Apple has introduced the next generation of Apple Watch SE, offering enhanced health, fitness, connectivity, and safety features, and the capabilities of the S10 chip.

According to Stan Ng, Apple’s vice president of Apple Watch and Health Product Marketing, the new smartwatch delivers a more advanced set of health features than the previous generation — including sleep score, retrospective ovulation estimates, sleep apnea notifications, and wrist temperature sensing for richer Vitals app data — plus a robust set of fitness features to provide daily motivation. 

The S10 chip powers an Always-On display, the double tap and wrist flick gestures, on-device Siri, and fast charging. Apple Watch SE 3 also offers 5G cellular capabilities and a cover glass that is described as more durable than ever. 

Always-On Display, Fast Charging, and 5G Cellular

With the S10 chip, Apple Watch SE 3 now features an Always-On display, allowing users to view the time and glance at notifications without raising their wrist or tapping the display. The cover glass is purportedly 4x more resistant to cracks than the previous generation, featuring a custom, proprietary grade of Ion-X (ion-exchanged strengthened) glass, which Apple says is the toughest glass available in a smartwatch.

The tech giant says that, even with the addition of the Always-On display, Apple Watch SE 3 offers all-day, 18-hour battery life, and also features fast charging for the first time. Apple Watch SE 3 now charges up to 2x faster than the previous generation; charging for 15 minutes can add up to eight hours of battery for daily use, and it can charge to about 80 percent in 45 minutes.

With a cellular plan, Apple Watch allows users to take calls, send messages, and even get help with emergency services when their iPhone isn’t with them. Apple Watch now offers 5G cellular capabilities that provide better performance with greater throughput, Ng says. The new 5G modem is more power efficient, using less battery for cellular, he adds.

Health Insights

Building on its suite of core health features, Apple Watch SE 3 introduces sleep score, which helps users understand the quality of their sleep and how to make it more restorative. With sleep score, Apple Watch is designed to track each of these categories to offer users a transparent and easy-to-understand metric for their overall sleep quality. After each night, sleep score provides an overall score and classification in the Sleep app on Apple Watch, plus a breakdown of the most critical components so users know what to prioritize to improve their sleep.

Additionally, Ng says the Apple Watch SE 3 offers:

  • Wrist temperature sensing, which can provide insight into overall wellbeing and adds to the other key health metrics available in the Vitals app. Apple Watch uses two temperature sensors and an advanced algorithm to compensate for the temperature of a user’s environment.
  • Retrospective ovulation estimates, which use wrist temperature data to estimate the likely day of ovulation after it has occurred and improve period predictions, which can be helpful for family planning.
  • Sleep apnea notifications, which alert users if they show consistent signs of moderate to severe sleep apnea over a 30-day period. The algorithm analyzes accelerometer data to detect interruptions in regular respiratory patterns that are associated with sleep apnea.

These features add to the core set of health features available on Apple Watch SE 3, including heart health notifications, Cycle Tracking, and cardio fitness, plus safety features like Fall Detection, Crash Detection, Emergency SOS, and Check In.4

Benefits of the S10 chip

The S10 chip also brings the double tap and wrist flick gestures to Apple Watch SE 3, allowing users to do even more on Apple Watch with one hand. With the double tap gesture, users can simply tap their thumb and index finger together twice to select the primary action in a wide variety of apps and notifications, including opening the Smart Stack, answering and ending calls, viewing and sending a message, pausing or ending a timer, snoozing an alarm, and more. When a user raises their wrist to check a notification or call but isn’t ready to respond, the new wrist flick gesture allows them to quickly turn their wrist over and back to dismiss the notification.

The Apple Watch SE 3 allows users to play media, like music or podcasts, directly through its speaker. For Phone or FaceTime audio calls, the S10 chip also powers Voice Isolation to suppress background noise.

Apple Watch For Your Kids

Apple Watch For Your Kids brings the connectivity, fitness, health, and safety features of Apple Watch to kids who don’t have their own iPhone. The feature makes it possible for parents to reach their child and identify their location via Find My, while kids also have access to safety tools like Emergency SOS.

Kids can also connect with family and friends through phone calls and messages, stay motivated to reach personalized Activity goals, express themselves through Memoji, download apps from the App Store, and enjoy features that give them more independence like Maps, Siri, and Alarms.

Pricing and availability

° Apple Watch SE 3 is available in 40mm and 44mm sizes in midnight and starlight aluminum cases.

° 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 SE 3 today, with availability in stores beginning Friday, September 19.

° Apple Watch SE 3 starts at US$249.

° watchOS 26 will be available for Apple Watch Series 6 or later, Apple Watch SE (2nd generation) or later, and all Apple Watch Ultra models on Monday, September 15, and requires iPhone 11 or later running iOS 26. 

° Not all features are available on all devices or in all regions. For more information about availability, visit apple.com.

° Apple Intelligence is available in beta. Some features may not be available in all regions or languages. For feature and language availability and system requirements, see support.apple.com/en-us/121115.

° New subscribers may get three months of Apple Fitness+ and Apple Music with the purchase of Apple Watch Series 11, Apple Watch SE 3, or Apple Watch Ultra 3. Offer and services availability varies by region. See apple.com/promo for details.

° Customers can choose AppleCare+ to cover their new Apple Watch, or in the U.S., AppleCare One to protect multiple products in one simple plan. Both plans include coverage for accidents like drops and spills, theft and loss protection on eligible products, battery replacement service, and 24/7 support from Apple Experts. For more information, visit apple.com/applecare.

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Article provided with permission from AppleWorld.Today