Like clockwork, Apple announces new Apple Watch models alongside its iPhones every year at its annual Apple Event. Keeping a regular cadence is great in the sense that there’s always a new smartwatch to buy, but it can make meaningful improvements hard to track, especially across the last few Apple Watch models, where changes were modest.
Apple’s introduction of the Apple Watch Series 12 isn’t a complete reinvention of its smartwatch as a concept—it still has a screen after all—but it does come with hardware and software improvements that start to draw some stark lines in the sand between it and last year’s Apple Watch Series 11.
The most immediately noticeable difference between the Apple Watch Series 12 and Apple Watch Series 11 is the colors and materials they’re made from. The Apple Watch Series 11 was available with an aluminum case in rose gold, silver, space gray, and jet black, or a titanium case in gold, natural, or slate. The Apple Watch Series 12 is available with an aluminum case in dark bronze, light gold, black, and space gray; a titanium case in radiant gold and natural; and a ceramic case in pearl white or night blue.
Other differences are more subtle or outright not noticeable on a first glance. For example, Apple upgraded the cover glass on the aluminum Apple Watch Series 12 to Ceramic Shield 2, the same glass used on the iPhone 17 series. The cover glass is 60% harder than the Ion-X glass used on the aluminum Series 11 but still a step down from the sapphire glass the company uses on its titanium and ceramic models. Series 12 models also feature a less recessed digital crown than the Series 11, which doesn’t appear to serve a purpose but does make the new watch look a little goofier than before.
Perhaps the strangest change is the size of the Series 12, though. While the smartwatch is available in the same 42mm and 46mm sizes as the Series 11, it technically has a larger case than the older model, even though Apple advertises it as having the same amount of usable screen area. The aluminum or titanium 46mm Series 12 is 46mm by 40mm by 9.7mm, 1mm larger than the 46mm Series 11. The same is true of the 42mm model. The effect of those tweaks likely won’t make a difference in day-to-day wear, but stare at the Apple Watch Series 12 long enough and it does seem to have larger bezels than its predecessor.
A heavy area of focus during Apple’s presentation on the Apple Watch Series 12 was its updated sensors, and for a good reason: They’re a key reason the company is offering the majority of the watch’s new software features. Apple calls the new sensor package a “Health Sensing System,” and while it’s technically composed of the same types of sensors available on the Apple Watch Series 11 (electrical heart sensor, optical heart sensor, blood oxygen sensor, and temperature sensor), the company has implemented them in a different way.
The new watch features a denser collection of LEDs for always-on heart rate sensing and 32 distinct electrodes in the electrical heart sensor for more accurate ECG readings. Apple claims its updated sensors capture heart rate readings every five seconds and heart rate variability (HRV) readings every five minutes, about 60 times and 24 times more frequently than the Series 11, respectively.
The Apple Watch Series 12 is also the company’s first smartwatch with a new chip in two years. The Series 12 has an S11 chip, which is more powerful than the S10 on the Series 11 and Series 10, offers more accurate step tracking, and is capable of running Apple Intelligence and the new health features enabled by the watch’s sensors. Added efficiency from the new processor also enables 10 hours of battery life for outdoor workouts, 25% more than the Series 11. What other features the S11 unlocks down the road remains to be seen, but at the very least it should offer more longevity than the long-in-the-tooth S10.
The boost in heart monitoring makes new software features possible on the Series 12 that aren’t available on the Series 11. That includes Readiness, a new metric that uses sleep, training load, vitals, and recent activity to determine your physical capacity for the day. All that extra heart monitoring data is also sprinkled throughout watchOS 27, adding things like HRV readings to the Vitals and Heart Rate apps and all-day heart rate data to watch faces and complications.
Interestingly, while Apple introduced a redesigned version of the Health app alongside the Series 12, most of its new features aren’t exclusive to Series 12 owners. Outside of the Readiness score, all the app’s other new features should be available if you have a Series 11.
Both the Series 12 and Series 11 support Apple Intelligence, and, with watchOS 27, Apple’s revamped AI assistant, Siri AI. That means a dedicated Siri app and suggestions in the Smart Stack, among other AI-enabled features. Apple is also adding a collection of new “Audio Intelligence” features that aren’t coming to the Series 11.
Audio Intelligence covers things like Shazam song identification, which can now happen in the background on the Series 12, and accessibility features like Sound Recognition, which can alert you to important sounds like doorbells or a baby crying if you’re deaf or hard of hearing. The more controversial features involve AI transcription. Using the S11 chip and its built-in microphone, the Series 12’s Live Rewind feature can be prompted to listen to your conversation and quickly turn around a 15-second transcript of what was said if you think you missed something. Siri Recap is more expansive, listening throughout the day or during select parts of the day and creating an overall summary of the key things you heard or talked about.
Unlike most other Apple products, the Apple Watch Series 12 isn’t dramatically more expensive than the Apple Watch Series 11. The new watch starts at $399 for an aluminum case, $699 for a titanium case, or $899 for a ceramic case. Jumping up to the larger 46mm size raises those prices by $100 for aluminum or $50 for titanium and ceramic. If you add cellular connectivity to the aluminum model, you can add another $100 on top of that.
That’s the same starting price as the Apple Watch Series 11, though bumping up to the larger 46mm Series 11 only cost $429 last year, as opposed to the $499 you’ll pay for the 46mm Series 12. Not terrible in the grand scheme of things.
If you’re interested in the all-day heart monitoring and Readiness scores of something like the Whoop 5.0 or the Fitbit Air, the Apple Watch Series 12 now matches those competitors while offering more accurate readings overall. If you’re not worried about those features, the Series 11 is still a good alternative, especially because it supports the majority of Apple’s upcoming wearable software features.
Source: Gizmodo