Apple has just announced the Apple Watch Ultra 4 and Apple Watch Series 12, and I’d argue they’re the biggest leaps in Apple Watch hardware and features since they launched the Ultra series back a few years ago. Apple has significantly revamped the heart rate sensor package on both units, bringing in a bunch of features that both everyday users and data geeks have been asking for, for a while. And unlike in past years, when Apple kinda alternates between whether the Ultra editions or the Series editions get the hardware updates, this time both watches got it at the same time with the new S11 chipset.
However, there’s more than just a heart rate sensor and new S11 chipset (including bits from the new A20 Pro chipset of the iPhone 18 Pro). There are also new audio features that I suspect will be quite controversial down the road. These new audio features include a TiVo-like 15-second rewind option to see a transcription of what was just said, but more notably a 24×7 summary of all conversations occurring. There are, however, the less-controversial alerts for sirens/doorbells/etc…, and then the downright cool instant display of any music in the background via Shazam (like, instant-instant, because it’s always monitoring).
In any case, I’ve got a complete run-down video above of all the features on the Apple Watch Ultra 4, and I’ll be publishing a similar video for all the features on the Series 12 (spoiler: You can literally watch either video; they’re nearly identical since all the features are identical, save the final pricing/model bits).
The Changes Detailed:
If however, you just want the nitty-gritty on all the changes, I’ve outlined everything below in a nice consolidated manner. Again, I outline everything else in more detail/explanations in the video above. I’ll try to pull some of those snippets of the video into longer-form text below. Not leaving Apple’s campus till crazy-late last night has me a bit behind the curve.
Apple Watch Series 12 & Apple Watch Ultra 4 Hardware Updates/Changes:
– Gets new S11 chipset, which has features from the new A20 Pro chips of the iPhone 18 Pro
– Gets new secure audio processing exclave within that (for Audio Intelligence)
– Series 12 display cover material increased to be 60% stronger
– Series 12 offered in four colorways (Grey, Black, Gold, and new Dark Bronze)
– Series 12 offered in a ceramic option (white or blue)
– Series 12 offered in Hermes edition
– Series 12 retains 24-hour battery life claim
– Ultra 4 offered in two core colors (black or silver)
– Ultra 4 increased battery life to “over 2 days”
– Ultra 4 adds revamped ‘Extended Battery’ (GPS) mode and new ‘Max Extended Mode’ (GPS workout battery life of 45 hours, without reducing either GPS or recorded HR data
– Boatloads of new bands for all of them, including new translucent Ocean bands on the Ultra
Apple Watch Heart Rate Sensing Hardware Update:
– New heart rate sensor with increased electrode surface area for better ECG’s
– New photodiodes below it for better workout capture
– New LED array below that for better 24×7 HR readings
– New HR sensor is thinner (bump) than in the past
– Increased background (non-workout) HR readings to every 5 seconds (60x more than before)
– Increased HRV readings to every 5 minutes (24x more than before)
– Claim of Apple Watch Series 12/Ultra 4 “Most accurate heart rate sensing in a wearable”
– Published their own white paper to support that claim, with competitor comparisons
New HRV Features:
– Added overnight HRV trending/recording within the Vitals app (as one of key metrics)
– Added new HRV into new ‘Daytime’ view in the Vitals app
– Requires 7 nights of initial data on a watch to get HRV trends in the Vitals app
New Readiness Score Feature:
– Each morning you’ll get a new score
– Score is based on a range of 0-10 (zero being worst, 10 being highest)
– Four core descriptors you can get: Recover, Pace Yourself, Ready, Go For It
– Can be viewed on the watch or the Fitness App
– Leverages your Sleep data, Vitals Metrics, Training Load, and recent Activity data
– Requires 7 nights of initial data for the HRV trends, before it can populate Readiness Scores.
New Health App Redesign (on phone, coming later this year):
– Adds new AI summary and recommendations
– Adds Apple Intelligence guidance, including suggesting intervals
– Adds new Health Age: Based on Sleep, VO2Max, HRV, Heart Rate, Exercise Minutes, Steps, and optionally Labs
– Adds new longevity Tab, based on Nutrition, Metabolic, Overall Movement, Sleep, Hearing, Heart metrics, mental wellbeing
– Adds support for pulling in lab work
– Adds new VO2Max test (test can be done in living room in 6 minutes)
– Adds new other tests for flexibility, movement mechanics, strength, and more, which can be trended.
– Health app coming later this year in beta in English
New Audio Intelligence features (on-device, coming later this year):
– Everything done on-device, without need for your phone (at least for immediate processing)
– Adds Sound Recognition alerts for sirens, doorbells, baby crying, and more (shows up as text on watch)
– Live Rewind: Double-tap the Digital Crown to get a text-only transcription of the last 15 seconds of spoken words
– Siri Recap: Will summarize conversations/spoken words heard around you into a recap that’s available on your phone.
– Instant Shazam: Will instantly show you the name of songs when you raise your wrist
– Can configure all features independently (enabled/disabled)
– Siri Recap feature can be configured based on day, times, locations, etc., akin to Focus Modes
– Apple says no recorded audio is accessible to the user or Apple (meaning, you can’t see an audio file), and that summaries are happening on-device.
– Apple says that no speaker names are identified in summaries, and that no exact quotables/transcriptions are included in Siri Recap
– The exception to the ‘quotables’ rule is if you send a Live Rewind 15-second clip to Siri, it’ll be included in the Siri Recap
Got all that?
Now again, I recap all of this in a bit more detail in the video, and I’ll try to expand this section out with my thoughts. I’ve got some legit concerns around the Siri Recap feature specifically, in terms of privacy (not just my privacy, but people around me). Equally, I’m keen to see how it works for certain scenarios (e.g., the note-taking type scenario in a meeting). There are obviously plenty of note-taking technologies that summarize meetings/etc, so viewed in that thinner window, this isn’t entirely different.
Either way, stay tuned for plenty more on these watches coming up with my full in-depth reviews of both of them. With that, I’ve gotta jump out the door for a workout. There’s real-world data to be captured!
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