
- You’ll be able to customize your ring goals depending on the day , and make exceptions if you’re injured or sick. Completing your rings will be much more flexible!
- If you wear Apple Watch while pregnant, watchOS 11 metrics can now also guide you and alert you when your health is changing.
- The watchOS 11 smart stack will be able to show you Widgets more accurately, such as precipitation alerts in case it’s going to rain, or the translator in case you’re going to
- another country. And in that same smart stack you’ll have Live Activities like there was on the iPhone!
- You can customize the information sections of the Fitness app to show us the data we want to see above the rest.
- If you’re someone who uses a photo as the watch face, watchOS 11 will now be able to create custom wallpapers much more precisely.
watchOS 11 Compatibility
watchOS 11 will be compatible with the following Apple Watch models:
- Apple Watch SE 2nd generation and later
- Apple Watch Series 6 and later, including Apple Watch Series 9
- All Apple Watch Ultra models
Additionally, you’ll also need an iPhone XS or later with iOS 18 installed to install watchOS 11. Of course, some features like blood oxygen measurement are exclusive to the latest Apple Watch models.
When will watchOS 11 be released?
As with iOS 18, iPadOS 18 , and macOS Sequoia , watchOS is available as a beta for the developer community. A public beta will be available for everyone soon, and the final, stable version of watchOS 11 will be available in mid- to late September .
While you wait, remember that you can check out what’s new in iOS 18! There’s no Apple Watch without an iPhone, so there’s nothing better than being prepared for everything that’s coming: