Best for…
In the Ultra 3, you get all the Series 11’s flagship features, plus multi-day battery life, satellite messaging, and a rugged design — but it’ll cost you.
I’ll be honest: The Apple Watch Ultra 3 is entirely too much smartwatch for most people, both in a literal, physical sense and from a feature perspective. But its gigantic display, rugged design, lengthy battery life, and slew of advanced fitness features make it the best smartwatch for triathletes, hikers, divers, and other endurance-oriented wearers — or anyone who simply wants a sporty smartwatch with a huge screen that takes days to die. You pay double the cost of a Series 11 for all of that, but for some people, it’s worth the investment.
The Ultra 3’s screen is even larger than the original’s gigantic one. Like the original Ultra and the Ultra 2, the Ultra 3 comes in one big size: 49 mm. But the latest model has more screen real estate due to a bezel that’s 24% slimmer than those of the previous versions. If you have an Ultra or Ultra 2, the slightly bigger display isn’t a reason to upgrade — those screens were plenty large, and the difference is not that obvious when you place them side by side. But the 46 mm Series 10 had a larger screen than the Ultra 2, so the Ultra 3’s size bump makes it Apple’s biggest watch in every way once again.
The battery life is excellent. Like the previous Ultra models, the Ultra 3 is a long-lasting Apple Watch by an order of magnitude. Though you can eke out a day and a half of battery life wearing the Series 11 to track daily workouts and sleep, the Ultra 3 easily doubles that. Apple promises 42 hours on a charge, but after 48 hours of wearing the watch to manage notifications, track two nights of sleep and 14.5 miles of outdoor workouts, and send satellite messages, I still had 15% battery left. Activating the Ultra 3’s low-power mode makes it last even longer. It took 50 hours for the watch to die in my testing without low-power mode enabled, and that included streaming two hours of podcasts directly on the device. It’s a beast.
Satellite messaging makes it the most useful Apple Watch for hiking and camping. Anyone who enjoys going off the grid knows that the lack of cell service and Wi-Fi signal in large swaths of America’s state and national parks is a feature, not a bug. But it can also be a pain when you need to coordinate with friends to meet up or let someone know you’re safe, and the messages just don’t go through. The Ultra 3 gains a new satellite-messaging feature that lets you send texts, share your location, or contact emergency services without cell service or Wi-Fi.
I wasn’t able to personally test contacting emergency services, because one should do such a thing only in, you know, a real emergency, but Apple representatives showed me how the feature worked on an Ultra 3 connected to a test emergency network. It takes a few minutes for the watch to connect to a satellite, but once it does, you can fill out a step-by-step report with details to tell local emergency responders what kind of trouble you’re in.
I tested the Ultra 3’s satellite-messaging feature on a hike through the Oakland, California, redwoods, sending a message to my partner when I had no cell signal to tell him I was a mile from the trailhead. (A gray satellite icon appears at the top of your watch face when the signal drops.) Connecting to the satellite can take a few minutes, especially if tree cover is overhead, and if the foliage is too dense, you might not be able to connect to the satellite at all. But the watch will helpfully guide you to move left or right or turn around in order to lock in a signal. Once your watch is connected, the satellite icon turns green, and then you can send a message or share your location. In our experience it took another two to three minutes for the message to go through, so don’t expect to have a quick, real-time conversation while traipsing along the trail. But if you need to communicate important information, it’s a useful option.
The feature works identically to satellite messaging, Find My, and emergency SOS via satellite on the iPhone, which Apple introduced in the iPhone 14. That means you don’t need an Apple Watch Ultra 3 to take advantage of those features if you have an iPhone 14 or newer running iOS 18 or later. But the Ultra 3 gets better battery life than basically all iPhones, and it has fitness-tracking features that iPhones don’t have, so the satellite-messaging function is a welcome addition for people who use their Apple Watch Ultra for hiking, backpacking, cycling, or other activities where connectivity isn’t a given. (It’s important to note that you need to add a separate data plan for your Ultra 3 to your cell phone plan, around $10 a month through the big carriers, to take advantage of the satellite messaging and Find My features. Emergency SOS is included for free without a cellular plan.)
The Action button remains a useful addition to the Ultra lineup. In addition to the Digital Crown (which is 30% larger on the Ultra 3 than on the smaller, cheaper Apple Watches) with deeper grooves, as well as the traditional side button, the Ultra 3 has an orange Action button on the left edge of the case that serves as a shortcut for specific apps. Normally you would need to use an Apple Watch complication to hop into an app to launch a workout, for instance, but if you’re an athlete wearing gloves, poking at a touchscreen is inconvenient or even impossible. If you have an Ultra, you can press the Action button to start a specific exercise, among other tasks, and you can create custom shortcuts for the button using the Shortcuts app.
This is a smartwatch for endurance athletes. Like the older Ultra models, the Ultra 3 has precision dual-frequency GPS, so the watch can use both L1 and L5 frequencies to lock in your location more accurately. Most smartwatches, in contrast, use only one frequency, which is why GPS on those devices can sometimes struggle to pinpoint your location in cities with tall buildings or lots of tree cover; with an additional frequency, that should be less of a problem. The Ultra 3 can also work as a diving watch, as it’s equipped with a depth sensor that can calculate water submersion up to 40 meters. When setting up the Ultra 3, you can choose to activate the Depth app automatically when the watch senses that you’ve jumped into water.
Unlike other Apple Watch models, the Ultra 3 comes equipped with an 86-decibel siren, which you can activate with a long press of the Action button. This prompts the watch to emit a loud-pitched SOS that repeats in two patterns known to emergency responders — which it can maintain for hours, depending on battery life — if you’re lost. The siren is, safe to say, extremely loud.
Flaws but not dealbreakers
It’s a minor upgrade over the Ultra 2. Satellite messaging, a slightly larger screen, and a bigger battery aside, the Apple Watch Ultra 3 isn’t much different from the Ultra 2. The two watches run on the same S10 chip and have the same health and fitness features (including Apple’s FDA-cleared hypertension alerts and Sleep Score), and the Ultra 2’s battery life was already lengthy.
It’s too massive for some people. If you’re turned off by the computer-on-your-wrist look that a big smartwatch can have — especially if your wrists are on the smaller side — the Ultra 3 is not for you. Its 49 mm case is 3 millimeters larger than that of the largest Series 11. Though I love being able to see tons of information at a glance, as a person whose wrists measure 6 inches around, I find the Ultra 3 uncomfortable to wear to sleep, and it slides around when I exercise. Folks with similar wrist measurements may prefer the 40 mm SE or the 42 mm Series 11 instead. In addition, the titanium case surrounds the Ultra 3’s flat-edged display, so this watch looks more utilitarian than the softer, rounded Series 11 and SE, but the design also protects the sapphire-crystal screen from scratches. (The utilitarian look is a selling point for many people, so choose your own adventure.)
It’s expensive. Consider whether you need features designed for endurance athletes, a giant screen, or multi-day battery life. For half the cost of the Ultra 3, you can buy a 42 mm Series 11, which delivers solid battery life, a beautiful display, and the same sophisticated health features that the Ultra 3 offers. (The Series 11 also now comes in a titanium finish with cellular connectivity for slightly less than the cellular titanium Ultra 3 costs.)
