Over three months after Apple launched it at WWDC 2024, watchOS 11 is formally right here. The 2024 Apple Watch replace, which provides the brand new Vitals app, widget enhancements and sleep apnea detection, is now accessible to put in in your smartwatch.
Apple’s sleep apnea detection function, which the corporate highlighted in its Apple Watch Collection 10 reveal, may also work with a few year-old fashions. When you personal the Apple Watch Collection 9 or Apple Watch Extremely 2, you possibly can attempt the function earlier than the brand new mannequin makes it into prospects’ arms later this week. Sleep apnea detection will ship you an alert if the watch’s sensors detect in a single day respiration disturbances. The well being function, much like one Samsung included with the Galaxy Watch 7 earlier this yr, obtained FDA approval final week.
watchOS 11 additionally introduces a brand new Vitals app, additional beefing up Apple’s health-tracking options on its wearable. For many who put on their Apple Watch to mattress for sleep monitoring (and a useful alarm within the morning), Vitals collects your in a single day information in a single place. The app establishes baselines in your well being metrics. It lets you already know if any fall outdoors your typical vary, probably useful for recognizing irregularities like oncoming sicknesses or monitoring the results of alcohol use.
Equally, the brand new Coaching Load function measures the depth of your exercises over time. After establishing an depth baseline over 28 days, it reveals how laborious you’re pushing your self in your exercises — evaluating it along with your commonplace averages. At launch, it helps 17 exercise sorts, together with walks, runs, biking, rowing, swings and extra. You’ll discover your Coaching Load within the Exercise app in your Apple Watch and the Health app in your iPhone.
Apple added a long-requested function this yr: the flexibility to pause and customise Exercise ring targets. It hardly is smart to maintain pushing your self (at your watch’s prodding) in case you’re sick or want relaxation. The wearable now helps you to take a break for a day, week, month or extra with out shedding your award streaks. As well as, you possibly can set completely different Exercise ring targets for every day of the week and customise the info you care about most within the iOS 18 Health app.
The Apple Watch’s Sensible Stack (the pile of widgets you see once you scroll down out of your watch face) now reveals widgets robotically primarily based on context. (For instance, rain alerts.) As well as, Stay Actions, which arrived on the iPhone two years in the past, can be coming to the Apple Watch within the new replace. You’ll discover Stay Actions for issues like sports activities scores you observe or an arriving Uber within the watchOS 11 Sensible Stack.
Verify In is a brand new function that permits you to notify a buddy once you attain your vacation spot. You may start a Verify In from the watchOS Messages app by tapping the plus button subsequent to the textual content subject, selecting Verify In and coming into the place you’re going and once you count on to reach. Equally, when exercising, you can begin a Verify In from the exercises app: Swipe proper from the exercise display and select Verify In from the controls. You may then choose a contact to share your train routine with.
Different options embrace new being pregnant monitoring within the Cycles app and a Double Faucet API that lets third-party builders incorporate hands-free controls.
To obtain watchOS 11, you’ll first have to set up iOS 18 in your paired iPhone. After that, open the Watch app in your telephone, then head to Common > Software program Replace. It ought to then immediate you to replace to the 2024 software program.
