Apple today unveiled the Apple Watch Series 12. Apple says the new Watch offers the most accurate heart rate sensing ever in a wearable device. The new model brings higher-frequency heart rate and HRV sensing, a readiness score, and Audio Intelligence features.
The Apple Watch Series 12’s new Health Sensing System and S11 chip delivers higher-frequency heart rate and heart rate variability (HRV) measurements, which will power an enhanced suite of health and fitness features including a new readiness score in a redesigned Health app that will be available on iPhone later this year. The new app will offer a new Longevity tab with a Health Age feature.
Apple says the S11 chip is its most powerful wearable chipever. It enables new Audio Intelligence features arriving later this year, which will help users remember key moments from their conversations and stay alert to important sounds. watchOS 27 brings Apple Intelligence and Siri AI to the Apple Watch.
“Apple Watch Series 12 is the most advanced health and fitness companion we’ve ever created,” said Kaiann Drance, Apple’s vice president of Worldwide Apple Watch Product Marketing. “With our new Health Sensing System and S11 chip, Apple Watch Series 12 gives you meaningful insights, like readiness, so you can better understand how to take on your day and care for your health, plus intelligence features that make everyday life easier. And it’s all wrapped in a beautifully thin, light design you’ll love wearing all day and night.”
Heart Rate Sensing
Apple Watch Series 12 provides continuous high-fidelity health monitoring using the Health Sensing System, featuring new optical and electrical heart sensors. Apple says the Apple Watch Series 12 offers the most accurate heart rate sensing in a wearable.
The new Watch boasts larger, power-efficient green LEDs on the optical heart sensor, measuring heart rate every five seconds, all day long. This provides a deeper insight into a user’s fitness and physiological state, and makes Exercise and Move Activity rings even more accurate. Users can view their real-time heart rate at a glance throughout their day on a new heart rate watch face complication.
HRV, a key indicator of stress and recovery, is now measured up to 24 times more often and available to view in a new section of the Heart Rate app.
Readiness
Apple Watch Series 12 also introduces readiness, a new feature that analyzes a user’s recent activity, training load, vitals, and sleep score to offer insight into their capacity for the day ahead, providing a single 0-10 score with a clear, actionable recommendation: Recover, Pace Yourself, Ready, or Go For It. Readiness updates throughout the day as new data comes in.
Improved Workout Battery Life and Faster Charging
Apple Watch Series 12 still offers up to 24 hours of everyday battery life, while now offering up to 10 hours of battery life during an outdoor workout, 25% more than the previous Series 11. Faster charging means a 15 minute charge brings up to 12 hours of additional battery life, 50% more than the Series 11.
Redesigned Health App
The Health app on the iPhone has been redesigned to dynamically respond to a user’s data using Apple Intelligence. A new Insights tab provides timely health information and a new Longevity tab analyzes a user’s longitudinal health data for deeper insights. The Longevity tab also includes Health Age, an Apple Watch feature that shows users how certain metrics are tracking relative to their actual age. YAY! A way for me to actually feel older than I already do!
Audio Intelligence
Audio Intelligence helps users stay aware of the world around them, catch what they missed, and remember key moments — with user control, privacy, security, and accessibility at the center of its design.
Audio Intelligence features include:
- Sound Recognition, alerts users who are deaf or hard of hearing of important sounds, even when their iPhone isn’t with them. This feature listens for sounds like sirens, alarms, doorbells, or a baby crying, and uses on-device intelligence to notify users when they’re detected.
- Live Rewind, which can help users recall what was just said in conversation. A double press of the Digital Crown shows the previous 15 seconds of a conversation as a text snippet, so the user can catch something they may have missed or are less familiar with. Users can ask Siri about the content of the text or save it to the Siri app to revisit later.
- Siri Recap, which can create high-level summaries of conversations that users can review later to jog their memory. When Siri Recap is turned on, after a conversation, Apple Intelligence automatically generates a title and key points in the new Siri app, allowing users to be more present and engaged in the moment.
- Shazam, which instantly detects the music playing around the user and automatically displays the song title and artist’s name on the Music Recognition widget in the Smart Stack, easily glanceable on the wrist.
All Audio Intelligence features are private by design, combining hardware, software, and services to protect user privacy. These features do not create or store audio recordings, and raw audio used for processing is completely inaccessible to the operating systems, apps, the user, or Apple.
Pricing and Availability
- Apple Watch Series 12 is available in an array of finishes, including dark bronze, black, light gold, and space gray aluminum, and radiant gold and natural titanium. It is also available in a ceramic material, in pearl white and night blue. Aluminum models now feature Ceramic Shield 2, which is tougher than any smartwatch glass and 60 percent tougher than the Ion-X of previous aluminum models.
- Apple Watch Series 12 is available to pre-order today, with availability beginning Friday, September 18.
- Customers in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, India, Japan, the UAE, the UK, the U.S., and more than 50 other countries and regions can pre-order Apple Watch Series 12 today, with availability in stores beginning Friday, September 18.
- Apple Watch Series 12 starts at $399 (U.S.).
- New Apple Watch bands will be available to order today from apple.com/store and on the Apple Store app, with availability in stores beginning Friday, September 18.
- watchOS 27 will be available for Apple Watch Series 9 or later, Apple Watch SE 3, and Apple Watch Ultra 2 or later on Monday, September 14, and requires iPhone 11 or later or iPhone SE (2nd generation or later) with iOS 27 or later. Not all features are available on all devices or in all regions. For more information about availability, visit apple.com.
- New subscribers may get three months of Apple Fitness+ and Apple Music with the purchase of Apple Watch Series 12, Apple Watch SE 3, or Apple Watch Ultra 4. Offer and service availability varies by region. See apple.com/promo for details.
