Apple today introduced Apple Watch Series 12, featuring a new Health Sensing System with optical and electrical sensors that the company says delivers the most accurate heart rate sensing in a wearable. Pre-orders start today, and the watch will be available September 18.
The watch is powered by the S11 chip, which Apple calls its most powerful wearable chip. It measures heart rate every five seconds throughout the day and tracks heart rate variability up to 24 times more often than before. A new readiness score from 0 to 10, based on the Apple Heart and Movement Study, offers recommendations and updates throughout the day.
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Battery life is rated at up to 24 hours for everyday use and up to 10 hours for outdoor workouts, a 25 percent improvement over the previous model. A 15-minute charge provides up to 12 hours of additional battery life, a 50 percent gain versus the prior model. The watch also features the most accurate step tracking of any smartwatch, according to Apple, plus a new Steps complication for the watch face.
Series 12 comes in aluminum finishes of dark bronze, black, light gold, and space gray, with titanium options in radiant gold and natural, and ceramic in pearl white and night blue. Aluminum models use Ceramic Shield 2, which Apple says is 60 percent tougher than Ion-X glass.
A redesigned Health app, arriving later this year, includes a Longevity tab with Health Age. The app will offer labs with over 50 biomarkers for $119, available at roughly 2,000 U.S. Quest Diagnostics locations. The redesign starts in U.S. English. Audio Intelligence features, also coming later this year, use Private Cloud Compute and bring Sound Recognition to Apple Watch, alerting deaf or hard of hearing users to sounds, plus Live Rewind to help recall conversations. watchOS 27 brings Apple Intelligence Siri AI.
Apple says a study of over 1,000 participants showed the watch achieved the highest accuracy among wearables tested. The company also announced movement evaluations that measure flexibility, strength, and balance using vision-based AI models on iPhone.
The announcement follows Apple's recent health-focused moves, including a report that the company plans smart glasses as a future health and fitness platform.
