The Apple Watch has long been one of the best fitness smartwatches, and over the past couple of years the native sports tracking has been improved significantly through watchOS 9 and 10 software updates. This means the Apple Watch Ultra 2 and Apple Watch Series 9 can be considered among the best sports watches. 

Even if you’ve owned one of the watches for a long time you may not have taken advantage of all the features. One of these is the pacer mode for runners. I’ve tested every model of the Apple Watch extensively, and pacer mode is something you’ll only have call to use on rare occasions, though it’s invaluable when you do. Those occasions are races, when the virtual pacer on your wrist can help you hit your target times and set new PRs.

Pacer mode is easy to set up. You hit the three dots on the right of the Outdoor Run sports mode in the Workout app (see image above) and scroll down to the pacer setting. Hit the little pen in the corner there and you can choose the distance and time you are planning on running.

Once that’s set up, you start the run by hitting start workout and are given a data screen that shows your current and average pace, and a dial that indicates how you are doing with your target time at that point.

I used pacer mode for a test run aiming for a 10K in 50 minutes. Throughout the run it’s easy to see how much time you have to make up to hit your goal, or how much time you have in the bank. Using this feature you can pace your races with precision, and it’s especially useful for ensuring you don’t go out too hard at the start of a long race. If you’re two miles into a marathon and see that you’re already tracking 45 seconds ahead of your overall time goal, then hopefully you’ll register that you need to ease off and settle into your actual race pace.

Pacer modes like these are not new features for sports watches and I’ve used the same mode on Garmin watches for years. Garmin’s mode is a little more developed and gives an estimate of your finish time that updates throughout the race based on your pace up until that point, and the distance left to go.

Whatever watch you use, I find that having a simple data screen like this is ideal for races, when you’re often focused on one thing: hitting that goal time. Just be aware that the mode will still be relying on GPS, so if the distance on your watch starts to fall out of line with the mile or kilometer markers on your course, you’ll have to do quick mental math to work out how far or ahead of your target time you are. 

Given that I’ve found the GPS on the Apple Watch Ultra 2 to be among the most accurate available this will probably only be a few seconds out from what the pacer mode is saying, but it’s worth being aware of—especially in built-up urban areas where tall buildings negatively affect GPS accuracy.

There’s no disputing that the Apple Watch Ultra 2 is one of the best sports watches available, and the Apple Watch Series 9 is among the top fitness smartwatches. That’s partly down to Apple continuing to update the software on the watches to improve its sports features.

One of the major updates in watchOS 10 was Apple opening up the native Workout app to third parties, so it’s possible to sync structured workouts from other platforms to the Workout app to use with an Apple Watch.

When Apple announced the feature, one of the services Apple chose to illustrate the possibilities this change opened up was TrainingPeaks, and for good reason. TrainingPeaks is an advanced and incredibly popular training platform, used by tens of thousands of coaches to set plans for their clients, and many more athletes who use the workout builder and training analysis tools TrainingPeaks provides.

The TrainingPeaks integration with Apple Watch is now live, and I have been testing it out for a week ahead of its launch. I’m a keen runner who has worked with a coach for several years, but this is the first time I’ve used TrainingPeaks (although I have experienced its training analysis before because Suunto uses it in its watches, such as the Suunto Race).

At first, TrainingPeaks can feel a little overwhelming. The user interface isn’t the most elegant and not especially intuitive. Once you get your eye in, however, keen athletes will welcome the depth of features available.

If you manage your own training load you can create all your workouts on TrainingPeaks, fine-tuned to the last details, using targets based on things like your heart rate, power or threshold pace zones.

These workouts can now be set to automatically (or manually) sync over to the Apple Watch, where they appear in the Workout app as a structured workout. On the day you’ve planned to do the workout it will appear at the top of the app, and you can also see upcoming and past workouts from TrainingPeaks in the Workout app. Tap the workout to start and follow it exactly as if you were following a structured workout created in Apple’s app.

When I tested the integration I could send running and cycling workouts over, and in time you’ll be able to do this with any sports profile in the Workout app that allows structured workouts. Notably this doesn’t currently include swimming, so you won’t be able to send swimming workouts from TrainingPeaks.

The integration with TrainingPeaks means that it’s now much easier to use the Apple Watch with one of the most sophisticated training platforms out there and will help the Apple Watch Ultra 2 in particular continue to establish itself as a rival to top sports watches like the Garmin Fenix 7.

One area where Apple does not attempt to compete with sports brands directly is through training analysis, and so linking up the watch to TrainingPeaks, which does extensive training analysis, adds an important and useful feature to the watch.

You can also find coaches and training plans on the platform to guide your training, in which case the scheduled workouts will automatically fill your calendar and be sent to the Apple Watch to follow each day.

You will need a premium account on TrainingPeaks to get the most from the service, which costs $19.95 a month or $124.99 a year, but there is a 14-day free trial you can try first. If you have an Apple Watch and are a keen runner or triathlete, it’s definitely worth trying this out to see if the extra tools and analysis you get from TrainingPeaks will improve your sports tracking experience on the watch.

The Apple Watch Ultra 2 and Garmin Epix Pro are two of the best sports watches available, and both are reduced in the Cyber Monday sales. You can get the standard Epix Pro for $699.99 down from $899.99 at both Garmin and Amazon, while Amazon has reduced the Apple Watch Ultra 2 from $799 to $739.

Both are outstanding watches, but which should you get? I used both watches for several weeks when testing them for my reviews on Coach and have continued to use them since then. In my mind the choice will depend on how much you value the smarts of the Apple Watch versus the training analysis, battery life and navigation tools you get from the Garmin.

The Garmin Epix Pro has a bright AMOLED display and Garmin’s best smart features, including NFC payments through Garmin Pay and music storage with the ability to link up to streaming services including Spotify to wirelessly transfer your playlists across to the watch.

However, it isn’t a true smartwatch, with the Connect IQ app store being mostly limited to watch faces and data fields rather than useful third-party apps, and it doesn’t have cellular capabilities. Garmin Pay is also less easy to set up and use than Apple Pay, especially outside the USA.

The Apple Watch Ultra 2 obviously is a proper smartwatch, the best on the market in fact, with the most impressive App Store and cellular capabilities. Within the App Store you can also find loads of brilliant sports tracking and navigation apps, so while the native tracking on the watch isn’t quite as good as Garmin’s, you can get a Garmin-level experience from apps like WorkOutDoors and others.

However, what you can’t get from the Apple Watch Ultra 2 is more than two days of battery life, or the detailed training analysis you get from the Garmin Epix Pro. Garmin is also well ahead of all other watch brands with regards to its navigation tools. The Epix Pro has color maps on the watch and can create routes on the fly, or you can load routes onto it to follow from your wrist.

I used both watches side by side during testing and I’d say they are among the best watches available with regards to GPS and heart rate accuracy, with both having multi-band GPS, though on both counts I’d just give the edge to the Garmin Epix Pro as the slightly more accurate watch.

Normally the Apple Watch Ultra 2 has another advantage in being cheaper, but that has been turned on its head during the Cyber Monday sales, because the Epix Pro is reduced by $200 and comes in $40 less than the Apple Watch.

I’d say unless you really need the cellular capabilities of the Apple Watch Ultra 2 in particular, the Epix Pro is the smarter buy in the sales. It’s a little larger on the wrist than the Apple Watch Ultra 2, but the latter is not a small watch either, and as an added bonus the Epix Pro has built-in flashlight so you always have a light handy for your adventures.

The Apple Watch has consistently been one of the best fitness smartwatches available and the only reason the Apple Watch Series 8 got knocked off top spot last year was because of the launch of the Apple Watch Ultra, which has longer battery life and extra features such as more accurate multi-band GPS and the Action button.

Apple hasn’t made huge updates to either the Series or Ultra watches in 2023, but both new models are upgrades on their predecessors. The Apple Watch Series 9 has a new processor and a brighter screen than the Series 8, adds Double Tap (a gesture control), and is more environmentally friendly. It’s an excellent alternative to the Apple Watch Ultra 2 for those who want a sporty smartwatch and don’t want to pay $799/£799.

Apple Watch Series 9: Price And Availability

The Apple Watch Series 9 launched in September 2023 and costs from $399 in the US and £399 in the UK for the 41mm watch, while the 45mm costs from $429/£429. The price has dropped in the UK for both sizes. This is for the standard version of the watch, and if you want a cellular (connects to a mobile network) model it costs an extra $100/£100.

How I Tested This Watch

I’ve used the Apple Watch Series 9 for several weeks, tracking my workouts, daily activity and sleep. During that time, I tested it against the Apple Watch Ultra 2, along with other watches and accessories during runs to check the GPS and HR accuracy. I have tested every generation of the Apple Watch to date, along with many fitness smartwatches from other brands.

Design And Hardware

The biggest updates to the Apple Watch Series 9 are a brighter screen and a more powerful processor. The screen’s maximum brightness is now 2,000 nits, up from 1,000, and it goes as dim as 1 nit in sleep mode, which helps to preserve battery life.

It’s a fantastic display, and while it’s not as bright as the 3,000 nits you get from the Apple Watch Ultra 2’s screen, I’ve no complaints about it. It’s easy to read in all conditions and responds quickly to get brighter when you turn your wrist.

Apple’s new S9 SiP chip makes the watch faster and enables the inclusion of several new features, the most noteworthy of which is Double Tap. This is a new form of gesture control whereby you turn the watch to face you, then tap your index finger and thumb together twice. It can do things like open your Smart Stack of apps, play/pause music, answer/end calls and turn off alarms.

During my testing, the occasions when Double Tap came in handy were few, but it is useful when one or both hands are full pushing a pram or holding a baby, or when cooking, since bringing up the Smart Stack allows you to do things like check the weather or a timer.

The Apple Watch Series 9 looks almost identical to the Series 8, with the edge-to-edge display and digital crown and button on one side. However, Apple is now using more recycled materials and any aluminum Series 9 paired with a Sport Loop is carbon neutral.

Another update is the Ultra Wideband chip, which makes for a more precise experience when using the Find My iPhone feature, and allows for more interaction between the watch and an Apple HomePod if you have one.

Other key hardware remains the same. The watch has an optical heart rate sensor and can take ECG and blood oxygen saturation measurement. It has a barometric altimeter and is water-resistant to 50m. Unlike the Apple Watch Ultra 2 the Series 9 doesn’t offer multi-band GPS tracking but will track outdoor activities using GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, QZSS, and BeiDou satellite systems simultaneously.

Sports Tracking

The Apple Watch has improved as a sports tracker since the original iteration, and that has continued in 2023 thanks to the watchOS 10 software update. This brings in new features for cyclists, including the ability to link up with power sensors.

The native Workout app is now detailed and useful enough to satisfy most users, with all the stats you really need, structured workouts you can set up and follow on the watch, and data field customization so you can show the info you want during training sessions. You can now import workouts and training plans from third-party apps like TrainingPeaks into the Workout app.

The native app is just part of the appeal of an Apple Watch because there are many excellent sports tracking apps in the App Store. Two of my stand-outs are WorkOutDoors, which effectively turns the Series 9 into a full sports watch (minus the battery life) and has maps you can see during workouts, and Footpath, a great navigation app with workout tracking.

GPS And HR Accuracy

The Apple Watch Series 9 doesn’t offer multi-band GPS like the Apple Watch Ultra 2, and this noticeably affects the accuracy of its tracking. After using the devices side by side on runs and looking at the GPS trace, it was evident that the Series 9 cut more corners, and wobbled more, leading to different distance and pace stats. However, the differences aren’t drastic, and the fact Apple also uses the pedometer on the watch to calibrate pace and distance in tricky GPS areas—like under tree cover and amid tall buildings—means the Series 9 is an accurate device. 

These pedometer-calibrated readings won’t work for everyone, though: I’ve found they often come up short compared with the GPS tracking from an accurate multi-band watch like the Garmin Epix Pro—perhaps because I change shoes and terrain a lot during my weekly training.

As an obsessive runner who uses a watch to pace one or two workouts each week, I find the multi-band GPS on the Apple Watch Ultra 2 and other devices to be a noticeable and useful improvement, though the Apple Watch Series 9 is more than accurate enough for most users.

The heart rate readings were mostly accurate during my testing. For me, the Apple Watch Series range has been one of the better watches for heart rate accuracy for several years, and while the readings drop out occasionally they are almost never flat wrong for long sections of workouts. 

You can pair an external sensor, like a chest strap, via Bluetooth. I tend to do this for peace of mind because chest straps are more accurate than optical monitors. Yet, for the most part, the Series 9 is accurate enough on HR to rely on when judging your effort during workouts.

Health, Activity And Sleep Tracking

The Apple Watch Series 9 is an excellent health and activity tracker, with Apple’s engaging rings system a continuous motivation to keep active each and every day. The watch takes ECG and blood oxygen saturation readings on demand, and measures your skin temperature at night and compares it with your baseline. Wild deviations from the norm can indicate you’re getting ill, as I found out when I got COVID while wearing an Apple Watch.

Since the Series 9 lasts only a day on a charge, sleep tracking is tricky. It charges quickly, though, so I usually found time each day to charge it so I could wear it at night. However, on busy days when I was out of the house late into the evening, I had to charge it overnight. 

If you do wear it to sleep, the Series 9 is a pretty accurate tracker, just not the most detailed. With a baby, I’m awake a lot in the night at the moment and the Apple Watch Series 9 was more reliable than a couple of Garmin watches and the Fitbit Charge 6 in spotting these awake periods. The Charge 6, and Fitbits in general, are still accurate and give you more detail about your sleep, as do Polar and Huawei devices.

Battery Life

The Apple Watch Series 9, like the eight generations before it, lasts a day on a charge. It’s reliable in getting through the day, even if you do a long workout using GPS and listen to music through the watch at times, but it’s not as long-lived as most of the best sports watches or the Apple Watch Ultra 2.

Each year Apple opts to make performance improvements to the watch while maintaining the listed 18 hours battery life—rather than increasing the battery life—and that’s a fair decision. People buy the Apple Watch for its high level of performance, and if you need longer battery life then a sports watch is going to be a better bet. The likes of the Garmin Forerunner 965 and Epix Pro have AMOLED screens and last more than a week on a charge.

Smart Features And Navigation

The Apple Watch Series 9 is as smart as watches get, with the best app store and the easiest-to-use smart features, like NFC payments and music. While some sports watches now offer music and NFC payments, none match Apple’s App Store, and if you have the cellular version of the watch you can leave your phone behind during workouts and stay connected.

For the most part, the Series 9 offers the same array of smarts as the Series 8, but Siri has improved with the new watch. Many queries are now answered “on device”, so the watch doesn’t have to relay your query to your phone, which speeds up responses. You can now ask Siri health-related questions, such as how you slept last night.

Is The Apple Watch Series 9 Worth It?

The Apple Watch Series 9 is a brilliant smartwatch, though if you have a recent model of the Apple Watch there’s no one particularly compelling reason to upgrade, just a series of small improvements that may tempt you to do so.

If you’re an iPhone user and want a sporty smartwatch it’s the obvious choice, though if you’re especially sporty and value things like a lap button, longer battery and more accurate GPS, the Apple Watch Ultra 2 is a better pick.

Garmin’s range of smart sports watches contain good alternatives to the Series 9, like the Venu 3 and Vivoactive 5. Both have great native sports tracking and smarts like music storage, and work with iOS and Android devices. They’re not as technical as the Apple Watch, but offer more training analysis.

I’ve yet to be impressed by a WearOS device with regards to the native sports tracking they offer, and the third-party app market for Android watches doesn’t contain any particularly good sports tracking apps in my experience. The Google Pixel Watch is an attractive watch and great general activity tracker, but its sports tracking falls short of what you get from the Apple Watch.

The Apple Watch Ultra launched in 2022, so it was always likely that the 2023 updates to the Apple Watch Ultra 2 would be minimal. Apple has continued to improve the watch’s software and made useful upgrades to the hardware, including a brighter screen and the new double-tap feature.

While the updates don’t much change the day-to-day experience of using the watch, they help to establish the Apple Watch Ultra 2 as the best fitness smartwatch.

Apple Watch Ultra 2: Price And Availability

The Apple Watch Ultra 2 launched in September 2023 and costs $799 in the US and £799 in the UK. That’s a £50 price drop in the UK compared with the original Ultra, while the new watch is the same price as the old one in the US. The Apple Watch Series 9 is cheaper, costing from $399/£399.

How I Tested This Watch

I’ve been using the Apple Watch Ultra 2 for three weeks, tracking all my workouts, general activity and sleep. My main sport is running and I’ve been testing the GPS and HR accuracy extensively. I have also tested every generation of the Apple Watch and used the Apple Watch Ultra for long periods last year, including training for and running two marathons with it.

Design And Hardware

The only visible hardware upgrade on the Apple Watch Ultra 2 is a noticeable one: The brightness of the screen is now 3,000 nits, a 1,000-nit increase on the 2,000 of the original display. The screen brightness also drops to 1 nit instead of 2, which saves on battery life.

That saving is spent on powering the watch’s new, faster Apple Silicon S9 processor, which also has a speedier graphics processing unit and a 4-core neural engine, which is faster at doing what it does than the one in the original Ultra. This extra speed wasn’t noticeable in my initial testing, but will come into play over the lifespan of the watch.

The 49mm watch case is still made from titanium, but this is now 95% recycled titanium, whereas the original watch didn’t use recycled titanium. The case surrounds the sapphire crystal touchscreen to help protect it from impacts. The watch is waterproof to depths of 100m, and has features for diving, which now includes support for freediving.

Another upgrade is the Ultra Wideband Chip, which makes the Find My iPhone feature more precise and allows you to control playback on an Apple HomePod when you are near it. As always, it’s worth noting you need an iPhone to use any Apple Watch; it doesn’t play nice with Android.

The Apple Watch Ultra 2 has the same three buttons as the Ultra, including the digital crown. The orange Action button can be used as a lap button, something still not available on the Apple Watch Series 9. 

Perhaps the most interesting new feature is the double-tap gesture control. To use this you turn the watch to face you so the screen wakes, then tap your index finger and thumb together twice. On the main watch face this brings up the Smart Stack of apps, and within other apps double tap will do things like play/pause music, turn off timers and snooze alarms, answer/end calls, or enable reply to messages through dictation.

The feature was brought to the watch in October via a software update and works well, for me it was of limited use. During the week or so I had it available I found it useful only a couple of times, when turning off a timer while cooking and bringing up the weather forecast in my Smart Stack while pushing a buggy. 

I’d love to see double tap used in the workout app to pause a workout or even take a lap during a run. Unfortunately, since the feature uses the accelerometer, gyroscope and optical heart sensors on the watch to recognise your taps, this is unlikely because those sensors are already in use during workouts.

As with the Apple Watch Ultra, the Ultra 2 has multi-band GPS tracking for increased accuracy during outdoor activities, an important upgrade on the Apple Watch Series 9. It has three microphones and two speakers, and includes a new Modular Ultra watch face that can show your depth or elevation around the bezel. Or just seconds, if you’re a land lubber living near sea-level like me.

Battery Life

The Apple Watch Ultra 2 is listed as lasting 36 hours on a charge and, as with its predecessor, it reliably lasted me two days of use. It’s nowhere close to the battery life of a sports watch, but it’s double what you get from the Apple Watch Series 9. Even if you do a long run on both days the watch will last through to the evening of the second day, and it charges quickly.

Apple lists the GPS battery life as 12 hours with normal use, but you can extend this to 17 hours in a low-power mode, which still has full heart rate and GPS tracking but turns off other features like the always-on display. There’s a less accurate low-power mode in which the watch lasts 35 hours during activities, with fewer heart rate and GPS readings.

Sports Tracking

Apple has been steadily improving the native sports tracking on its watches through software updates in recent years. The native app now delivers a good experience, with customisable data fields and specialist stats for running and cycling, like power, and you can pair two external sensors at once, including heart rate monitors and cycling power meters.

You can also create structured workouts to follow on the watch and, as of the watchOS 10 update, use third-party apps like TrainingPeaks to import workouts into the native Workout app. Even keen sportspeople will find all they need in the native app these days, but you can still improve the sports tracking experience on the watch using the App Store.

One of my favorite apps to use for running is WorkOutDoors, which basically turns the Apple Watch into a full sports watch owing to the range of customization available, and it even has maps so you can follow routes within your workout. Another good app for navigation is Footpath, which provides turn-by-turn directions for routes while recording your workout.

GPS And HR Accuracy

The multi-band GPS on the Apple Watch Ultra 2 delivers accurate tracking for outdoor runs and bike rides. When comparing the watch with the Garmin Epix Pro in multi-band mode the tracks from both watches lined up closely throughout all my runs, with just a little more wobble in the Apple Watch Ultra 2’s track and the occasional cut corner.

With the Apple Watch, GPS is just a part of the story with distance tracking. Apple also uses the pedometer to estimate distance in an attempt to provide more accurate results when GPS struggles. The pedometer is calibrated when you run outdoors in clear spaces, but I found that when I was running, it read shorter than when using just GPS on the watch (with the WorkOutDoors app you can choose whether to use GPS or the Apple-calibrated reading for your distance). It’s undoubtedly an accurate tracker, just bear in mind you may need to calibrate the pedometer with a few runs in open conditions.

During my testing, I compared the Ultra 2’s heart rate readings with those of the Polar H10 chest strap during workouts. It mostly matched up well. There were many occasions where the reading would drop out for sections of a run, though, and sometimes the reading was wrong. If using the watch long-term and planning to judge workouts by heart rate, I think it would be worth pairing an external heart rate monitor for improved accuracy. 

Health, Activity And Sleep Tracking

Last year Apple introduced skin temperature tracking to its watches, which measures your wrist temperature at night and plots it against a baseline in the Health app. This added to the other health measurements you can take with the watch, including ECGs and blood oxygen saturation.

The activity tracking on the watch remains as engaging as ever, with Apple’s three rings representing active calories burned, active minutes and hours active. These have remained largely unchanged from the original Apple Watch, but are still a great way to help you keep moving throughout the day. You can also see floors climbed in the Activity app, which is tracked using the barometric altimeter on the watch.

The Ultra 2 doesn’t go into great depth with its sleep tracking, just showing your sleep stages in the morning and logging total time asleep. I have a five-month-old baby and am frequently up at night, and during testing, the Ultra 2 did a better job of spotting these awake periods than the Garmin Vivoactive 5 and Epix Pro watches, which logged them as light sleep.

You get greater depth of sleep tracking from devices made by Fitbit, Polar and Huawei in particular, but if you want a quick look at your night’s sleep, the Ultra 2 provides it. You may have to charge it at night occasionally though, since it’s not always easy to find time to charge it in the day.

Smart Features And Navigation

The Apple Watch has the best app store and the most useful smart features of any watch I’ve tested. Apple Pay is easy to use and works everywhere, plus you can store travel tickets and supermarket loyalty cards on the watch, and you can get music and podcasts onto it easily from a range of sources.

Siri has got smarter with the new watch because the faster processing allows Siri to deal with queries directly on the watch in many cases, rather than having to involve your phone. You can now ask Siri health-related queries, such as “how did I sleep?”, and get answers from the watch without needing your phone nearby.

The navigation features have also been improved with watchOS 10. Topographical maps are now on the watch, though these require your phone to be nearby and are only for certain regions in the US for now. 

You can create waypoints and use the BackTrack feature to trace a route you can follow back to your start point in the Compass app. However, these features and the maps can’t be used within the Workout app, which limits their usefulness. You can get maps within third-party workout apps like WorkOutDoors and Footpath, though overall the navigation features on the Apple Watch Ultra 2 still need work to rival what you get from a brand like Garmin.

Is The Apple Watch Ultra 2 Worth It?

The Apple Watch Ultra 2 is the best sporty smartwatch you can buy and a small but useful upgrade over the Apple Watch Ultra, though if you find the original watch available at a major discount that would be the smart way to spend your money. 

Whether it’s worth the extra outlay over the Apple Watch Series 9 depends on your use. If you’re particularly sporty, you’ll feel the benefit of the Ultra 2’s extra battery life, more accurate GPS and lap button daily. The Series 9 is smaller and lighter, though, and still a great activity tracker and sports watch.

The main competition from sports watches comes from Garmin, which has the Forerunner 965 and Epix 2 watches, which have vibrant AMOLED displays and the best sports tracking, training analysis and navigation features you can get. They also provide longer battery life than the Apple Watch Ultra. The Garmin Forerunner 965 is a great-looking watch too, and significantly cheaper than the Apple Watch Ultra 2 at $599.99/£599.99. 

Garmin’s top sports watches have useful smart features like music and NFC payments too, though they don’t have anything like the range of apps available for the Apple Watch, or LTE connectivity. If you want a great smartwatch that’s a good sports watch, get the Apple Watch Ultra 2; if you want a great sports watch with some smarts, get the Garmin Forerunner 965—or the Garmin Epix Pro if you want a more rugged, metal watch.

Apple has unveiled the latest generations of its two best smartwatches at the annual Apple Event. The announcement of the Apple Watch Ultra 2 and Apple Watch Series 9 pointed to four notable improvements over the Apple Watch Ultra and Apple Watch Series 8, although we’ll uncover more through our hands-on testing.

These hardware updates come on top of the watchOS 10 software update, which is now available following a public beta program over the summer. In particular, this brings improvements to the Apple Watch’s cycling features.

The Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 are available to order online now and will be in stores from Friday September 22. The Apple Watch Ultra 2 costs $799 in the US and £799 in the UK, and the Apple Watch Series 9 costs from $399/£399.

Here’s a rundown of what’s new and notable.

1. They Are Faster

The new S9 SiP processor brings benefits that include an upgrade to the Find My Phone feature, which is now more precise in guiding you to your phone. There’s also the ability for Siri to process requests locally on the watch. This means Siri responds faster on the watch and is more secure, so can be used for health and fitness queries, such as how much you slept last night.

2. They Are Brighter

The upgraded screens on both watches are 1,000 nits brighter, so the Apple Watch Ultra 2 now hits 3,000 nits at max brightness, while it’s 2,000 nits with the Apple Watch Series 9. This will make them clearer to read in bright sunlight. Despite the brighter screens, the battery life remains the same: 18 hours on the Series 9 and 36 hours on the Ultra 2.

3. The Watches Can Be Controlled By Tapping Your Fingers Together

Video credit: Apple

The new Double Tap gesture control is the most intriguing day-to-day improvement. Tapping your index finger and thumb together twice will allow you to answer and end calls, and bring up your Smart Stack of apps.

The Double Tap feature activates the primary button within apps too, which left us wondering if you could use it to pause workouts or even take a lap during a run—something we’ll be testing as soon as possible.

4. You Can Buy A Carbon-Neutral Apple Watch

Some iterations of the Ultra 2 and Series 9 are carbon neutral, including some of the most popular watch material and band combinations. Any aluminum Apple Watch Series 9 with a Sport Loop band is carbon neutral, as is the Apple Watch Ultra 2 when combined with the Trail or Alpine Loop. 

The Apple Watch SE, which was not updated with a new model this year, is also carbon neutral when bought with a Sport Loop. 

The carbon-neutral models are part of a focus on sustainability across Apple’s announcements, which also included the news that it will no longer use leather in any new products, and a reaffirmation of its commitment to being carbon neutral as a company by 2030.

The Apple Watch keeps getting sportier while the best sports watches from Garmin keep getting smarter, meaning the gap between them shrinks each year. However, there are still big differences between the Apple Watch Ultra and Garmin Fenix 7, and while both are great sports watches they have varying strengths and weaknesses that mean they’ll suit different people.

Apple Watch Ultra Vs Garmin Fenix 7: Price And Availability

The Garmin Fenix 7 launched in January 2022 and is available in three sizes, with steel and titanium editions of each, as well as solar models. The cheapest steel models of the watch cost $699.99 in the US and £559.99 in the UK, while the titanium models with sapphire screens cost from $899.99/£739.99. The Apple Watch Ultra was released in September 2022 and costs $799/£849, with only one model available.

How I Tested These Watches

I wore the Garmin Fenix 7X and Apple Watch Ultra for several weeks when testing them for our full reviews on Coach. I’ve since worn the Apple Watch Ultra for several months as my main watch—using it to train for, and track, three marathons—alongside other watches. 

Design

The Garmin Fenix 7 comes in three sizes, but they are all big watches. The smaller 7S has a 42mm case, the middle Fenix 7 has a 47mm case, and the larger Fenix 7X is 51mm. All the watches in the range have transflective memory-in-pixel (MIP) touchscreens, with the solar models having panels running around the outside to help extend battery life.

The larger the Fenix 7, the bigger the screen. The 7S has a 1.2in display, the 7 a 1.3in, and the 51mm a 1.4in. The standard models in the range have a steel bezel and back, while the sapphire models have a titanium bezel and back, which is lighter than the steel. The standard models have gorilla glass screens, or power glass screens if you opt for a solar watch, while the sapphire models use power sapphire crystal.

There is a built-in flashlight on the Fenix 7X, but not the smaller models. The Fenix 7 Pro range launched in mid-2023 and all sizes now have flashlights. Another change with the Fenix 7 Pro range is that all models offer multi-band GPS tracking, which is Garmin’s most accurate mode, whereas this is only available on the sapphire models in the Fenix 7 range.

The Fenix 7 is a circular watch, while the Apple Watch Ultra is rectangular. The Apple Watch Ultra has a 49mm titanium case with an OLED sapphire crystal screen, with only one style available. The OLED display on the Apple Watch Ultra is brighter and sharper than the MIP screen on the Fenix 7, both during and outside of workouts.

Multi-band GPS is available on the Apple Watch Ultra, and it is water resistant to 100m; the same as the Garmin Fenix 7, which has a 10ATM waterproof rating. Both watches have a built-in heart rate monitor and the Apple Watch Ultra can take ECG readings and measure your skin temperature at night, which the Fenix 7 can’t. They both have a pulse oximeter and barometric altimeter, and you can connect external sensors to the Apple Watch Ultra via Bluetooth or via Bluetooth and ANT+ with the Fenix 7. 

The Garmin Fenix 7 has five buttons, while the Apple Watch Ultra has three—one of which is a dial. The Action button on the Apple Watch Ultra can be configured to work with different apps, including using it as a lap button during workouts.

GPS And HR Accuracy

Garmin’s multi-band GPS tracking is the most accurate I’ve come across from any brand, but the multi-band GPS on the Apple Watch Ultra runs it close. The Apple Watch Ultra will also use its built-in pedometer alongside GPS to track your distance on runs, which sometimes means it can be more accurate than GPS alone—when running through tunnels, for example.

If you opt for a standard model of the Fenix 7 you don’t get multi-band GPS, and although the all-systems-on mode available is still accurate, it’s not as good as the multi-band on the sapphire Fenix 7 watches or the Apple Watch Ultra.

The optical heart rate tracking on both watches threw up regular errors during my testing. The Ultra had fewer than the Fenix, but I would pair an external heart rate chest monitor with either watch to get more accurate results. Garmin has upgraded the heart rate sensor on the Fenix 7 Pro range, and that is more accurate than the Ultra or Fenix 7.

Sports Tracking And Training Analysis

Apple’s sports tracking has come a long way since the first Apple Watch and the Ultra is its sportiest device. Software updates over the past year have improved the native Workout app significantly, adding customisable data screens, a structured workout builder and more stats. 

Runners get the best of it with watchOS 9, but cyclists get new stats and connectivity to external power sensors with watchOS 10, though the Ultra can only link to two Bluetooth sensors at once, while the Fenix 7 can link to up to eight ANT+ devices at once.

The upgrades Apple made with its native sports app brought it closer to what you get from a top-tier sports watch like the Fenix 7, but the latter still offers more stats and customization, plus suggested workouts and full training plans you can follow on the wrist.

To close the gap further, you can use the Apple App Store, which is laden with excellent sports tracking apps like WorkOutDoors. The Garmin Fenix 7 still has the edge on sports tracking no matter what apps you get, but the Apple Watch Ultra isn’t far behind.

However, on training analysis, Garmin surges well clear. The Fenix 7 will break down your training in great detail and help you gauge whether your training load is balanced and making you fitter, or that you’re over- or under-doing it. It also offers Garmin’s useful training readiness feature, which takes a holistic look at your recent training, sleep and heart rate variability to give a rating of how ready you are to train.

The Apple Watch Ultra does none of this natively, and even the App Store doesn’t provide anything that gets close to what you get from Garmin. The Apple Watch Ultra’s VO2 max estimates also cap out at 60, whereas Garmin’s don’t—so if you’re fit you still get a personalized rating.

Battery Life

There’s no contest between these watches when it comes to battery life. The Garmin Fenix 7X I tested lasted three weeks on a charge when running most days, whereas the Apple Watch Ultra lasts two days. 

In multi-band mode the Apple Watch Ultra can track 12 hours of activity, while the Fenix 7 tracks for 23 hours in multi-band mode. If you get a solar version of the Fenix it will last longer between charges, though I found the solar panels didn’t add much unless you spend several hours a day outside in bright sunlight.

Smart Features

The Apple Watch Ultra has the edge on smart features. It is a cellular-capable watch so if you get a data plan you can use it without your phone, and it links up to the App Store, which is packed with sports and lifestyle apps that enrich the experience of using the watch.

The Ultra links to many music streaming services that allow offline playback (if you have a premium account with the music service), including Spotify, Deezer and Apple Music. It offers Apple Pay for NFC payments, which is easy to set up and use since it’s partnered with most major banks. The wallet app stores travel tickets and loyalty cards, which is handy.

The Fenix 7 is no slouch on the smarts front, but it doesn’t match up to the Apple Watch Ultra. The Garmin Connect IQ app store is small and mainly contains alternative watch faces, while Garmin Pay is partnered with fewer banks than Apple Pay, especially outside the US.

You can link the Fenix 7 with a Spotify, Deezer or Amazon Music premium account for offline playback, though, so it’s easy to use the watch to store and stream music. Both watches mirror your phone’s notifications and calendar appointments.

Maps And Navigation

The Apple Watch Ultra has the Apple Maps app that you can use for navigation, and is getting topographical maps via the forthcoming watchOS 10 software update. However, you can’t use maps with the native Workout app to follow routes or guide yourself back to the start of your workout. 

You can do this with third-party apps like Footpath and WorkOutDoors, but the mapping experience is more seamless and impressive with the Garmin Fenix 7, which has color maps preloaded, and is able to create routes on the fly as well as guiding you through routes synced from the Garmin Connect app.

There are clever extras with Garmin’s navigation features too, like ClimbPro, which analyzes the climbs and descents on your route and guides you through each one. This means during an uphill section you can see how much climbing you still have to do, and how steep the climb is going to get, and judge your effort accordingly.

Apple’s mapping features will continue to improve now that it’s more focused on the sports and adventure market since the launch of the Ultra. But Garmin is well ahead of every other brand on this front, so don’t expect it to be caught soon.

Every year the Apple Watch gets more sporty, and that process was accelerated last year with the arrival of the Apple Watch Ultra—the sportiest smartwatch yet—and the watchOS 9 software update that overhauled and greatly improved the native workout app on the watch.

Many of the biggest updates last year focused on running, but this year watchOS 10 benefits cyclists most of all. And if you’re a cyclist who uses an Apple Watch it’s worth downloading the public beta of the new software now it’s available. The improvements firmly establish the Apple Watch as the best fitness smartwatch available, and one of the best sports watches in general.

Ahead of the launch of the public beta for watchOS 10, I spoke to Eric Charles of Apple Watch product marketing and Craig Bolton, director of fitness technologies at Apple, to find out how the update will improve the Apple Watch experience for cyclists.

You Can Now Link Power, Speed And Cadence Sensors To The Watch

Probably the most important update for serious cyclists is that the Apple Watch can now link via Bluetooth to cycling sensors, allowing you to view power, cadence and speed stats on the watch. You can connect two sensors at a time via Bluetooth to the Apple Watch, so you’ll be able to use a power sensor alongside headphones, or an external heart rate monitor.

The Watch Will Estimate Your FTP And Power Zones

Once you’ve linked a power sensor the Apple Watch will be able to provide an estimate of your functional threshold power (FTP) after five rides of 10 minutes or more.

“FTP is an important and popular metric,” says Bolton. “You can use it to track progress and measure your cycling fitness over time, and it unlocks power zones. It’s an estimate of the maximum power you can hold for an hour, and traditionally comes with an intense and intimidating test where you ride all-out for at least 20 minutes. We’re excited to estimate your FTP in the background.”

The longer and more intense your rides are on the bike, the better the estimate of your FTP will be, and it will continue to update over time. Using this FTP figure, the watch will show power zones that you can use to guide your training. These will be created automatically by the watch, but you can also customize them, along with your FTP.

Once you have your FTP and power zones you can use them in structured workouts, so you can set alerts that encourage you to stay at a certain percentage of your FTP, for example.

Your Phone Now Works As A Heads-Up Display

You can now see all your cycling stats during a workout on your phone, which is easier to read on a handlebar mount than a watch.

“As soon as you start a workout on Apple Watch it will start a live activity on the phone,” says Bolton. “Tap on that activity, and the phone transforms and you can see all of your metrics. Everything that you’ve set up on the watch will now be available on the phone.”

You’ll need a mount for this, and the co-ordinating case that fits your phone. I’ve been testing the Universal Bar Mount from Peak Design and it’s easier to use than any mount I’ve ever tried. The phone clips on through magnets, and the hold is strong enough to brave the pothole-infested roads near me. What’s more, the mount can be used across multiple bikes since it’s held on with a silicone band rather than screwed in.

The Workout App Now Links To Third-Party Platforms

If following a training plan from another platform, you can now sync the workouts across into the Apple workout app, where they’ll appear with a logo for the third-party platform so you know that’s where they’re from.

“Training platforms like TrainingPeaks have the ability for their workouts scheduled on the user’s calendar to be imported directly into the workout app,” says Bolton. “This is the first time in the workout app where third-party apps are visible. It will feel exactly like one of our custom workouts—same UI.”

You can also see your past seven days of workouts, and the week ahead, within the workout app. So far TrainingPeaks is the only partner confirmed, but this feature will be available across all workout types, not just cycling.

Apple introduced watchOS 10 at the 2023 Worldwide Developers’ Conference (WWDC) before its release in September, and there were several important updates for people who use the Apple Watch to track running and cycling. Those included the ability to link up with cycling power meters and to import workouts from third-party platforms like TrainingPeaks, as well as the arrival of topographical maps.

When the Apple Watch Ultra came out last year with the aim of rivaling the best sports watches, one of its shortcomings was that it did not allow you to navigate using maps, especially during activities. The introduction of topographical maps in watchOS 10 suggests Apple has understood that this is a problem, and that maps and routing are likely to feature on the next generation of the watch.

For now, however, details on the new maps are scarce. Apple has shown pictures of maps, but there’s no mention of being able to plot a route or follow turn-by-turn directions. It also seems as if offline maps will be accessed via your phone, rather than stored on the watch itself.

More details will come when the next generation of the Apple Watch is launched in September, but if Apple is truly hoping to rival the navigation tools in high-end sports watches, it needs to take lessons from Garmin, which has been the market leader in this area for years. If Apple can get maps and navigation right, that will challenge one of the big reasons people stick with Garmin. But it’s not going to be easy.

What Makes Garmin’s Navigation Features So Good

Garmin has been offering maps for a long time and its features are fine-tuned. Garmin’s watches with maps store the maps locally on the watch so you don’t need your phone with you to use them. You also get turn-by-turn directions for routes, which can be created in the Garmin Connect app or website or imported from other route creators. 

The maps are also visible during activities as part of your data screens, so you can switch between your route and your workout stats with one button press. One concern I have about Apple’s forthcoming offering is that you’ll have to leave the Workout app to view them.

You can also create routes on Garmin watches, whether that’s a suggested loop (handy when you’re in an unfamiliar location) or a back-to-start feature, which guides you home after you’ve gone off-piste.

Garmin also shows how popular paths and roads are with runners and cyclists in its route creator. The watches also use this popularity data when creating their own routes for you.

The more advanced navigation features on Garmin watches include Next Fork, which automatically identifies the next turn available on your trail and says how far it is, even if you don’t have a route loaded, and Up Ahead, which allows you to plot certain key points on your route like aid stations, so you can see the distance to each.

However, the stand-out feature I love most on Garmin watches is ClimbPro. When you load a route on a Garmin watch it breaks out the individual climbs and descents so you can see how long and hard each is. This information is available in your workout data screens so you can see what’s coming up, and manage your effort during a climb so you don’t overcook it five minutes into a three-mile ascent.

Existing Navigation Apps On The Apple Watch

While waiting to see what Apple will do with its native maps, there are excellent third-party apps that offer navigation on the watch. Footpath has maps with routes and turn-by-turn directions you can see alongside your workout stats, and it also shows the elevation profile of your route.

Another great app is WorkOutDoors, which offers a variety of map styles and routes that are overlaid on the maps, though there aren’t turn-by-turn directions for the routes (beyond alerts when you stray too far from the route).

The Apple Watch Ultra and Garmin Epix 2 excel in different areas, but are among the best sports watches, and if you’re after the very best in your hunt for a new wearable they should be near the top of your list.

There are trade-offs to be made with both, and the final choice may come down to whether you want one of the best smartwatches, or one of the best running watches.

• Garmin Epix 2 review
• Apple Watch Ultra review

Garmin Epix 2 vs Apple Watch Ultra: Price And Availability

The Garmin Epix 2 launched in January 2022 and costs $899.99 in the US and £749.99 in the UK for the standard watch and $999.99/£899.99 for the sapphire models. In the UK you can also spend £999.99 on a sapphire watch with an extra band made of leather. The Apple Watch Ultra came out in September 2022 and costs $799/£849.

How I Tested These Watches

I’ve been wearing one or both of the Epix 2 and Apple Watch Ultra since the Epix came out in January 2022. I am a keen runner and wore both watches for three marathons last year in Berlin, London and Valencia, and also tested them throughout training, running 70-110km a week, as well as doing other sports.

Design

The Apple Watch Ultra has a 49mm silver titanium case around a sapphire crystal screen. The 410 x 502 pixel Retina OLED display is Apple’s brightest yet at 2,000 nits. The Epix 2’s 416 x 416 pixel AMOLED screen is bright, but not as impressive as the Apple Watch’s display.

There is only one case option in the Apple Watch Ultra range, whereas there is more choice with the Epix, which has a 47mm case. The base model has a steel bezel and back cover and a gorilla glass screen, while the more expensive models have titanium bezels and cases and a sapphire crystal screen. You can get black or silver bezel colours.

One key difference between the base and sapphire Epix watches is that only the sapphire models offer multi-band GPS tracking – the steel watch has only all-systems-on tracking. The Apple Watch Ultra also has multi-band GPS.

The Epix has five buttons, while the Apple Watch Ultra has three, one of which is a rotating dial. The extra Action button distinguishes the Ultra from the standard Apple Watch, and can be used as a lap button in workouts.

You can use the Apple Watch Ultra to dive to depths of 40m, and it is water-resistant to 100m. The Epix 2 has a 10ATM rating which means it’s waterproof to depths of 100m.

Both watches have an array of sensors on board, including a heart rate monitor, pulse oximeter, altimeter, barometer and compass, but the Ultra stands out by offering ECG readings as well as measuring your skin temperature at night.

Sports Tracking

Sports tracking is simple with the Garmin Epix 2 because the native tracking is as good as it gets. All the sports you can shake a stick at are tracked in great detail and you can pair any extra sensors you like, such as cycling power meters and running footpods, via Bluetooth and ANT+.

Things can get more complicated with the Apple Watch Ultra, but they don’t have to be since the improvements made to the Workout app with the release of watchOS 9 mean that the native tracking is now very good. You can customise several data screens, and most stats are now available on the watch, including running power measured from the wrist.

You can pair only external heart rate monitors to the native app though, and only via Bluetooth. Cyclists and triathletes that use power and cadence meters will have to use third-party apps, and then can’t use the native triathlon mode on the watch.

The App Store is laden with terrific sports tracking apps in general, which makes up for any shortcomings with the native tracking on the Apple Watch Ultra. WorkOutDoors is a particularly good app with lots of stats and customisation, as well as colour maps you can use for navigation.

Training Analysis

One area where the Epix 2 is streets ahead of the Apple Watch Ultra is training analysis, especially because there aren’t third-party apps to make up the difference in the App Store. 

The Epix 2 will analyse your recent training load to see if it’s balanced, suggest daily workouts and even rate your training readiness each day based on your activity, sleep, heart rate variability and other factors. The Apple Watch Ultra doesn’t try to compete in this area – it’s just designed to track your sports.

GPS And HR Accuracy

The Apple Watch Ultra and Garmin Epix 2 are the two most accurate watches available for GPS tracking. The dual-band GPS is key to this, so if you’re looking at the Epix 2, only the sapphire models have this.

Of the two watches the Epix 2 has proved more accurate for me most of the time, but because the Apple Watch Ultra also uses the watch’s pedometer to calculate distance this can make it more accurate in situations where GPS struggles, such as under tree cover or tall buildings. 

However, I find that this use of the pedometer sometimes results in less accurate distance readings than the GPS alone on the Apple Watch Ultra when using it in good conditions for GPS. That will differ from runner to runner though, because I think the pedometer may struggle with tracking the way my shuffling gait changes when running faster.

In the three marathons I’ve done with the watches, the Epix 2 provided more consistent pace and distance readings compared with the official 1km markers in Berlin and Valencia, but the Apple Watch Ultra was better in London – it was less inaccurate among the tall buildings around Canary Wharf.

On heart rate, I’d say the Apple Watch Ultra is better for accuracy, but both watches are regularly inaccurate for me, and I prefer to pair them with a chest strap to get better heart rate data during my workouts.

Activity And Sleep Tracking

Apple’s daily activity rings are an engaging way to keep you moving each day and are more of a feature on the watch than activity tracking is on the Epix. The Garmin tracks all the same stats, but although you will be notified when you hit your goals, activity tracking is not the focus – that’s sports.

The Epix 2 offers more detailed sleep tracking than the Apple Watch Ultra and feeds that data into your training readiness score. The Ultra will give a basic breakdown of your sleep, but you have to use native apps to get similar insights to those you get from Garmin natively.

Maps And Navigation

Garmin’s native navigation tools are as good as it gets on a watch, with full colour maps and useful features like ClimbPro, which analyses the climbs and descents on your course. You can create routes on the Epix 2, use it to navigate back to the start of your activity, and get turn-by-turn directions when you are navigating.

The Apple Watch Ultra has new native navigation features that can help you retrace your steps or find waypoints, but these are in the Compass app, and aren’t available easily during workouts. This is an area I suspect will be improved in Apple’s next round of software and hardware updates, but for now you need to use third-party apps to navigate easily with the watch. WorkOutDoors and Footpath are two great workout apps where you can follow routes on a map during your activities.

Battery Life

This is another clear win for the Garmin Epix 2, which lasts me four to five days on a charge even with the always-on screen activated and when running 100km+ a week. The Apple Watch Ultra is the longest-lasting Apple Watch yet, but still needs charging every two days.

The Ultra offers 12 hours of GPS battery life, while the Epix provides 15 hours of dual-band tracking with the always-on screen on. Both have low-power modes that can extend battery life while reducing accuracy: the Epix offers 75 hours of tracking in max battery mode, and the Apple Watch Ultra 15 hours in low-power workout mode.

Smartwatch Features

The Epix 2 has the best smart features Garmin offers, including music storage, NFC payments and notifications. It also has access to the Connect IQ app store, but that mostly contains new watch faces and data fields.

There’s no doubt the Apple Watch Ultra offers more as a smartwatch, with much better NFC payments through Apple Pay (Santander is the only high street bank that supports Garmin Pay in the UK), and the App Store, which has the biggest and best variety of apps available for any watch.

The Apple Watch is a mainstay on our list of the best fitness smartwatches, and a large part of that is down to its fantastic app store, which has a wide range of fitness apps for the Apple Watch that improve on the native tracking. This has been especially helpful for runners because until the release of watchOS 9, the built-in workout modes were lacking certain essential features. That has improved, but runners can still get a better experience through third-party apps.

I am an obsessive runner and after testing a range of models from the major manufacturers, I think Garmin makes the best running watches, with the Garmin Epix 2 my current favourite. However, with the right apps, I have found that the Apple Watch Ultra and Apple Watch Series 8 offer a top-class experience for even the most demanding runners.

The three apps below all excel in different ways and one of the handy things about the Apple Watch is you can easily switch to the one best suited to the situation. For day-to-day training WorkOutDoors is the best app; for navigation and exploring, it’s Footpath; and on race day I fire up YouRace.

WorkOutDoors

This is the best all-round running app for the Apple Watch. It allows you to create several data screens and customise all the stats on show during your runs. You can also use WorkOutDoors to set up workouts to follow, and it has colour maps that you can use to follow routes – though it doesn’t have turn-by-turn navigation.

The main downside with WorkOutDoors is that it doesn’t yet use the always-on display on the Apple Watch, so you have to deliberately turn your wrist to wake the screen. That’s not a great hardship and an update is expected in 2023 to add that feature. It’s the app I used when training for a sub-2hr 30min marathon with the Apple Watch Series 6, and it’s been improving since then through regular updates.

You can use the Action button on the Apple Watch Ultra to lap manually with WorkOutDoors, and there’s no better app to replicate the tracking of the best sports watches. It’s cheap too, costing $6.99/£5.99 with no ongoing subscription.

Download from the App Store

Footpath

Footpath is the best navigation app of the four or five I’ve used on the Apple Watch, offering turn-by-turn navigation (with audio instructions if you want) and a variety of maps, including colour topographical maps on the Apple Watch. You can plan routes easily in the app and see a colour-coded elevation breakdown so you know how steep each climb and descent is. 

You can use Footpath for directions in the background while tracking your workout with another app, but it also offers reasonably well-done run tracking, just with fewer stats than you get from WorkOutDoors or the native Workout app.

There’s a seven-day free trial of Footpath available, after which it’s $3.99/£3.49 a month for Elite access which unlocks worthwhile navigation features like turn-by-turn instructions.

Download from the App Store

YouRace

YouRace is a fairly new app that is updated regularly and is now a polished option for tracking all your runs, even if it lacks the depth of stats, customisation and maps you get with WorkOutDoors. 

However, on race day it has one handy trick that makes it very useful indeed, which is that you can correct the distance as you pass a distance marker. For example, if your watch shows 2.89km as you pass the 3km marker on the course, a button press will correct the distance to 3km on the watch and adjust your pace stats as well.

You do this in race mode in the app using either the Action button on the Apple Watch Ultra or by pressing both buttons on the Apple Watch Series 8. This means you always have accurate stats on your watch during a race, even if GPS goes to pot – which is pretty common especially in city events where you run among tall buildings. 

It’s not a feature you need every day or even in every race, but YouRace is free and a very useful app to have on your Apple Watch when the occasion demands. There is also a pro version of the app that allows more data customisation and the ability to export workouts to Strava, which is worth the one-off $2.99/£2.49 cost.

Download from the App Store

The major update to the Apple Watch in 2022 was not the new Series 8, but the Apple Watch Ultra, an entirely new watch that sits at the top of the range and offers longer battery life, a more rugged design and an extra button.

For its part, the Series 8 was about as small an update on the Series 7 as is possible, with Apple adding a skin temperature sensor to the watch and a new accelerometer that can detect car crashes. With that in mind, I’d certainly be hunting for a deal on the Series 7 if choosing between the two watches.

Apple Watch Series 8 Vs Apple Watch Series 7: Price And Availability

The Apple Watch Series 8 launched on 16th September 2022 and costs from $399 in the US and £419 in the UK for the 41mm watch, and from $449/£449 for the 45mm. If you opt for the cellular versions of the watch it costs an extra $100/£100. 

The Series 7 is no longer available to buy from Apple, but is still being sold by major retailers like Amazon, Walmart and Best Buy in the US, and Amazon, John Lewis and Currys in the UK. The RRP is from $399/£369 for the 41mm watch and from $429/£399 for the 45mm, but the Series 7 regularly features in sales now the Series 8 is available.

What’s New On The Apple Watch Series 8?

Rather than detail the design and performance of the two watches as we normally do when comparing generations, in this case it’s more useful to sum up the small updates Apple has made on the Series 8. Other than the below, both watches are exactly the same in design and performance. Our reviews of the Apple Watch Series 8 and Apple Watch Series 7 provide a lot more detail on both.

The major hardware upgrade is the temperature sensor on the Series 8. This measures the temperature of the skin at your wrist overnight and tells you how far above or below your baseline it is. The baseline is set during the first few days of wearing the watch.

A higher-than-usual skin temperature can indicate that you are sick (or that you had a heavy night on the booze). During my testing of the Series 8 I suffered a bout of COVID-19 and it was interesting to see how the sensor picked up the rise in my skin temperature throughout the illness.

• The Apple Watch Successfully Tracked My Skyrocketing Temperature When I Had Covid

The main benefit of the temperature sensor is, however, an improvement in the accuracy of Apple’s women’s health-tracking features. The watch will now estimate when you have ovulated, which then improves the accuracy of period predictions on the watch, and it will also alert you if you deviate from your normal cycle.

Another new feature on the Series is crash detection for when you are in a vehicle. The Series 7 is able to detect if you fall during runs or bike rides, but the Series 8 has a new high-G accelerometer and an improved gyroscope which means it can detect if you are in a car crash. It will then alert your emergency contacts and connect you to emergency services.

The other notable changes that arrived on the Apple Watch this year are all part of the watchOS 9 software update. All Apple Watches from the Series 4 onwards get this software update, so it’s not a point of differentiation between the Series 7 and 8, but key upgrades include a new triathlon mode and more detailed run tracking, including a structured workout builder.

Black Friday 2022 is almost upon us, but the smart shoppers out there won’t be waiting for the weekend to bag a bargain, because discounts crop up earlier in the month. Take this Walmart deal on the original Apple Watch SE,

We were expecting great deals to pop up on older Apple Watches in the sales this Black Friday, because the Apple Watch SE 2 and Series 8 have just launched, meaning the original SE and Series 7 are ripe for discounts. 

This deal has delivered the goods earlier than we expected, and it’s well worth considering if you want the entry-level Apple Watch, since the SE 2 is not a huge upgrade on the original. The two major new features on the SE 2 are an upgraded processor plus crash detection, which can alert emergency services and select contacts if it detects you have been involved in a car crash.

Crash detection is a welcome feature, even if it’s one you hope never to have to use, but the upgraded processor on the new SE 2 won’t make a big difference – the original SE already runs very smoothly as you’d expect from an Apple device. 

In general, the Apple Watch SE is worth considering at this price even if you were eyeing up the Series 7 or 8 watches. There are some major advantages to paying more for the Series watches, which have larger displays you can set to always-on, and both offer more accurate heart rate and GPS tracking in our experience. The Series watches also can take an ECG, and track blood oxygen saturation and skin temperature, which are all useful upgrades on the SE line, but not essential for many people.

Those who do want a Series watch should look at the Walmart discount on the 41mm Series 7 watch with GPS and cellular, which is reduced to $329 down from $429.

If you’re happy to buy a renewed model of the Apple Watch SE, then there are even bigger discounts to be had over at Amazon, where some models of the watch are going for as little as $170. Getting a new watch in the Walmart sale brings with it some extra piece of mind, but we can’t help but flag a lower price if we see it.

There will be more Apple Watch deals to come during the Black Friday sales, and we’re hoping that the Series 7 will be going for a song at some point, but when you see a discount like this early doors it can sometimes pay to move fast and save yourself weeks of bargain hunting, spending that time toying with your new Apple Watch instead. 

The Apple Watch has always been the best fitness smartwatch, largely because of its sleek design and impressive app store. However, the Apple Watch Series 8 has been replaced as the flagship sports smartwatch in Apple’s line-up by the Apple Watch Ultra.

While the Ultra does offer some useful upgrades like an extra button, longer battery life and multi-band GPS tracking, the Series 8 is better value and still well worth considering if you’re looking for a sporty smartwatch. Just bear in mind that you need an iPhone to use it.

Apple Watch Series 8: Price And Availability

The Apple Watch Series 8 was announced on 7th September 2022 and pre-orders shipped on 14th September. It costs from $399 in the US and £419 in the UK for the 41mm watch, and from $449/£449 for the 45mm. Those are the prices for the GPS versions; if you add in cellular/4G capabilities it costs an extra $100/£100. 

The Series 8 is much cheaper than the new Apple Watch Ultra, which costs $799/£849, while the Apple Watch SE 2 offers a cheaper alternative, starting at $249/£259 for the 40mm watch and $279/£299 for the 44mm.

How I Tested The Watch

I have been testing the Apple Watch Series 8 for two weeks, wearing it at the same time as the Apple Watch Ultra to compare the watches. I have tracked around 50km of running with the Series 8, along with some bike rides, strength and yoga sessions, and a hike. I have also tested every previous generation of the Apple Watch Series devices.

Design And Hardware

Very little has changed about the Apple Watch Series 8’s design compared with the Series 7. Aside from some new colours, the Series 8 has the exact same case and screen design as the previous generation, with the digital crown and button on one side.

It’s a fantastic screen and the design in general is excellent. The Series 8 is small and comfortable to wear at all times, and sleeker and more attractive than the Ultra in my opinion.

There are some changes under the hood, with the Series 8 now packing a wrist temperature sensor that tracks your skin temperature at night. It also has an improved gyroscope and a new accelerometer that can detect if you’ve been in a severe car crash.

The Series 8 also has a compass and an altimeter, and GPS tracking via GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, QZSS, and BeiDou satellite systems simultaneously, though it doesn’t offer the multi-band GPS tracking that the Apple Watch Ultra has. It is water-resistant to 50m. 

Sports Tracking

In the past the Apple Watch’s native sports tracking was merely OK, although easy to upgrade using the app store with third-party options like WorkOutDoors that offered a much better experience and made the device more comparable to a dedicated sports watch.

The watchOS 9 software update made significant improvements to the native tracking on the Apple Watch, though, and this is a benefit that extends to all models of the watch dating back to the Series 4. 

Some of the most notable improvements are a new multisport mode for triathletes and a broader range of stats tracked during workouts that you can display on multiple data screens. This includes stats like lap pace (called split pace), running power measured from the wrist, and alerts based around heart rate and cadence. You can also create and follow structured workouts on the watch, and some running technique stats are also measured by the watches, like ground contact time and vertical oscillation.

The experience is still not quite as good as on a dedicated sports watch, or indeed the Apple Watch Ultra. The Ultra has an extra button which can be used as a lap button, plus a precision start mode that lets you check you have GPS locked on before beginning an outdoor workout. 

However, the native tracking is now good enough that even keen sportspeople will get what they need from the Apple Watch for the most part, and you can still easily upgrade the experience with a third-party app that offers more data field customisation and maps within the app to help you navigate during outdoor activities, like WorkOutDoors.

GPS And Heart Rate Accuracy

The past few versions of the Apple Watch have all impressed me with the accuracy of the GPS and heart rate tracking, and that remains the case with the Series 8. Its GPS tracking matched up well with the dual-band tracking of the Apple Watch Ultra and Garmin Epix 2, although it did experience just a few more errors like corners being cut a tiny bit short and more wiggliness to the tracked route under tree cover.

It’s annoying that the precision start option wasn’t made available on the Series 8, especially as you can see the status of the GPS signal in third-party apps. This is a standard feature on sports watches that allow you to see whether the GPS is locked on before you begin running. With the Series 8 you have to trust the watch has acquired a GPS signal when you hit start, which can lead to dodgy readings at the beginning of a run if it hasn’t locked on.

The heart rate accuracy of the Series 8 actually outperformed the more expensive Ultra, I suspect largely because the Series 8 is a smaller watch that sits more snugly against my thin wrists than the bigger Ultra. You can also pair an external chest strap to the watch for even more reliable heart rate tracking. I’d recommend doing this since I did have drop-outs at times where it wasn’t able to pick up a heartbeat.

Health, Activity And Sleep Tracking

Again, the activity tracking on the Series 8 is similar to that of previous generations. The three activity rings to fill in each day remain, an approach which has always proved an engaging way to keep me moving even as a very sporty person.

The sleep tracking remains a weak spot on the watch. Basic information about your time asleep and time spent in different sleep stages is provided in the morning, but the level of detail falls short of the tracking on Fitbit, Polar and Huawei devices in particular, and there is no real coaching to help you improve your sleep. 

There is a reason to wear the watch at night, though, which is the new temperature sensor. Over the first few nights of wearing the watch you set a skin temperature baseline and then each morning you can see in the Health app on your iPhone if there have been any significant deviations from that baseline overnight.

Deviations can occur for a number of reasons, such as illness or alcohol consumption, but the main feature that benefits from the sensor is women’s health tracking, which should now be more accurate in tracking your menstrual cycle. 

I tested positive for COVID-19 while wearing the Apple Watch Series 8 and it did track a significant rise in my skin temperature during the illness, the measurements matching up closely with the skin temperature readings of the Apple Watch Ultra on my other wrist,

It would be good to be able to see the temperature readings on the watch, rather than having to open the app on your phone. It’s also worth bearing in mind that to get the readings you’ll have to find a way to charge your watch during the day, since the Series 8 only lasts one day on a charge.

Battery Life

Nothing has changed with the battery life on the Series 8. It is listed as 18 hours by Apple, though it tends to get through 24 hours pretty reliably in my experience, even with an hour-long run in that time. 

The Apple Watch Ultra offers double the battery life of the Series 8 and lasted me two days comfortably, while dedicated sports watches around the price of the Series 8 will often last a week or even two on a charge. 

You can see why the Series 8 needs charging every day – it’s a small watch with a power-hungry feature-set – but having to find a window to charge it in the day so you can use it at night can create an annoyance at times, and in the long term I’d rather just charge it overnight and skip the sleep and temperature tracking to ensure it lasts through the day.

Navigation And The Compass App

Another major update that has come to all Apple Watches from the Series 4 onwards is a revamped Compass app. You can now set waypoints that you can navigate to using the app, and there’s a backtrack mode you can use to retrace your steps.

These are handy additions but they are not well-integrated to the watch. You have to use the Compass app itself to see where the waypoints are, or set up and follow the backtrack trail. For the features to be truly useful they’d need to be available within the Workout app – this is common on sports watches with breadcrumb navigation, where your trail is recorded as a data screen in the workout so you can retrace your steps back to the start.

You can also use dedicated mapping apps like Apple Maps, of course, and there are third-party sports tracking apps with full maps like WorkOutDoors and Komoot. It’s an area I expect Apple to improve in the next software or hardware update, but so far the new navigation features are limited by being confined to the Compass app.

Is The Apple Watch Series 8 Worth It?

If you already have a recent Apple Watch like the Series 5, 6 or 7 there’s no compelling need to upgrade to the Series 8. The watchOS 9 software update is a huge improvement that you get on the older devices, and the significant hardware addition of wrist temperature is an occasionally handy but far from essential feature.

Picking between the Apple Watch Series 8 and Apple Watch Ultra is hard, but the Series 8 certainly provides better value overall. The Ultra’s longer battery life and extra button do undoubtedly make it a more impressive sports tracker, but I’m not sure that’s worth twice as much, and the design of the Series 8 is more attractive – to me at least. 

Against the wider field of smartwatches, the Apple Watch is well clear of the competition as a sporty smartwatch. Its native tracking and app options are significantly better than those of Wear OS devices like the Samsung Galaxy Watch 5 Pro or Suunto 7. 

There are some semi-smart watches that don’t have access to a proper app store that are good sports trackers, though, like the Amazfit T-Rex 2 and Huawei Watch GT Runner. I still prefer the Apple Watch’s tracking and it’s much smarter, but they are good, more affordable alternatives for Android users.

Another good option is the Garmin Venu 2 Plus, which is platform-agnostic and offers brilliant native sports tracking. It isn’t all that smart, though there are some apps in the ConnectIQ app store, but it does offer music storage and the AMOLED screen looks the part of a smartwatch.

Getting Covid is a bad thing in almost every way possible, but the one upside of my recent bout is that I got to put through the new skin temperature sensor on the Apple Watch Ultra through its paces.

Apple is very clear that this sensor, which measures your wrist temperature at night, shouldn’t be used to diagnose illnesses or as a medical device in any way, but it does show what happens to your skin temperature when you have a fever and are fighting off an illness.

Your wrist temperature measurements are measured against a baseline, which takes a few nights to set. You need to wear the Apple Watch Ultra each night to get the reading, and can’t take a spot measurement of your wrist temperature. In the morning you are given a measurement against your baselines based on the average readings taken during the night when the watch is in sleep focus mode. You have to go into the Apple Health app on your phone to see the measurement, which isn’t shown on the watch.

I saw a dramatic spike against my baseline temperature the first night after I had tested positive for Covid, when my temperature was up 3.31°C. There was also a small 0.77°C rise the night before as well, when I didn’t feel too bad.

As the illness progressed my temperature came down the second night to 0.68°C above my baseline, when I was starting to feel better and thought I was past the worst of it. I was wrong, however, and felt terrible again the next day, with my skin temperature reflecting that as it rose again to 1.54°C against my baseline that night.

Admittedly all this information did little to help me during Covid, though it is interesting that there was a rise in my temperature before symptoms really hit hard the second day. I’ve used other temperature sensors like the Oura ring and think it’s worth checking your temperature in the morning, because a rise against your baseline – one that’s not explained by other factors like alcohol consumption the night before or an especially hot bedroom – could be an indication you’re getting sick. 

Note that wrist temperature is mainly used on the Apple Watch Ultra for tracking the menstrual cycle, so that can also play a big role in explaining any rises.

As I was getting better I did also check my temperature each morning to confirm it wasn’t rising again. While the new temperature sensor on the Apple Watch Ultra isn’t a way to diagnose illness, it can raise a red flag if you do see an unexplained rise, and provide more info on what’s happening to your body during an infection. 

• I Wore The Apple Watch Ultra For The Berlin And London Marathons – Here Are Five Things I Learned
• Apple Watch Ultra Review: Finally, A Lap Button

I consider myself an obsessive runner, and most of my family and friends would no doubt agree, given how much I talk about running. I’m also, broadly speaking, a fan of the Apple Watch, but those two things have been hard to reconcile in the past, since the run tracking from Garmin and other dedicated sports watch brands has been much better than on the Apple Watch.

Third-party Apple Watch fitness apps like WorkOutDoors offered a workaround, but to train for the Berlin Marathon I returned to the impressive Garmin Epix 2 to track my runs because battery life, accuracy, training analysis and depth of data recorded was simply better than the Apple Watch.

The Apple Watch Ultra landed just before the Berlin Marathon, however, accompanied by upgrades aplenty to the native running experience, which I detailed in my Apple Watch Ultra review. So I used both the Garmin Epix 2 and the Apple Watch Ultra 2 to track my marathon PB of 2hr 28min at Berlin, and then my rather slower run at the London Marathon a week later. 

Here are five things that stood out about the watch after using it for both marathons.

1. The Apple Watch Ultra’s Overall GPS Accuracy Is Excellent…

Both the Apple Watch Ultra and Garmin Epix 2 use dual-band GPS that promises greater GPS accuracy in tricky conditions, such as among high buildings or tree cover. The Epix 2 has been the most accurate watch I’ve ever tested, but the Apple Watch Ultra matched it in Berlin. The Apple Watch Ultra was actually more accurate in London – the skyscrapers and tunnels around Canary Wharf sent both watches into a spin, but the Ultra coped better.

In Berlin the Epix 2 logged 42.57km in total, while the Apple Watch Ultra logged 42.54km, both probably very close to my actual distance covered when you take into account weaving past other runners as well as not being able to follow the official racing line, which takes you beyond the official 42.2km distance.

In London the Epix overshot considerably, logging 43.19km, while the Apple Watch Ultra logged 42.55km and was noticeably more in step with the kilometre markers on the course throughout.

2. …But The Apple Watch Ultra Does Throw Up Some Odd Pacing

While the distance tracked function on the Apple Watch Ultra is great, it does have an odd quirk where the split or lap pace recorded is always very slow to start with. So at the start of every kilometre in London it would show a much slower average pace for that split than I was running, before gradually evening out to the correct pace by the end of the split. That’s not ideal for pacing, and doesn’t happen when using WorkOutDoors rather than the native tracking app, which is odd.

3. The Optical Heart Rate Monitor Has Gotten Worse

Past versions of the Apple Watch have been among the better optical heart rate trackers I’ve tested, but the Ultra is not so impressive on this front, and during the Berlin Marathon it frequently gave no heart rate readings at all. In fairness, wrist-worn heart rate monitors will always struggle (“a very hostile measurement place” according to the expert we quizzed about heart rate monitors), but you can pair them with an external monitor and I used a chest strap with the watch at the London Marathon for accurate heart rate data.

4. The Battery Life Of The Apple Watch Ultra Is Two Days Including A Marathon

One of the big updates on the Apple Watch Ultra from the Series 8 is battery life. The Ultra is listed as lasting 36 hours, compared with 18 for the Series 8. In fact I have found that the Ultra lasts me 48 hours, even when that period included a marathon.

I wasn’t listening to music on the watch during the marathons and did run them a little quicker than the average person, but even so you can wear the watch to track your sleep the night before and then head to your marathon confident the Ultra is going to last the distance. 

That said, the Ultra still falls well short of sports watches. Even the Garmin Epix 2, which has a bright always-on AMOLED display, lasts me four to five days including a marathon.

5. The Apple Watch Ultra Won’t Help You Recover From A Marathon

One thing that Apple has steered clear of with the Ultra is any kind of training and recovery analysis, which is done very well on Garmin watches, as well as those from other brands like Coros and Polar. 

In the days after the marathon the Apple Watch Ultra still prompted me to fill my activity rings, whereas the Garmin Epix 2 showed my training readiness as low and advised me how many days I would need to recover from my efforts. It’s common-sense stuff after a marathon, but it throws light on the fact that the Apple Watch Ultra is purely a tracker, rather than a device you can use to guide your training.

Apple launched its Fitness+ app in late 2020 and it immediately established itself as one of the best workout apps. Since then, Fitness+ has expanded with new types of classes and curated workout playlists designed to help you hit certain goals, and more classes are added every week.

The service is limited to Apple Watch owners for now (it will open up to iPhone owners sometime in autumn 2022) but that’s still a substantial chunk of people, and if you are on team Apple there are blindingly obvious benefits of using Fitness+ ahead of other apps. It’s cheaper than rivals like Fiit and Centr, and the integration between the watch and Fitness+ (as well as your iPhone, iPad and Apple TV if you own them too) is superb.

Apple Fitness+: Price And Availability

An Apple Fitness+ subscription costs $9.99/£9.99 a month or $79.99/£79.99 a year. There is a one-month free trial available to all, and you get three months free when you buy an Apple Watch. Fitness+ launched in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Ireland and New Zealand, and in late 2021 it expanded to Austria, Brazil, Colombia, France, Germany, Indonesia, Italy, Malaysia, Mexico, Portugal, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Switzerland and the UAE. The service is currently accessible to Apple Watch owners, but is due to become available to iPhone users later this year.

How I Tested Apple Fitness+

When Apple Fitness+ launched I used it for several workouts a week to try a range of classes, including HIIT, core, yoga, bike and treadmill sessions. Since that initial period I have mostly used the app for yoga classes once or twice a week.

The Experience

The Apple Watch is the key to the service, and once you have a subscription you can even use Fitness+ on other people’s Apple devices. Workouts start, pause and end automatically on the watch when you’re operating the app on those other devices, and the stats recorded by the watch (like calories and heart rate) are displayed on screen, including the progress towards your activity rings goals.

The screen also displays a Burn Bar, which uses calories burned – adjusted for your weight – to rank you among people who have taken the class already. During the workout the Burn Bar ranking that appears is based on a rolling two-minute average of your calorie expenditure, whereas at the end it gives you an average of your overall effort that determines your placement.

What’s displayed on screen also reacts to what’s happening in the workout in a clever way that I’ve not seen on other fitness apps. When you go into an interval during a spinning workout, for example, a timer for that specific interval automatically appears. And when the trainer mentions your heart or activity rings the screen will display more detail on those, such as your maximum heart rate for the workout or total calories burned that day.

You can choose to remove these stats and just focus on the workout. There’s also the option to toggle the timer to show either time elapsed or time remaining.

The app breaks up the workouts into categories like HIIT, yoga, core, strength, dance and sessions to do on cardio machines. The latter includes treadmill, cycling and rowing sessions, which you can do on any brand’s machine, although you lose the connectivity you’ll find on something like a Peloton bike, where the bike links to the app to show detailed stats like power and cadence.

You can also find and choose classes by length (there are options lasting five, 10, 20, 30 and 45 minutes), by trainer or by music. Surprisingly, it’s a little basic compared with the experience on rival apps, and I’d like the option to filter strength workouts by body part, since the names of the classes don’t reveal much. They all follow the same format of X type of class with Y trainer – “rowing with Anja”, for example. This at least makes it easy to stick with your favourite trainer if that’s what you want.

The app puts the trainers front and centre. They seem an engaging bunch – some are a little much for my tastes, but they are all motivating and offer useful instructions. During the core and yoga classes, I picked up handy tips for moves I’ve been doing for a long time.

There are always at least a couple of other trainers taking part in each class, which improves the experience. I’ve always found that on-demand video classes with just an instructor fail to recreate the atmosphere of a studio. While Fitness+ still doesn’t match that atmosphere, it gets closer than most, thanks to giving the instructor others to interact with.

See related 

• Apple Watch Series 6 Review: Still The Best Smartwatch
• The Best Apple Watch Fitness Apps
• The Best Health And Fitness Apps

Because Fitness+ puts a lot of focus on beginners, it has a wealth of short workouts and a dedicated “workouts to get you started” section. This is great, but I’d like to see more longer options as well. Once you reach even an intermediate level of fitness, a 10-minute workout doesn’t do much for you. You can do several in a row, of course, but it’s not the same as one longer class – you’ll be doing warm-ups and warm-downs each time, breaking your rhythm.

The core and yoga sessions I tried were impressive, though, and the camera work in the yoga class was particularly effective and helped me follow the instructor’s poses. The spinning and treadmill workouts also came close to the experience you get from a connected bike or treadmill from Peloton or Echelon. You don’t get the detailed instructions about the exact resistance, power or cadence goals, but for the most part spinning is pretty simple – increase the resistance and push harder when told to, then relax.

Is Apple Fitness+ Worth It?

The price of entry to Fitness+ is an Apple Watch or iPhone. However, Fitness+ seriously enhances the experience and I’m sure it will persuade more people to buy one, especially since you get three months of Fitness+ free with a new watch.

While it may lack some of the polish of an app like Fiit, which has had longer to refine features like filtering and finding classes, Fitness+ is an undeniably excellent service with seamless connectivity to Apple devices. It’s especially good for fitness beginners, and will only get better with more classes – more arrive every week.

If you have an Apple Watch it’s well worth trying, and if you bought an Apple Watch primarily for fitness tracking, adding the Fitness+ service is certainly worthwhile, even if it’s just for occasional use alongside your normal exercise routine.

Buy from Apple | £9.99 a month (one-month free trial available)

We’ve been waiting for the Apple Watch Ultra for years, even if most of us expected it to be called the Apple Watch Pro. And, now that I’ve worn this more rugged, longer-lasting Apple Watch, I can say that it delivers in most of the ways people hoped for.

It has a longer battery life than the Apple Watch Series 8, a hardier design and an extra button that makes a big difference when wearing it to track endurance sports. The Apple Watch Ultra is one of the best smartwatches and one of the best fitness trackers, too, and even keen runners and triathletes will find that the watch satisfies most of their needs.

However, the battery life still isn’t that long and the Ultra fails to match up to the best running watches from brands like Garmin and Coros. The Garmin Epix 2 in particular is a seriously sporty rival that also has a bright AMOLED display.

Apple Watch Ultra: Price And Availability

The Apple Watch Ultra is available to buy from 23rd September and costs from $799 in the US and £849 in the UK, which is a considerable increase in price from the Apple Watch Series 8, which costs from $399/£419.

How I Tested This Watch

I’ve been testing the Apple Watch Ultra for around three weeks and have used it for roughly 200km of running, including the Berlin and London marathons. I’ve also used it for bike rides and yoga sessions. During this testing I’ve been wearing it alongside the Garmin Epix 2 and Apple Watch Series 8. I’ve also tested every past generation of the Apple Watch.

Design And Hardware

The Apple Watch Ultra is the largest Apple Watch yet, with a 49mm case compared to the 41mm and 45mm options on the Series 8. It also has the biggest and brightest screen yet, with the 2,000 nits (brightness measurement) retina display being double that of the Series 8.

It still feels light, and sits comfortably on my wrist, but it’s noticeably bigger than the standard Apple Watch. The titanium case also surrounds the sapphire crystal screen and covers the button and crown on the right side of the watch. It’s not as elegant as the Series 8, with its smooth, cleaner look, but it makes the watch less likely to be damaged and it remains a great-looking watch.

On the left side of the case is a new action button, which can be set to your preferred functions. I expect the most common use will be as a multifunction button that not only allows you to start and pause workouts more easily, but take laps (or segments as Apple calls them) during your activities. It’s a lap button on an Apple Watch and it's long overdue.

The Ultra has three microphones and two speakers. It is water resistant to 100 metres and can be used for recreational diving to depths of 40m. It has an altimeter and compass, and dual-band GPS for greater accuracy when tracking outdoor activities in difficult conditions, like under tree cover.

On the watch’s base is an optical heart rate sensor and the Ultra can also take ECG readings and track your blood oxygen saturation. A new feature is skin temperature tracking, which is done at night and records any deviations from your baseline temperature.

Apple has launched three new straps to use with the Ultra, though it can use any 44mm/45mm bands designed for the larger Series watch as well. The new trail loop is similar to the nylon sports loop, but softer and thinner and has a pull tab. The alpine loop is a fabric band that fastens with a metal hook into a loop, while the ocean band is a rubbery elastomer material. I have tried all three loops and the trail loop is the most comfortable and easiest to use, though I prefer the nylon sports loop from the standard Apple Watch.

Battery Life

The Apple Watch Ultra is advertised at lasting up to 36 hours, which is double the battery of the Series 8. It can last up to 12 hours while tracking using GPS and also has a low-power mode that extends the total battery life to 60 hours, while still offering full GPS and heart rate tracking.

I have found that Apple is conservative with its battery estimates and the Series 6 and 7 watches would easily last me more than the 18 hours listed, even when running outside for an hour or two in that period. It’s the same story with the Ultra. It has lasted me longer than 36 hours of general use, and I could reliably get two days of use from a charge when running for an hour on both days, without using low-power mode – including days when I ran a marathon.

The battery dropped about 5% per hour during my running workouts, which fits with the 12 hours of GPS. The low-power mode is a good option for some workouts, since you still get full GPS and heart rate tracking, even if you lose the always-on display and some features ilke irregular heart rate notifications. Later this year a new low-power setting will be available that takes less frequent GPS and heart rate readings during activities to extend how long the watch will be able to track you for.

The battery life on the Ultra is impressive for a full-featured smartwatch and is an improvement on the Series watches, but still falls short of what you’d get from a dedicated sports watch. The longest-lasting Garmin and Coros watches can comfortably hit three to four weeks of use and even the Garmin Epix 2 with its AMOLED screen lasts four to five days on a charge.

Sports Tracking

The native sports tracking on the Apple Watch has always been adequate for casual use. However, as an experienced runner I’ve always turned to third-party apps like WorkOutDoors to get the extra stats I need, as well as the ability to programme structured workouts and access mapping features.

The watchOS 9 updates to the Apple Watch’s sports tracking make the native Workout app suitable for keen sports people. The addition of extra data screens, new stats and sports modes, and structured workouts brings the features up to standard. The Ultra’s physical lap button is the cherry on top.

Most of the features that have been added have been par for the course on sports watches for years, including basic stats like split pace, and the ability to see stats related to your manual laps live during workouts. Some new additions are more advanced though, like running power measured from the wrist and running technique stats like ground contact time and vertical oscillation. 

There is also now a multisport mode where the watch will mark your transitions between swimming, biking and running. The structured workout builder allows you to build complicated sessions beyond basic intervals and creating workouts on the watch itself is easy.

One annoyance was that I did find that it was too easy to pause a workout by pressing both the action and the other button on the watch at the same time, when only trying to hit the lap button, because of the way they are positioned opposite each other on the square watch.

I also found the running technique stats didn’t match up that well with the measurements from the Garmin HRM-Pro Plus chest strap and the graphs showing these stats in the Apple Fitness app are basic and hard to read precisely.

Overall, though, the Apple Watch Ultra is an excellent sports watch and far outstrips what you get from other smartwatches. It’s close to the level of a dedicated sports watch and if the battery life doesn’t bother you there’s nothing lacking here in terms of sports features – aside from the ability to connect external sensors like power meters (you can connect heart rate monitors), which will make the Ultra less useful to cyclists and triathletes.

One area where the Apple Watch Ultra still makes no attempt to compete with sports watches at its price is training analysis. There are third-party apps that can fill in the gap on the watch to some extent, like Athlytic, but there’s nothing that matches the quality of Garmin’s new training readiness feature, for example, or the training load data you get from Coros, Garmin and Polar. The Ultra is a tracker, not an analyser.

GPS And HR Accuracy

Accuracy in both GPS and heart rate has been a strong point of recent Apple Watches in my experience. On the GPS front, things only get better with the Ultra because of its dual-band tracking. I used the Ultra in tandem with the accurate Garmin Epix 2 for all my runs and bike rides and it generally produced similar stats for pacing and distance. On a running track it wasn’t as impressive as the Epix 2 in its track mode. Apple is bringing track mode to the Ultra later this year, though, initially, it will only be available in the US.

During the London Marathon, which is notoriously tricky for GPS, especially around Canary Wharf, the Apple Watch Ultra was more accurate than the Epix 2, while both were close to spot-on in the Berlin Marathon.

However, I noticed quirks with the pacing stats on the Apple Watch Ultra, where the split pace would be slow at the start of each lap. Over the course of the split it would level out and come into line with the Epix 2, but the first split of a run in particular would be hard to pace. This only happened with the native workout app lap pace stat – when using the WorkOutDoors app the problem never arose.

Unfortunately, the heart rate tracking on the Ultra has been less accurate for me, compared with the Apple Watch Series 6 and 7. It often read too high during activities compared with the measurements from a chest strap, and sometimes failed to lock onto my heart rate at all and merely greyed out that stat for long sections of a run.

This could be a case of the larger watch sitting less snugly on my wrist than the smaller, 45mm Apple Watches. Also, the alpine and ocean straps I’ve tested aren’t as easy to tighten as the old silicone bands or sports loops. Maybe the new trail loop would be better on that front.

You can connect an external heart rate monitor to the Ultra for more accurate stats and it’s worthwhile if you do use heart rate to judge your training. Our recommendations of the best heart rate monitors will help you find something suitable.

Navigation And The Compass App

As you’d expect, the Apple Watch Ultra has the Apple Maps app and that offers useful mapping features for general life, but the upgraded Compass app expands on navigation during activities. This upgrade comes via watchOS 9, so is available on other Apple Watches as well, but with the Ultra you can access new features via the action button. This includes logging waypoints that then appear on the compass map so you can navigate to them easily. 

For example, when camping you can set your tent as a waypoint, plus the nearest shop and the start of a trail you want to do. Or you can log where your car is parked so it’s easy to find it again.

For more precise routing you can use the backtrack feature. Start this and the watch will begin tracing your steps so you can follow them back to your starting point. 

The features work well, in my limited testing, and are useful additions, but I’d like them to be integrated with the Workouts app on the watch – so you could see the route back to the start on a run, for example. At the moment you have to jump between the Compass and Workout app, whereas with sports watches that have breadcrumb navigation or maps, you can see the routing features on an additional screen within your workout. 

You can get a map within your workout app using third-party apps like WorkOutDoors, which excels on this front with full-colour maps. But simply having the backtrack feature available as a screen within your running workout would be handy.

Health, Activity And Sleep Tracking

The activity tracking on the Ultra follows the same format as with all Apple Watches, in that you have to fill your rings each day: one for active minutes, one for active calories and one for hours active. These rings remain as addictive as ever, even if you’re a sporty person.

For the most part, the health tracking remains the same as well: with advanced features like ECG measurements and irregular heartbeat notifications available on the watch. The new feature is skin temperature tracking. This is measured at night and in the morning you can see where you are compared with your temperature baseline, which is set during the first five nights wearing the watch. 

So far these measurements have tallied up with those of an Oura ring. Variations in your baseline temperature can flag up things like illness, or if you just had a heavy night on the booze. My temperature rocketed during my testing of the Ultra owing to a bout of COVID and it was useful to see each morning just how far off my baseline I was as an indication of whether my fever was coming down. However, the bigger upgrade it offers is for women’s health tracking, promising greater accuracy in tracking the menstrual cycle and ovulation.

The temperature sensing is another reason to wear the Ultra at night, which is welcome because otherwise the sleep tracking is still basic. It tracks total time asleep and provides a sleep stage graph with time in REM, core and deep sleep, but overall the Apple Watch still lags well behind the depth of sleep insights offered by the likes of Fitbit, Huawei and Polar in particular. 

Is The Apple Watch Ultra Worth It?

The Apple Watch Ultra is the best Apple Watch I’ve tested and the best smartwatch for sporty people available. The upgrades in design over the Apple Watch Series 8 are useful, with the action button being particularly handy, but it’s the software updates from watchOS 9 that improve the sports tracking experience across the Apple Watch range in general.

It’s tricky to say whether the Ultra is worth the additional outlay over the Series 8. As a keen runner, the Ultra’s extra battery life, larger and brighter screen, and action button all contribute to a significantly improved experience over a Series watch. However, it’s double the price and with watchOS 9 on board the Series 8 will still offer a terrific sports tracking experience, and charging every day instead of every two days is not the greatest hardship given the saving you make.

Sterner competition comes from sports brands, and Garmin in particular. The Garmin Epix 2 sapphire edition is $999.99/£899.99 and it is still a superior sports watch that has a bright AMOLED screen, even if the Ultra has a smaller, more attractive design overall. You can also get a Garmin Fenix 7 or Forerunner 955 for less than the Ultra and get a lot more battery life and better sports tracking, plus some smart features.

For the audience that wants an Apple Watch for the design and smarts, but doesn’t want to lose out too much on sports tracking capabilities, the Ultra is a dream. For those who mainly want great sports tracking and a few key smart features like music storage, there is better value in the Garmin range.

Apple has announced its new Apple Watch range. The Watch Series 8 builds on the strong platform of the Series 7 by adding a couple of useful new health tracking features, while the all-new Apple Watch Ultra offers a larger display, a more rugged design and longer battery life. Rounding out the offering is the second generation of the more affordable SE line. Here are the highlights of each new model.

Apple Watch Ultra

The Apple Watch Ultra aims to be a whole new product built for adventure. It has a 49mm titanium case which extends to protect the sapphire crystal screen. It sports the brightest display on any Apple Watch at 2,000 nits. It also has a WR100 water resistance rating, and can be used for diving to depths of 40m, with the new Oceanic+ app acting as a dive computer.

The Apple Watch Ultra also has an extra “action” button, which works as a lap button or a transition button in triathlon mode, and a larger digital crown. All versions of the watch are cellular. 

It offers up to 36 hours of battery life on a single charge, and can reach 60 hours using a new battery setting that will arrive later this autumn. That’s hardly the weeks of battery life you can get from the best running watches from Garmin and Coros, but it’s the longest-lasting Apple Watch yet.

Apple says it has also improved the GPS accuracy of the Apple Watch Ultra with dual-band tracking, a feature that has impressed us on devices like the Garmin Fenix 7 and Garmin Epix 2. The watch is also set to have a running track mode, which will arrive later this year.

There is also a new watch face built specifically for the Apple Watch Ultra, with a night mode to protect your night vision, and there are dedicated bands for the watch called Alpine, Trail and Ocean Loops. The watch also has a backtrack feature that can help you navigate back to your starting point during outdoor activities.

All models of the Apple Watch Ultra cost $799/£849. It can be pre-ordered now and it will be available from 23rd September. 

Read our Apple Watch Ultra review

Apple Watch Series 8

The Apple Watch Series 7 is one of the best fitness smartwatches, so we’re not too disappointed to see that the Series 8 largely sticks to the same formula. New features on the Series 8 include a temperature sensor that will monitor your wrist temperature through the night. The watch checks your temperature every few seconds and you’ll be able to see any shifts from your normal baseline temperature in the Health app. This can help you spot if your body is under stress or fighting an illness, and will be a considerable upgrade on the menstrual cycle tracking on the Apple Watch.

Another new feature on the Series 8 is car crash detection. The watch can now detect if you are in a severe car crash, and it will alert the emergency services and your designated contacts. 

Apple has also added a low-power mode to the watch, which can extend the life of the watch to 36 hours from its usual 18-hour limit. Low-power mode will disable some features like always-on display and automatic workout detection, and it will be available on all Apple Watches from the Series 4 on, if running watchOS 9.

The Apple Watch Series 8 range is available to pre-order from 7th September and it will ship on 16th September. The Apple Watch Series 8 costs from $399/£419, with cellular versions costing $100/£110 more.

Pre-order from Apple US or Apple UK

Apple Watch SE 2

The entry-level Apple Watch SE watch has also been updated with new materials and a new processor (the same S8 chip that’s in the Series 8). It doesn’t have an always-on display or offer some of the Series 8’s advanced health features like ECG measurements or temperature tracking.

The Apple Watch SE 2 costs from $249/£259, and there are cellular versions available for $50/£40 more.

Pre-order from Apple US or Apple UK

When a product is updated annually there is always a point in the year where people start to wonder if it’s wiser to simply wait for the new version, even if the older one starts cropping up in sales.

That might be the exact question you’re asking this Prime Day, because the Apple Watch Series 7 range has been reduced by as much as 19% in some cases, and yet we expect the Apple Watch Series 8 to be launched in September or October.

• QUICK LINK: Browse all Apple Watch Prime Day deals on Amazon US
• QUICK LINK: Browse all Apple Watch Prime Day deals on Amazon UK

The new watch will no doubt feature some improvements on the Series 7, but it’s unlikely that anything that amounts to a game changer arrives on the Series 8. Rumours abound that there will be a new larger, rugged version of the watch better suited to the great outdoors, but that seems unlikely and even if it does arrive, it will have a hard time unseating sports watches from the likes of Garmin, Polar and Coros.

Other rumours suggest the new watch will have temperature sensors on board, which is a nice update but hardly worth holding out for. Other health features expected to arrive on the Apple Watch at some point include the ability to measure blood sugar and blood pressure, but that kind of advanced tech is probably still several years away.

In fact, the biggest upgrade to the Apple Watch line this year will actually come in the watchOS 9 software update that is also rolling out to the Series 7. This will add a triathlon mode, plus a raft of other improvements to the sports tracking, including the ability to measure running power from the wrist, SWOLF scores for swimmers, and customisable running workouts.

Outside of the sports tracking upgrades, watchos 9 will also improve the sleep tracking on the watch, allowing you to see the stages of your night broken down into REM, deep and light sleep.

For many people, ourselves included, these software updates are far more useful than anything new we’re likely to see on the Apple Watch Series 8, so go ahead and grab the Series 7 in the Prime Day sale.

Apple’s WWDC 2022 keynote speech was a bonanza for Apple Watch owners who like to exercise, with some much-needed updates coming to the native workout app.

Runners have been especially well served, beginning with two new data screens added to the native workout app to help monitor your effort. As well as being able to swipe horizontally between three screens, you can use the digital crown to swipe up and down to find heart rate zones and running power, among other things.

• News Flash: WatchOS 9 Put To The Test In Our Apple Watch Ultra Review

The Apple Watch joins Polar and Coros by estimating running power from the wrist (the other option is connecting your watch to a footpod like Stryd). Cyclists are familiar with the power metric, runners less so; but like pace, it’s a way of judging your effort, either to stick to a planned training session or to pace a race.

Heart rate zones are a far more common way to monitor your session and it’s surprising it’s taken Apple this long to add this to its native app, although there have been plenty of third-party apps only too happy to provide this information.

Another common feature Apple has integrated into its own offering is customised workouts, where you can set work and rest periods along with pace, heart rate, cadence or power targets. (If you need a few suggestions for sessions, our interval training for runners guide will help.)

If you set a target pace, the Apple Watch will also visually match your progress against your target. There’s also a new feature we haven’t seen elsewhere before called Race Your Route. If you run the same loop regularly, say a parkrun, you can choose to try to beat your last or best ever time, with the watch helping you pace your effort accordingly.

If you are particularly into poring over your stats, you’ll be pleased to dig into three new metrics for runners: stride length, ground contact time and vertical oscillation, features often found on flagship multisport watches. The acid test for Apple will be how well they can help users make good use of this information. 

This is on top of plenty of other new features. A SWOLF score – a measure of stroke efficiency – has been added to the swim tracking and a  multisport option should appeal to triathletes who want to record brick sessions properly while training or track an entire race and time their transitions. 

We don't expect triathletes to give up on Garmin or Polar any time soon, however. While the Apple Watch’s hardware is up to snuff, it lacks the training analysis that’s  essential when your training volume is outlandishly high (no offence intended triathletes, all respect due). 

Finally, we’re delighted to see Apple join Fitbit, Garmin, Polar and others by offering a breakdown of the stages of sleep, estimating your REM, deep and light sleep.

Apple’s watchOS 9 is due for release this autumn and is available for devices going as far back as the Apple Watch Series 4. If you’ve been considering picking up a still-on-sale Apple Watch Series 3 on the cheap, keep in mind you won’t be getting any new features on it.  

Good news if you are just waking up – Amazon and Best Buy have cut the price of the Apple Watch Series 7 by $70. That brings the price for the smaller 41mm model to $329.99 and the 45mm model to $359.99. 

It’s a great discount – the best we’ve seen – and the Apple Watch really is in its league of its own.

• News Flash: Why You Should Grab This Apple Watch Prime Day Deal Rather Than Waiting For The Apple Watch 8

The Apple Watch, as you are probably tired of hearing, is good. It is very good. I’ve edited reviews of Apple Watches from the Series 3 onward and it gets better and better with every generation. 

But quite how good it is has to be experienced. I’ve worn smartwatches from Fitbit, Garmin, Samsung, Mobvoi, Huawei and Honor, but only recently got the chance to try an Apple Watch. The whole experience is much slicker and it doesn’t suffer from the little frustrations and sticking points I’ve found can afflict some smartwatches.

Coach’s senior writer Nick Harris-Fry can also attest to the accuracy of the sports tracking. In his Apple Watch Series 7 review he called the heart rate monitor ”impressively accurate for a wrist monitor” and the GPS “reliably great”. 

I can’t vouch for that yet because I’m not prepared to switch from my personal Garmin and derail my training status. Yet… (speaking of Garmin, we have also been collecting Garmin Memorial Day Sales if you’re more on the lookout for a bargain running watch). However, the Apple Watch automatically pulled in the runs recorded on my Garmin and updated my activity goals accordingly.

On top of that there’s a three-month trial to Apple Fitness+ workout app included (four months if you buy from Best Buy). It’s a slick experience and most importantly works effortlessly between devices – and we could all use less time scratching our heads in front of technology which won’t play ball.

As well as this deal, there is a $30 discount on the more affordable Apple Watch SE from Best Buy and others.

So you’ve received the Apple Watch Series 8, or perhaps even the Apple Watch Ultra, for Christmas. Congratulations – it’s time to say a big heartfelt thank you to whoever gave it to you because you now own one of the best fitness smartwatches. But you’ll also need to apologise because you’re likely to spend the rest of the day playing with your new toy and ignoring those around you. There’s an awful lot you can do with your fancy new smartwatch, so find a nice armchair and work through this list of features we think are the most important.

1. Sort Your Watch Face

You’re going to spend a lot of time looking at this, so make sure the watch face shows what you want – whether that’s your favourite photo, your activity stats, a kaleidoscope, delightful coloured smoke that billow across the screen, or a character from Toy Story. Can’t decide? Create a few and once they’re set up, you can swipe sideways between them on the watch itself whenever the mood strikes you.

2. Pick Your Complications

Once you’ve selected your style of watch face, it’s time to complicate things. Complications are small nuggets of info that also link to an app. You can have, say, the date (which clicks through to your calendar), the weather, your everyday activity tracking, a timer, or hundreds of other things including links to activity apps like Strava or Nike+ Run Club. 

3. Organise Your Dock

Click the lower button on the side of the Apple Watch to bring up your Dock, which contains your favourite apps. You can set these up in the iPhone Watch app and manage them from the watch itself – swipe left on an app to remove it from the Dock.

4. Go Configure

Head to Watch Orientation in the General section of the Watch app and you can not only select right or left wrist, but also which side you want the buttons to be on.

5. Choose Your Activity Goals And Notifications

The Apple Watch is a superb daily tracker and filling its three activity rings will quickly become an obsession. Make sure your Move goal is realistic, though – 500 active calories a day is standard, but very active people might want to aim for 600-plus. You can also modify how interactive the activity tracking is on the Watch iPhone app, which allows you to turn on or off hourly move alerts and coaching – the latter chiming in with pointers throughout the day to help keep you on track to hit your activity goals.

6. Set Up The Action Button

This is for Apple Watch Ultra users only, since the Series 8 doesn’t have the extra Action button on the side. You can choose the function of the Action button in the settings app from a variety of preset shortcut options, or by setting up an entirely new shortcut to an app. For sporty users the workout setting is best: not only does it allow you to fire up the Workout app with one press, but you can also then use the Action button to pause workouts and take a lap.

It’s also worth noting that if you do opt to use a third-party app like WorkOutDoors or Footpath, you can set it up to use the Action button instead of the native app. Several third-party apps already have this option and more will undoubtedly follow.

7. Download Your Favourite Fitness Apps

The native Apple Workout app has all the sport modes you’re likely to need but doesn’t export the data it collects to all the third-party apps you may already be using (though you can link it to Strava). Fortunately, most third-party apps have dedicated Apple Watch apps, including Strava, Runkeeper and Nike+ Run Club, so if you already have a favourite fitness app downloading it to your Watch should be a priority.

See related 

• The Best Apple Watch Fitness Apps
• Apple Fitness+ Review: A Must For Apple Watch Owners
• The Best Fitness Smartwatches

8. Explore New Fitness Apps

While you might already have some favoured fitness apps on your phone, there are some Apple Watch specific options you probably won’t have come across before. The best of these is WorkOutDoors, which essentially turns the watch into a sports tracker that’s on a par with a Garmin or Polar device. It costs $6.99/£4.99, but we’d say WorkOutDoors is nigh-on essential for keen runners and cyclists in particular. Other great apps to try out on your Apple Watch include Footpath and Yourace.

9. Stay Up To Date With News And Sport

There’s a lot of football on over the Christmas period, but you’re also meant to be “spending time” with “family and friends”, so get the Forza app and set up goal notifications for your favourite teams. If you’re more of a newshound, then the BBC News app will ensure you’re kept up to date without having to conspicuously check your phone. In fact, whatever you want to keep up to date with, there will be an app to download.

10. Make A Decision On Fall Detection

The Apple Watch can now detect if you’ve taken a hard fall while wearing the watch and automatically brings up the option to call emergency services. You can dismiss this alert, but if you’re immobile for a minute it will make the call automatically. It’s a potentially life-saving feature and it’s turned on automatically for users who enter their age as over 65 years, but it can be triggered incorrectly, especially if you partake in high-impact exercise regularly. Decide whether you want it on or off and choose appropriately in the My Watch section of the app.

11. Ramp Up The Haptic Feedback

Open the Watch app, click Sounds & Haptics, then move the Haptic Strength slider all the way to the right and turn on Prominent Haptic. The powerful buzzing will mean you never miss a notification.

12. Sync Your Music

If you turn on the Heavy Rotation playlist the Apple Watch will automatically add all the music you listen to most on your iPhone’s Music app and do so when it’s charging at night, which is very handy indeed. You can also select playlists to sync over next time it’s charging, which is worth doing if you already have a running or gym mix.

13. … And Your Podcasts

Head to the podcasts section in the Watch app and you can choose which ones you want to be automatically synced to the Apple Watch when it’s charging – everything you have or just a few select favourites.

14. Get An Apple Music Subscription

This is an extra cost but one worth paying, considering how well music is integrated on the Apple Watch. Once you’ve subscribed, just ask Siri to play any music you can think of, or songs from any era, and your Watch will duly oblige. It’s almost magical and if you have an Apple Watch with 4G you can do this without a phone in sight. Time to amaze your oldest relative. Hey Siri, play Michael Bublé’s Christmas album. Again.

15. Set Up Your Heart Rate Notifications

The Apple Watch is all about heart health. It can take an electrocardiogram and notify you if your heart rate drops too low or rises too high for an extended period seemingly without cause – if you’re exercising you won’t get the high heart rate alerts. In the Heart section of the Watch app you can set the heart rate level that will trigger these alerts, or turn them off entirely. Getting high heart rate alerts when sedentary is a sign that you may need to speak to your doctor.

16. Check The Noise Levels Around You

The Noise app on the Apple Watch checks the decibel levels around you and lets you know if they’re dangerously high. Although its main use is for pointing out any regular periods of your week that are spent in worryingly noisy environments, it can give important information on how loud the annual Christmas Day Trivial Pursuit argument is getting.

17. Try Apple Fitness+

Fitness+ is Apple’s excellent guided workouts app. You’ll also get three months’ access free when you buy an Apple Watch, so it’s well worth giving a go once the festive celebrations are out of the way. The range of workouts in the app is impressive and includes cardio, yoga, strength and HIIT workouts.

How you feel about the Apple Watch Series 7 will largely depend on how you felt about the Series 6. If you loved the Series 6 then good news, the Series 7 is more of the same, with a bigger screen and a more robust design. If you were hoping to see more substantial changes than that, however, the Series 7 will be a disappointment. It’s the best smartwatch available, and by a comfortable margin, but if you have the Series 6 already there probably isn’t enough here to justify an upgrade.

• NEWSFLASH: The Longer-Lasting Apple Watch Ultra Is Apple’s New Flagship Smartwatch

Should You Buy Something Else?

If you have an iPhone and are choosing your first smartwatch then the Series 7 is the clear pick. Things are similarly clear for Android users, since the Apple Watch doesn’t work with non-Apple phones at all.

However, if you already own the Series 6 then the Series 7 isn’t really enough of an upgrade to justify splashing out. The bigger screen is nice, but on many apps you won’t really notice the jump in size, and while the improved durability is good for peace of mind it will probably never be tested.

There are cheaper Apple Watch options, with the Apple Watch SE (from £249) and Series 3 (from £179) in the line-up. Neither has an always-on screen and the Series 3’s heart rate tracker is not up to the standard of the SE or Series 7, but they do still have access to the formidable App Store. If you plan to wear it while exercising, I’d say the upgrade to the Series 7 is worth it for the always-on screen.

If you can handle a slightly less smart device with better native sports tracking, the Garmin Venu 2 is a good option. The Venu 2 has a fantastic-looking screen and while the Connect IQ app store will never match up to Apple’s, the Venu 2 does distinguish itself from the rest of the field by offering music (including offline playback for Spotify subscribers) and NFC payments, and it works with both Android and iOS phones.

Amazfit and Huawei both offer solid sporty smartwatches as well. The Huawei GT 3 and Amazfit GTR 3 Pro recently launched and are cheaper than the Apple Watch, while offering longer battery lives, but fall short on the app front.

• Apple Fitness+ Review: A Must For Apple Watch Owners
• The Best Apple Watch Fitness Apps
• The Best Apple Watch Straps

Apple Watch Series 7 In-Depth

Design

The Series 7’s most notable improvement is a larger screen – 20% larger than its predecessor. It is noticeable how much more real estate you get compared with the Series 6 when you have both watches in front of you.

This has been achieved by thinning out the borders rather than substantially increasing the size of the watch – the Series 7 comes in 41mm and 45mm sizes compared with 40mm and 44mm for the Series 6 – and it feels just as light and svelte on the wrist.

The screen is also brighter in always-on mode and the watch is more robust, with a thicker, more crack-resistant screen and an IP6X dustproof rating. It has the same waterproof rating of WR50 as the Series 6, making it suitable for swimming.

That’s more or less all the functional design changes to the Series 7. There are five new aluminium colours: blue, green, red, starlight and midnight. The midnight watch I’m testing is an appealing shade of deep blue, rather than black as it first appears, while the starlight watch is a silvery-champagne.

Health, Activity And Sleep Tracking

The Apple Watch has always excelled at everyday activity tracking, with the three rings system a reliable source of motivation to keep you moving. You are prompted to move every hour to log 12 active hours in total, as well as having an overall active calorie and active minutes goal to hit each day.

The Series 7 includes advanced health-tracking features as well. It can take an electrocardiogram (ECG) measurement and measure your blood oxygen saturation. The watch can also time your hand-washing, alerts you if the surrounding noise levels are dangerously high, and offers menstrual health tracking.

All these features are the same as on the Series 6, and there has been no change to the native sleep tracking either, which remains disappointingly basic. The watch will log your sleep duration and there’s a graph that shows disturbances in the night, and you can see your average sleep duration over the past week. It’s a long way short of what you get from brands like Fitbit, Polar and Huawei. In fact it’s hard to think of a fitness tracker from any brand that offers so little. The App Store can save the day to some extent, with apps like Pillow that offer a lot more insight, but you still have to contend with the Series 7’s short battery life.

Sports Tracking

As ever, Apple’s native Workouts app for sports tracking leaves a lot to be desired, with a basic design that lacks in stats compared with what you will get from a dedicated sports watch. However, the App Store is laden with excellent Apple Watch fitness apps like WorkOutDoors, which can transform it into a proper sports tracker. The new watchOS 8 software update allows these apps to make use of the always-on screen and while it will be a while before the developers take advantage and fill out the Series 7’s larger display, once they do the Apple Watch 7 really will match up to most dedicated sports trackers.

The heart rate tracking is impressively accurate for a wrist monitor, though still not quite as accurate as using a chest strap. I did find the watch sometimes fails to begin heart rate tracking until a couple of minutes into a run, or spikes bizarrely high at the start before settling down, but you can pair a chest strap via Bluetooth to improve the quality of your data.

The GPS accuracy is even better. The Series 6 was a big upgrade on previous Apple watches and it has been one of the more accurate devices I’ve tested in the past year from any brand, and the Series 7 has proved similarly excellent so far. I generally take my phone with me when running or cycling and the watch will then piggyback on its GPS, but I’ve also tested it when not linked to my phone and the GPS tracking has been reliably great with the Series 7.

As a frequent runner I have found that with third-party apps the Apple Watch is good enough to replace a dedicated sports watch, though you will always have to accept the relatively awful battery life and lack of buttons, which can make it more fiddly to operate when sweaty or wet.

The Watch also has the advantage of working perfectly with Apple’s Fitness+ app, which is full of guided workouts across a range of sports. You get three months of Fitness+ with the watch, and it’s certainly worth trying if you’re looking for ideas for your workouts.

Smart Features

The Apple Watch is the most useful wearable I’ve come across, whether you opt for the cellular or normal version of the watch. The cellular version does, of course, make it even more useful since you can make calls, stream music and check your emails just with the watch, but even without a Sim card installed the Series 7 makes itself useful in all sorts of ways.

Apple Pay plays a big part in that, being widely accepted, and the Apple Wallet is handy for storing tickets, travel passes and, these days, your NHS Covid Pass.

You get the best music streaming experience on the watch if using Apple Music, but there is now offline support for Spotify subscribers, so you can transfer playlists and listen without your phone to hand.

I’ve also noticed lately that the podcast support has become more reliable when using the native app. The shows I select to update automatically on the watch when charging are reliably downloaded to the watch, which has not always been the case in the past.

The range of complications available for the various watch faces also means that you can get a lot of the information you want at a glance, and the latest software update allows you to set multiple timers at once. A small improvement, but one which comes into its own when cooking.

Battery Life

Despite the larger screen, the battery life of the Series 7 matches the Series 6 at 18 hours, and the Series 7 charges 33% faster than the Series 6. It can go from 0 to 80% in 45 minutes, and an eight-minute charge will net enough juice for eight hours of sleep tracking, so you can use that feature even if you find your watch is dead when you’re about to turn in.

You’ll need to use the new charging cable to get these benefits. The Series 7’s charger has a silver casing to mark it out from past versions and it plugs into a USB-C wall adapter. You can still charge the watch with an old cable, but it won’t get the fast charge.

After trying a few nights of sleep tracking with the watch I quickly returned to my usual habit of charging the Apple Watch overnight. It’s just too much of a hassle to find a time to charge the watch in the day every day, so I’d rather skip the mediocre sleep tracking and have it last through the day reliably. Even when doing long runs with the watch in the day using music and the always-on screen, I found that I’d have around 20-30% of battery left at bedtime.

Buy from Apple | From £369

Both the Apple Watch Series 8 and Apple Watch Ultra are among the best fitness smartwatches available, and that’s true even if you never download a single third-party app to them. The native sports tracking on the watches was upgraded considerably with watchOS 9 and this applies to all versions of the Apple Watch dating back to the Series 4.

However, adding some of the best fitness apps to the Apple Watch still improves it greatly. Indeed, access to the App Store is perhaps the main feature that makes the watch stand out from its competitors. So don’t miss out – here are the best fitness apps for the Apple Watch that you should consider.

The Best Apple Watch Fitness Apps

Fitness+ is one of the best guided workout apps and if you have an Apple Watch then it’s certainly worth giving the free one-month trial a whirl. The app contains a range of training types, including strength and HIIT sessions, yoga, and workouts you can do on cardio equipment like treadmills and exercise bikes if you have access to one. It works seamlessly with the Apple Watch, so you can start, pause and end workouts from the watch, and your heart rate and calorie stats are taken from the watch and shown on-screen during workouts. The Fitness+ service is contained within the native Fitness app, so you don’t need to download anything new to use it – just sign up for the service.

Read more in our Apple Fitness+ review

If you love the smart features on your Apple Watch but wish it had the functionality of a sports watch, WorkOutDoors will make any regrets you had over choosing Apple disappear. The app transforms your Apple Watch into a proper sports watch at a stroke. The only things missing are an always-on screen (though this could be coming through an update, since Apple now allows third-party apps to use it) and the beefier battery life of a Garmin.

If you’ve been diagnosed with a chronic condition or are returning to exercise after a long sedentary period, and you aren’t sure how to start working out safely, EXi is the solution to all your exercise-related problems. This NHS-recommended app has been created by a team of medical experts and will generate a free personalised 12-week training programme for you based on your fitness level and any medical conditions you have. This programme will automatically take into account the medical guidelines for your condition, so you can be confident you’re not taking any unnecessary risks.

The smartphone app is great for everyone, but a dedicated app means it’s even better for Apple Watch owners. The device will guide you through the workouts in your plan, making sure you’re working at the right intensity using your heart rate. As well as giving you visual feedback on your heart rate on the screen, the app provides haptic feedback that alerts you if you’re in the wrong effort zone.

Adding this app to your watch is a no-brainer, since it’s free and could save your bacon if you find yourself in trouble in the great outdoors. What3words divides the world up into 57 trillion 3m squares, each of which has a unique three-word code assigned to it. If you’re lost or hurt and can’t see a landmark that will help describe your position, then simply giving the three-word code for your location will help your contacts or the emergency services find you. The app is used by over 85% of the UK’s emergency services, including 100% of ambulance services. The watch app will show your current location and code when you open it up, and you can also use a voice search to find other people using it.

It’s the biggest and best diet-tracking app around, and MyFitnessPal’s watch app provides the info on how many calories you have left for the day, and breaks them down by protein, carbs and fats. It also tracks your step count and tells you how many calories you’ve earned by pounding the pavements.

The king of bodyweight exercise apps, Sworkit builds workouts for you to follow based on four different categories – strength, cardio, yoga or stretching. You can also choose which part of the body you want to focus your workout on, or opt for a full-body session, and set how long you want to exercise for.

The instructions on the phone app are good, but it’s even better to have them beamed to your smartwatch, which displays what you’re meant to be doing and buzzes when you need to switch up your exercise.

If you’ve opted for the Nike version of the Apple Watch then this popular running app is baked into it, but even if you have the regular Apple Watch, runners of all stripes should give the Nike Run Club a try.

The clear interface excels on the small screen, showing all the info you need about your run, but it’s the added extras – particularly the guided runs – that make Nike Run Club stand out. You can do training sessions where elite athletes like Eliud Kipchoge or Mo Farah talk you through the intervals, or relax with runs produced in partnership with mindfulness app Headspace.

This popular mindfulness app is full of guided meditation sessions that can help you relax and get to sleep. Having Headspace on your wrist is often even more useful than having it on your phone, because you can fire up a quick session to help you take a moment on, say, a busy train. The app also contains guided mindfulness sessions to do when walking or running, when having it on the watch is very handy.

There are several great couch-to-5K apps available on the Apple Watch, with WatchTo5K being a strong low-cost option, but if you find that programme too challenging then None To Run is a fantastic alternative that tweaks the approach to give beginners a shot at getting into running. 

The 12-week programme advances slowly and focuses on running for time, rather than completing a set distance, and it also includes strength workouts which can help you avoid injury as you start to exercise more frequently. The first week of the plan in the app is free, but from then on it costs $5.99/£5.99 a month, though you can also get the complete plan for free on the None To Run website.

Find out more about the None To Run running app

The native Workout app does not offer any integration with Apple’s navigation features, but Footpath is one app that steps into the breach to offer route-planning features to runners, hikers and cyclists. You can easily create routes in the partner app by drawing them on a map, then sending them to the watch to follow. The free version of the app will get you from A to B with a trail overlaid on a map, and you can upgrade to the Elite version to get turn-by-turn directions and more detailed maps.

Golfers are well served by this excellent app, which allows you to track your score across a round and provides distance to the front, middle and back of the green throughout each hole you play. The app also lets you note down how many putts you hit on each hole and whether you landed on the fairway with your drive, so you can pore over the stats at the end of your round.

Gymaholic provides a selection of workout plans for all abilities, and you can also create your own from the vast library of exercises, each of which comes with a visual guide showing how to do it correctly and which muscles it targets. You can see this on the Apple Watch during your workout, and there is also a short text description to help you ensure you’re doing the move correctly. The level of detail provided by the app is fantastic and keen gym-goers will spend many a happy hour diving into their stats and planning workouts.

For those keen to take to the yoga mat, but not quite ready to do so under the scrutiny of a group class, this app can be your guru instead. Over 200 different poses are explained and used in 27 different sessions, and having the images on your wrist as well as your phone means you can keep an eye on the guide no matter what contorted position you end up in.

I have tested every generation of the Apple Watch, from the original to the Apple Watch Ultra, and if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s not to underestimate the importance of a top-notch strap.

What makes it top-notch will differ from person to person and depend on the occasion. Some will prefer stylish options that suit the office or a night out, while others will focus on comfort and how suitable the strap is for the rigors of an active lifestyle. I lean towards the sportier options myself, but I’ve also tested and enjoyed smarter straps.

Apple has an extensive selection of excellent straps, and you can shop entirely within that range and never exhaust the options available—but if you’re looking for alternatives, especially cheaper ones, there are many companies making appealing options. Committed bargain hunters should also try their luck on eBay, where surprisingly good options are available for a small fraction of the cost you’ll be charged elsewhere.

How I Test Apple Watch Straps

I’ve reviewed every Apple Watch to date and wear them regularly outside testing as well. I run almost every day and use a range of straps throughout the week, swapping between comfortable and stylish ones when not exercising, and sportier options when I am working out. I’ve used a variety of Apple’s own straps along with third-party options from a range of companies. 

The Best Apple Watch Straps

All the bands here are compatible with any Apple Watch from Series 4 onwards (and some with earlier models). Note that 41mm straps work with 40mm and 41mm cases and 45mm straps work with 44mm, 45mm and 49mm cases. I’ve specified the lengths available because sometimes the bands won’t fit people with thin wrists, which irks me as a skinny-wristed man.

No matter how many straps I collect, the classic Sport Loop is the one I wear the most often. The looped nylon design fits every wrist comfortably, and it’s easy to adjust the length when you need it tighter for sports. There are plenty of color options, with more designs added to Apple’s range all the time, and it’s one of the cheaper options from Apple as well.

The downside of the strap is that it takes longer to dry after a wash than a silicone band, and I do find if I wear the Sport Loop for all my workouts, washing it afterwards, then the band tends to become a little shabby over time. However, it still lasts a long time even if you wear it at all times, and it’s more comfortable than a silicone band.

The Watch Strap Company makes several excellent leather straps for the Apple Watch, and currently offers free shipping worldwide. The Oxford band is a simple, smart buckle strap that comes in eight colors, with straps available for every generation and size of the Apple Watch. I found that it took a few days to “break in”, but after that it was comfortable and fit snugly even against my thin wrist. It’s not a sporty strap, but other than that it’s a great pick for those who want the look and feel of a classic leather band with a buckle.

The Apple Watch Ultra launched with three new bands from Apple, of which the Trail Loop is the stand-out option. The nylon weave band is soft and comfortable to wear at all times, and it’s easy to adjust the length if you need it tighter for sports. I find the pull-tab on the end a little ugly and would like to see some brighter colors in the range, and over time it’s easy to get the beige band dirty in particular. However, it’s more comfortable than the Ocean Band, and less fiddly than the Alpine Loop, both of which also launched with the Ultra.

Komo Bands is one of the best third-party strap providers and has a range that comes in significantly cheaper than Apple’s equivalents while still being of good quality and offering lots of choice. That’s particularly true of the woven band, given that Apple’s own Braided Solo Loop is $99/£99. The range of sizes isn’t as extensive as you’ll find with Apple’s Solo straps, but with four options for both Apple Watch case sizes you should still be able to achieve a tight but comfortable fit, which is crucial with the buckle-free design. If in doubt, opt for a smaller size because it’s better for the stretchy band to feel tight at first since it will loosen a little over time.

The original silicone band’s comfort and versatility is still hard to beat. It comes in a wide range of colors, fits most wrist sizes, is great for sports and, depending on your color choice, is discreet enough to wear when not exercising. Plus, it’s relatively cheap when compared with Apple’s other bands. While I’ve always found the Sport Band comfortable even when it’s hot, there’s also a Nike version with holes throughout the strap for extra breathability if you’re concerned about sweat building up beneath the silicone. Having tried a few third-party silicone bands, I’ve yet to find one that matches the comfort of Apple’s own band, so it’s worth the extra outlay for the real deal.

Another great leather option from the Watch Strap Company, this looped band is easy to adjust and the supple material fits comfortably against the skin. There are bands available for every generation and size of the Apple Watch, but I found that the band was a bit long for me, so it’s one to avoid if you have smaller wrists. This looped style matches up to an old leather option from Apple that I think is more stylish than the new Leather Link band.

This is one of the most popular Apple options and it’s not hard to see why. The Milanese strap is gorgeous, easy to adjust and suitable for all social occasions, though it’s not one to use when exercising. Apple’s own Milanese bands are better-looking than third-party alternatives I’ve come across, but you can get a wider range of colors by looking elsewhere, since Apple only has three—silver, gold and graphite. 

I use the larger Apple Watch case and because the minimum strap length is 150mm, the compatible Milanese band is a little long for my wrist, so that’s something to bear in mind if you also have skinny wrists.

The key addition to the Apple Watch Series 5 was the always-on screen, which significantly improved the quality of experience when using the watch, especially when tracking sports. The upgrades to the Series 6 are low-key in comparison, but it is brighter, a little faster, slightly cheaper and can now measure your blood oxygen saturation. All useful updates that help the Apple Watch retain its crown as the best smartwatch available.

Tracking Activity With The Apple Watch Series 6

I don’t find the everyday activity tracking goals on most devices especially compelling. I run almost everyday and my fitness goals lie in bringing my times down rather than notching 10,000 steps each day. However, the Apple Watch’s ring system draws me in every time I use it. I have to fill those rings, and if needs be I will walk up and down stairs at 10pm to make sure I do.

There are three rings to fill. The red one is an active calorie target, set at 500 as standard, but if you hit the target every day for a week the watch will suggest that you increase it. The green ring is active minutes, with an adjustable target set to 30 a day as standard. The blue ring is active hours – you have to be active at some point every hour for 12 hours in total to fill it (you can reduce this target, but not increase it). You’ll be alerted at ten to the hour if you’re going to miss this, which works well as an inactivity alert.

There’s nothing hugely groundbreaking about this system, but it’s effective for monitoring and stimulating your general activity. For anyone who lives a mostly sedentary life, the active calories and minutes goals should help to get you moving each day, while the already active will still find motivation in the active hours goal. It’s not a great idea to do one big sports session each day then sit for the rest of it, something I’ve often found myself guilty of during the COVID-19 pandemic when I’m mostly at home.

Filling your rings might not be enough to help you lose weight or push your fitness to greater heights if you’re already very sporty, but it will encourage you to move each and every day.

Running With The Apple Watch Series 6

Casual runners will get everything they need from the native Workout app on the Apple Watch, which during a run displays the key stats like time, distance, pace and cadence (steps per minute). The always-on screen is brighter on the Series 6 so you can see those stats easily without turning your wrist to properly wake the device, even when outside.

The accuracy is impressive too. The heart rate monitor is excellent and one of the best I’ve come across in a watch. It’s not infallible, but I like that instead of displaying obviously incorrect readings, it stops showing your heart rate when it can’t get a fix on it, then comes back when it does. Compared with readings from a chest strap during runs, the Apple Watch was generally within a couple of beats, and even on interval runs it would rise and fall pretty closely in line with the strap, lagging less than other watches. It’s still not as accurate as a chest strap, mind, and once on a long run it couldn’t find my heart rate for about an hour.

Most importantly, Apple has finally sorted the GPS accuracy on the watch. I found that all the past editions of the Apple Watch “smoothed” routes, perhaps to save battery by taking GPS readings less frequently, which often meant cutting corners and shortening the distance recorded. I’ve not found this to be the case with the Series 6, which has matched up pretty well to my reliable Garmin watch on most of my runs, though it did struggle on a track session, cutting one or two laps well short. Outside of the track the only difference came in the first kilometre, perhaps because the Apple Watch has no indicator of whether it has a GPS fix – you just start your run and go.

Another notable improvement is that you can export your runs and other activities recorded in the native Workout app to Strava without having to use a third-party app. This took way too long to happen, but I’m glad it has.

All of the above makes the Apple Watch a solid option for casual runners, but as a very committed runner it falls short of what I’d need. That starts with basics like not having standard stats like lap pace and distance available. The rolling pace on offer is a fairly pointless stat in comparison.

The lack of a physical lap button is also a pain. You can double-tap the screen, but a touchscreen is never as reliably responsive as a button, especially if you’re sweaty or it’s raining. You also can’t set up structured workouts, even simple interval ones, and have the watch guide you through them.

In the Apple Watch’s defence there are apps that offer these features, but none can use the always-on screen, which means I’d rather use the native app so I can see my stats more easily.

As such, I wouldn’t use the Apple Watch Series 6 as my running watch and I think any keen runner would get annoyed with it – unless they were happy without an always-on screen, in which case an app like iSmoothRun will all but turn the watch into a bona fide running watch at a stroke.

Working Out With The Apple Watch Series 6

There is no shortage of sports modes in the native Workout app, though in general all you’re really getting is time, heart rate and calories burned. The key exceptions are running, cycling and swimming, which use the GPS for stats like pace and speed, or lengths, and swimmers will also get automatic stroke recognition in the breakdown of their session.

Again, the App Store is laden with apps to improve the training experience. There are hundreds of guided workout apps for every kind of sport, whether you want strength sessions, yoga, or guided runs and swims.

You can get guided workouts on many sports watches now, and some Garmin and Polar devices will recommend workouts based on your fitness and recent training load, although nothing else gets close to what’s available on the App Store. But once more, these apps can’t use the always-on screen so you’ll have to turn your wrist to activate the screen and see the instructions. Not always easy during strength and yoga sessions.

The Apple Watch Series 6’s Heath Features

The marquee new feature on the Apple Watch Series 6 is an SpO2 sensor that can measure your blood oxygen saturation. It’s a sensor that has been on Garmin sports watches, among others, for some time and to be honest it’s rarely been much use unless you’re at altitude where there’s a lack of oxygen.

However, in 2020 blood oxygen saturation has become more relevant owing to the COVID-19 pandemic. If you’re experiencing symptoms doctors will use a finger SpO2 monitor to determine how serious your condition could be and whether you need to go to hospital. (No-one should be making those decisions based on a smartwatch’s readings of course, and nor does Apple advise you to.)

The test is done by opening up the Blood O2 app and clicking start. You then get a nice animation during the 15 seconds it takes to get a reading. After that, assuming you get a normal reading, you’ll probably forget all about it for a few weeks, as I always have done with SpO2 sensors on other watches.

Like the past two Apple Watches, the Series 6 can take a 30-second ECG measurement using Apple’s dedicated app. This can detect atrial fibrillation – an irregular heartbeat. The watch can be set to check periodically whether your heart rate is irregular, and it will notify you when your heart rate is abnormally low or high. If you’re regularly getting alerts, it’s worth seeing a doctor.

A new feature with the latest watchOS update is a handwashing timer that you can set to kick in automatically when the watch detects that you are washing your hands (or the dishes, in my experience). This will count down from 20 seconds to make sure you’re doing a proper job, and has shamed me back to the sink on a few occasions.

The Series 6 also has a noise monitor to alert you to exposure to noise levels of over 90 decibels for an extended period. There’s also menstrual health tracking features which will predict your next period and fertility window.

Sleep Tracking With The Apple Watch Series 6

After years of ignoring sleep tracking, Apple introduced it via a software update this autumn. It wasn’t worth the wait. All you get is sleep duration with a graph that marks disturbances. You can also see a trend in how much you’ve slept in the past seven days compared with the seven before that. That’s it.

This is miles behind the depth of detail you get from other brands like Fitbit, Huawei, Polar and Withings. As of now, the sleep tracking on the Apple Watch isn’t really worth the hassle it creates by forcing you to find more time to charge it each day. Speaking of which…

Battery Life On The Apple Watch Series 6

The Apple Watch will easily last you a full day and night of use. I’d wear it until 8pm, charge it, then put it back on just before I went to sleep at 10-11pm. Usually I’d have 40% or more battery left, and even on days where I had logged a long outdoor run I’d have over 30% left.

However, this routine is not as convenient as charging it overnight, as I did when the Apple Watch didn’t have sleep tracking. Now, if I’m out in the evening, I have to remember to charge the watch earlier in the day to make sure it lasts the night. It only takes an hour to get it to 80%, which helps, but if you’re on the move a lot finding even an hour might prove tricky.

Admittedly, during the pandemic I’m out a lot less, but when the world returns to normal I’d revert to charging the watch each night and forgo the basic sleep tracking.

The Apple Watch Series 6’s Smartwatch Features

The Apple Watch is the most useful wearable I’ve ever worn. If you opt for the version with cellular connectivity then being away from your phone and staying in touch with the world becomes possible. It’s especially useful for those who like to run and cycle without a phone but want to be contactable in case of an emergency.

Apple Pay is very handy, especially compared with the limited NFC payment options on Fitbit and Garmin, which have only managed to partner with one high street UK bank. Apple Wallet is also useful for storing plane and train tickets, and supermarket loyalty cards.

However, the way music and podcasts are managed on the watch remains a source of frustration. The Apple Watch automatically syncs select audio from your phone when charging and with music you can select what to transfer, but with podcasts you can’t select episodes. It either takes from the Up Next section or you select shows you want and it will attempt to add the most recent three episodes. Attempt is the operative word, since it’s not reliable. It seems a very basic thing to fix, but it’s been an issue since Apple added podcasts to the watch, so I’m not holding my breath.

For music streaming, unsurprisingly Apple Music users will get the most from the watch. Spotify users can only control the app on their phone using the Apple Watch, which is a shame because on Garmin and Samsung wearables you can sync Spotify playlists across to listen to offline.

Apple Watch Series 6 Design

It’s a very smart bit of kit, and there are endless ways to customise it with either the material used for the watch itself or the straps available. With the Series 6, Apple has introduced red and blue watches, as well as silicone and braided solo loops that you can slip onto your wrist, rather than having to fasten them.

Is The Apple Watch 6 Worth It?

If you’re an iPhone user the Apple Watch Series 6 is clearly the best smartwatch you can get. If you’re an Android user then it offers you absolutely nothing at all, so do get something else.

Apple has muddied the waters for iPhone users a little by releasing the Apple Watch SE (from £269), sitting between the Series 3 and the Series 6 in terms of price and features.

The SE and Series 3 (from £199) doesn’t have an always-on screen option, and the Series 3 carries Apple’s older and far less accurate heart rate sensor. Neither of the cheaper watches can perform ECG scans or blood oxygen saturation measurements.

The SE and 3 also suffer from the GPS problems that seem to have been fixed in the Series 6, which will affect runners most of all. I’d say the always-on screen is worth the extra cost alone if you’re going to use the Apple Watch to track sports, but if you’re happy with raise-to-wake, the SE covers the other everyday essentials on the watch.

Outside of smartwatches, the Apple Watch falls short of the sports performance you get from cheaper dedicated watches like Garmin’s Forerunner range. If you’re a keen runner or triathlete, you’ll probably end up frustrated with the limitations of Apple’s native sports tracking. Although there are excellent third-party tracking apps available, you can’t use the always-on screen with these and the battery life is still poor, so I’d recommend getting a sports watch instead.

Apple normally announces the next iteration of the Apple Watch at this time of the year… but this time it’s announced two! The Series 6 is the expected upgrade, but there’s also the Apple Watch SE, which removes a few of the more advanced features to lower the price to a starting point of £269 (£299 for the larger size). Both are able to pre-order now and ship on Friday 18th September. Apple has also announced Apple Fitness+, an on-demand workout service that will sync live with Apple Watches. Here’s what you need to know about each one.

Apple Watch Series 6

The headline improvement for the Series 6 is the addition of a SpO2 monitor, which will keep track of your blood oxygen saturation. This is a reasonably common bit of hardware, originally packaged into adventurous Garmin watches to help mountaineers see how they’re acclimatising to altitude. We’ve since seen it in Fitbit smartwatches (the company just released a new watch face to highlight this feature) and Withings devices.

The feature is lacking a clear-cut benefit as yet. Fitbit has long discussed it in relation to sleep apnea, while Apple announced its participation in academic studies to look at its application to managing asthma, the relationship to heart trouble and whether it can be used to give an early-warning signal of respiratory illnesses like COVID-19. Like the Apple Watch ECG feature, it’s worth having in case it comes up with a reading that suggests you should investigate further with your GP – but for most people the reading will be, and stay, in a totally normal range.

The trick Apple will need to pull off is minimising the effect of this hardware on battery life (we normally turn the feature off on our personal Garmin devices to preserve the battery). This will be crucial, especially as the Series 6 will ship with watchOS 7 which includes native sleep tracking for the first time. New chips and processors should help in this regard, with Apple quoting an “all-day 18-hour battery life”.

Buy Apple Watch Series 6 from Apple | From £379

Apple Watch SE

We do like a deal, so we’ve been recommending the Apple Watch 3 since it had its price permanently slashed to £199. Its only failing was a somewhat shaky heart rate monitor, but even with that caveat it was head and shoulders above the competition among fitness smartwatches under £200.

So we’re all over the new Apple Watch SE, which includes the fundamental hardware we really want and runs on the same watchOS 7 as the Series 6. It also performs faster than the Series 3 and has a 30% larger screen. The SE costs closer to £300, but our inclination is to say it’s worth paying more for a faster watch.

As to whether we’d recommend paying an extra £100 for the Series 6 to get the electrocardiogram and blood oxygen features, that’s a trickier question to answer – complicated further by the price reductions we’d expect on the Series 4 and 5. We’ll say one thing: you won’t be lacking for choice.

Buy Apple Watch SE from Apple | From £269

Apple Fitness+

Call us jaded, but we’ve come to expect Apple Watch upgrades, and the SE repeats the move Apple made previously with iPhones. But Fitness+ made us prick up our ears. Like Fitbit Premium, it’s an add-on subscription service, but in Apple’s case it’s focused on delivering unique workout content, with cycling, treadmill, rowing, HIIT, strength, yoga, dance, core and mindful cooldown sessions covered.

It looks like Apple has a huge advantage here because it can call on its production experience with Apple TV+ to create glossy, high-quality videos to rival the type you’ll find in the Peloton app, but in a wider range and with new workouts added weekly. With its Apple Music credentials we’d also expect Apple to make good on its promise to soundtrack the workouts with music from “renowned artists”.

Fitness+ will suggest workouts based on what you’ve done before, as well as options meant to round out your training. Whether it will take into account how well rested you are, as Polar and the new Garmin Forerunner 745 do, remains to be seen.

Once you choose a workout to stream on your TV, tablet or phone, your Apple Watch will start tracking your session automatically so you can see your heart rate, calorie burn or any other metric available. It’s a simple trick, and one we’ve been disappointed to see that Fitbit Premium can’t manage, but then Fitbit doesn’t make the phone you use the device with as well. Perhaps if Google’s purchase of Fitbit is finally approved we’ll see a similar level of integration there.

Fitness+ looks to be a slick, well-thought-through experience and it will also sync up with some cardio machines that are Apple GymKit-enabled. The service will cost £9.99 a month, which is competitive for this type of service (Fitbit Premium is £7.99 a month, Peloton £12.99 a month and the Fiit workout app £20 a month).

When it launches later this year there will be a free month’s trial for everyone, as well as a three-month trial for Apple Watch owners. It will also be bundled into the £30-a-month Apple One subscription, which includes Apple Music, TV+, News+, Arcade and iCloud.

Sign up to be notified when Apple Fitness+ launches

In our eyes the Apple Watch is the undisputed champion of fitness smartwatches, combining genuinely useful smart features with accurate heart rate and GPS tracking hardware. The one glaring omission in its suite of features, compared with virtually every other health wearable, is sleep tracking – perhaps because the Apple Watch’s battery life hasn’t been up to the task of handling heavy use during the day and night.

That’s all set to change in the autumn once the new Apple Watch operating system, watchOS 7, is released as an update to the Apple Watch series 3, 4 and 5. Along with sleep tracking this will bring enhancements to watch faces, more workout types to choose from, cycling directions, and a way to monitor your headphone use to protect your hearing. There will also be hand-washing tracking to make sure you scrub for a full 20 seconds.

The sleep tracking, while welcome, looks surprisingly basic, reporting only the time in bed spent asleep and awake. Apple says it measures these using the device’s accelerometer, so we assume Apple has disabled the heart rate monitor to conserve the battery. That would explain why the feature doesn’t stack up to rival fitness brands. The heart rate monitor is what Fitbit uses to provide details on the sleep stages of REM, light or deep sleep, while Polar uses it to measure heart rate variability which informs its data about how well your autonomic nervous system has recovered.

The new watchOS does add features that help you go to bed and wake up at consistent times. Wind Down allows you to trigger apps or music at the same time every evening to help you relax, while haptic alarms where the watch vibrates gently can be set to gently rouse you from your slumber.

In another indication that Apple is concerned about battery life, the watch will notify you if the battery is too low to last the night in the hour before the device thinks you’ll be going to bed. It will also clearly display the state of the battery when you wake up.

The hand-washing feature, however, is a peerless offering. The Apple Watch will recognise sounds and movement to guess when you’re washing your hands and trigger a 20-second countdown.

It will also prompt you to go keep washing if you stop short of that recommended period, and you can set up reminders to wash your hands when you arrive home. Information on the frequency and duration of your hand washing will be displayed in the Health app on your iPhone if you want to prove to others you’re on top of your hygiene.

In the current watchOS, the Noise app keeps tabs on ambient sound to alert you if the volume is loud enough to affect your hearing. In watchOS 7, your use of headphones will be logged and you’ll be told if you exceed certain limits for both duration and volume (based on WHO recommendations) that might put your hearing at risk.

The ability to personalise and share watch faces, as well as the addition of dance workouts to the list of workout types, are banner updates in Apple’s eyes – but we’re more intrigued by the new ability of the Apple Watch to provide cycling directions.

Plotting routes for bikes, especially in major cities, is no easy feat. We’ve used some services that often put cyclists on major roads where back streets would be far preferable. It’s one of the first things we’ll try when watchOS 7 launches in the autumn because with more and more people cycling, a quick and convenient way to guide you through a city safely will be worth its weight in gold.

The Apple Watch is the most popular wearable in the world, and that’s in no small way because of its sports and activity tracking features. Strava, for its part, is one of the most popular activity sharing apps in the world. Considering those two facts, it’s been more than a little annoying not to be able to sync workouts tracked in the Apple Watch’s native Workout app to Strava directly.

There are workarounds. You can use another app to track your workouts on the watch that did sync to Strava. You can even use the Strava app. However, the Apple Watch’s native Workout app is better than most third-party sports apps available – for one, it can make use of the Series 5’s always-on screen, something third-party watch apps like Strava cannot. The other solution is to use the Workout app and then pay for a third-party app like RunGap or HealthFit, which could take the workout data and export it to Strava for you.

From now on, however, you can use that Workout app and sync it to Strava! That’s because Strava is now integrated with Apple’s HealthKit, which is where your workout data goes after you save it on the watch.

It is not, however, fuss-free. It requires more faff than with most wearables. If you save a workout on a Garmin, Polar or Fitbit device, for example, you can have it set up to automatically sync to Strava. With the Apple Watch you have to manually import that workout to your Strava profile each time, taking you a couple of extra clicks. Looking on the bright side, some people might prefer to have the option of sending everything to Strava or just some workouts.

You also have to set it up in the first place if you want to take advantage of the new integration – it won’t happen magically. First you need to go to your Strava profile on your iPhone, select Settings, then Applications, Services, and Devices, and then Connect with Health. Apple will then jump in asking you to confirm the set-up – tick all the categories there to complete the link.

Once you’ve done that, the workouts you have done in the past 30 days will show up automatically on your Strava profile, and you can select which ones you want to import in your Strava feed. Then, in future, you’ll get a notification from the Strava app when you save a workout so you can pop in and then import it to your feed.

The ability to sync workouts from the Apple Watch’s native app to Strava easily really should have been standard on the device from the off – like it is on almost every other wearable – but better late than never. Enjoy all that extra kudos coming your way on Strava!

If you just want the best Apple Watch, then buy the latest. The Series 5 costs £399 and is the first Apple Watch to have an always-on screen, and also has a far better heart rate monitor than the Series 3 and a bigger screen. Otherwise, though, you’re not missing out on much by going for the cheaper, older watch, which runs the same software – the recently-released watchOS 6.

The Apple Watch Series 3 fares well against the smartwatch competition at its £199 price. The Fitbit Versa 2 is the same price and doesn’t have built-in GPS or anything close to the range of apps available on the Apple App Store.

Garmin’s cheapest smartwatch is the Vivoactive 4 and that starts from £239.99 for the 4S, a version with a smaller screen, or £259.99 for the standard watch. As with Fitbit, Garmin’s smartwatches are nothing like as smart as the Apple Watch when it comes to apps or features like making contactless payments or keeping tickets to hand; on the other hand Garmin’s watches do outperform all Apple Watches when it comes to native sports tracking, offering more detailed stats and accuracy.

Like all Apple models, the Series 3 won’t work with an Android phone, but in contrast, Android devices will generally work with iPhones. However, the Apple Watch is demonstrably superior, even if WearOS devices weren’t limited in the features they offer when paired with an iPhone.

Using The Apple Watch Series 3 To Track Activity

Everyday fitness tracking has always been done superbly on the Apple Watch. Filling the three rings of health and fitness – Move, Exercise and Stand – is incredibly addictive. So addictive, in fact, that the day I broke my streak of hitting all three (due to a night out where clearly I didn’t dance as much as I should have) still sticks in my craw many months later.

The Move goal represents active calories, so not the ones you burn by simply sitting. You can set this to whatever target you like, with 500 calories the default, and the watch will suggest adjustments to your target at the start of each week depending on what you managed the previous week.

The Exercise goal, in contrast, is fixed at 30 minutes and the Stand target at 12 hours. You’ll get reminders to stand and move ten minutes before the end of an hour when you’ve been sedentary. Make sure you do – there’s nothing worse than smashing your Move and Exercise goals out of the park with a big run, then missing out on all three rings because you sat at your desk for the rest of the day.

Apple has now added smart coaching features to the rings system, where you’ll get various notifications to help you fill them. This could be an alert in the morning saying that you’d normally have made more progress on your rings by that time, or a message at the end of the day giving the details of what activity you’d still need to do to fill the rings. I tended to ignore these, because my burning desire to see all three rings filled needed no extra impetus.

The rings system is an excellent approach that’s well designed to motivate and engage. For my money, it’s the best everyday tracking system around.

Using The Apple Watch Series 3 For Running

The first decision you have to make as an Apple Watch-owning runner is which app you’re going to use. The native Workout app does a decent job of presenting the key stats – time, distance, current and average pace, heart rate, elevation and calories – but, crucially, won’t upload your workout to Strava or any other running app you might use. You can work around this with another app, RunGap, but it’s a faff.

Fortunately, there is a dedicated Strava app for the watch, and a Nike+ Run Club app, and a Runkeeper app. Indeed there’s pretty much every popular app you can think of, which is the Apple Watch’s great strength. Most of these just give the basic stats on your run as you go, but you can find apps that mimic the abilities of dedicated running watches. My favourite is iSmoothRun, which lets you create structured workouts to follow on the watch, as well as showing more in-depth running data fields like cadence and a ghost pace to race against.

One pretty big issue I had with the Apple Watch 3 was that I didn't find it’s GPS readings to be as accurate as on running watches. It can be as much as 500m out after 10K of running (sometimes much less, of course – this was the worst discrepancy I experienced). How much of a bother this is will vary from person to person. It really grinds my gears, but I am a very stat-obsessed runner.

You can see on the route map given in the Activity app after the run how much smoothing the Apple Watch has done. If you’ve been zigzagging through city streets your run can be shortened considerably because the route recorded will have you cutting corners and ploughing straight through buildings rather than running around them. All GPS trackers have this issue to some extent, but I found it more pronounced on the Apple Watch.

I also found that the heart rate readings jumped all over the place when I ran, especially when I stepped up the pace. While it’s not a problem that only Apple suffers – and you can solve the issue by pairing the watch with a chest strap – it does throw the calorie readings out of whack, not to mention giving you quite the scare when you glance down to see your heart rate is apparently 200bpm when you’re taking it easy.

The heart rate tended to settle down after the first mile or so, when it was usually very high, and from then on it would be reasonably accurate – within 5bpm of a chest strap – on steady runs at least. However, if I sped up suddenly it would jump off the scale again, or stop giving a reading entirely for long sections.

What the Apple Watch Series 3 does allow you to do that a dedicated fitness tracker doesn’t is to stay connected to the world without your phone, thanks to its cellular capability. If you have an EE sim (and only an EE sim for the moment) the watch will pick up on mobile networks and let you take calls, receive messages and emails, and stream music without your phone.

In my experience, this worked extremely well and the signal was strong. This is an especially useful tool if you run during your lunch hour, giving you a convenient way to see if you have any urgent emails and messages (whether you’re the type of runner who cuts your session short to deal with them is up to you).

Using the sim does hit battery hard and if you went for a whole day without your phone you might struggle to make bedtime without an extra charge. However, it’s ideal for popping out for an hour’s exercise without your phone , because the battery will still comfortably last until nightfall.

A major plus of the Apple Watch is that you don’t have to wait around for GPS to lock on at the start of a run – it’s always ready to go. You don’t get any alert to say GPS is recording, but you can start runs and cycles instantly, safe in the knowledge you’ll get a map of your route at the end.

One more quick note on running or doing any activity with the Apple Watch. If, like me, you dislike the fact you have to swipe and press on the touchscreen to pause an activity (which can be tricky with sweaty hands) there is a better way – press both of the buttons on the side at once to pause and restart your workout.

Using The Apple Watch Series 3 For Cycling

As with running you can pick between using the native Workout app or a third-party option for your cycle tracking on the Apple Watch. The display is again generally limited to key stats like distance and speed, and you can turn on an auto-pause feature.

When you complete a workout you can review the stats and a map of your route on the Activity iPhone app. To reiterate, you can’t sync this over to Strava or anywhere else without investing in another third-party app – something that Apple really needs to sort if it wants people to use the native app, because if it isn’t on Strava, did your ride even happen?

It’s a shame because I found that generally the native app was faster to load and smoother to use for running and cycling than third-party apps. You can also control your music through the app by swiping over from the main activity screen – that’s music on the watch itself or your phone – which is very handy.

However, you can turn to third-party apps on the watch, including Strava and Cyclemeter, for more in-depth stats and connectivity with other apps.

Using The Apple Watch Series 3 As A Heart Rate Monitor

Apple has expanded the heart rate tracking features on the watch with the release of watchOS 4, with all versions but the original Apple Watch getting an expanded heart rate app that shows a graph of your heart rate over the course of the day as well as your resting heart rate and average heart rate during walking. Resting heart rate is a good indicator of overall fitness, so it’s a particularly welcome addition.

Most of these are standard on many devices, but one more interesting new addition is the recovery heart rate feature. This shows how quickly your heart rate drops back to its normal rate after exercise, with a shorter recovery time an indication of good health. However, Apple could do with giving more detail on what a good recovery time is in the app.

Another new feature is elevated heart rate notifications, which will alert you if your heart rate hits an unexpected high point when you’re not exercising. You can set the threshold at which you’ll get an alert in the partner Watch app.

All these useful features are undermined a little by the inaccuracy of the heart rate monitor during exercise. While the Apple Watch was reliable in monitoring my heart rate during the day and mild activity like walking, as soon as I stepped up my effort level it struggled to get an accurate fix on my heart rate. If I was doing a HIIT session or an interval run based on heart rate zones, I found I had to link the watch with a chest strap sensor for reliable info.

Many wrist-based HR trackers have similar problems, of course, but I have found that Garmin, Fitbit and Polar’s recent wearables have all been at least consistently accurate enough to use, while the Apple Watch’s issues mean I would lean towards turning off heart rate tracking during exercise, because the extra battery life you get as a result is more useful.

RECOMMENDED: The Best Heart Rate Monitors

Using The Apple Watch Series 3 For Swimming

Apple’s swim tracking features have been beefed up with the release of watchOS 4, with the watch now counting sets automatically (essentially allowing you to pause for a breather without stopping and starting a new session) and recording distance for each stroke type you did in the pool.

You set the pool length at the start of a swimming session, then hit go and the watch automatically puts itself into waterproof mode. From then on you can pause the workout by pressing both side buttons at the same time – if you want to do anything else on the watch, you’ll have to take it out of waterproof mode by turning the digital crown.

The Apple Watch will count lengths automatically to give you a total distance and it will also attempt to break down distance swum by stroke type. I found it did both accurately, but occasionally got confused when I mixed up the strokes. That said, I was in a very small pool so turning frequently and my technique on each stroke is a long way from perfect (in fact, it’s terrible) which probably confused matters more.

If you opt for an outdoor swim you’ll get a GPS map of your workout, but the GPS can only take readings when the watch is out of the water, which has an unavoidable negative effect on accuracy.

Triathletes will also enjoy the new quick start workout feature, which allows you to stop one workout and start a new one immediately, changing the activity type along the way. Those activities will still be recorded separately, so it’s not exactly the equivalent of a triathlon mode, but it speeds up the transition between swimming, cycling and running.

As with running and cycling, there are third-party apps you can use to improve your swimming experience such as MySwimPro, which allows you to follow workouts in the water.

RECOMMENDED: The Best Waterproof Fitness Trackers For Swimmers

Using The Apple Watch Series 3 As A Smartwatch

There has been a slew of new fitness-focused smartwatches released of late, including the Fitbit Ionic and Garmin Vivoactive 3. While some might edge out the Apple Watch on fitness tracking capabilities, they fall short when it comes to smartwatch features.

The acid test of smartwatch is that you keep using it when the novelty wears off, and the Apple Watch smashes this test. I use it to board all TfL transport, pay for things at the supermarket and store my cinema tickets. I’m not confident enough to use the plane boarding pass feature, but you can do that too and there’s no reason to believe it doesn’t work perfectly.

The cellular features boost the Apple Watch’s smartwatch credentials because it can now act as a proper phone replacement for extended periods. Part of the reason for that is you can interact with notifications – reply to texts or delete emails, for example – which is something most other smartwatches simply don’t do. Basic notifications are useful, but if you then have to get your phone out to deal with them, you are still tethered to the phone.

One gripe I have always had with the Apple Watch is that there isn’t a native podcasts app for the watch – you can get around this with third-party apps, but shouldn’t have to. That gripe remains with the Series 3, but the Music app is much improved. Apple automatically syncs your most listened-to and recently added albums to the watch when it’s plugged in at night, which is useful because I tend to forget to put any new music on the thing and end up running to the same tracks every time.

Using The Apple Watch Series 3 For Sleep Tracking

There is no native sleep tracking on the Apple Watch and with good reason – you have to charge it every night. However, it you’re exceptionally keen on sleep tracking with the watch you could charge it in the day and use a third-party app at night. Auto Sleep is a good pick, as is Sleep++.

The Apple Health And Activity Apps

Apple’s Health app will round up all your activity stats from the day and it’s the best place to view your heart rate data. It will also give you a VO2 max estimation, and it’s impressive in sourcing data from a vast range of apps and devices, but its in-depth approach can be tough to navigate.

In contrast the Activity app is very simple to use, but leaves you a bit short in terms of data. You can see your recent workouts and your progress towards filling your activity rings, but the latter is easily done on the Watch itself and you get more info on individual runs in apps like Strava, which I suspect is where most people will view it.

You can also view achievement badges in the Activity app. Most are standard, like setting a new Move ring record or filling your rings every day in a week, but Apple occasionally offers special challenges. One example was the National Park Challenge, which involved completing a 5.6km workout – the distance of the Old Faithful to Mallard Lake hike in Yellowstone National Park – on a specific day. I like these one-off challenges a lot, but they’re not available regularly, which is a shame.

Battery Life

With light use the Watch can stretch to a couple of days, but it’s really best to charge it every night. Given the extensive feature set and bright screen on the watch, especially if you’re using it with cellular, GPS and heart rate tracking all on, it’s perhaps not surprising that it drains the battery quickly. But rival smartwatches from Fitbit, Garmin and others are now offering a few days of battery life. This is not only convenient, but allows you to track your sleep without having to charge the watch during the day.

Design

Depending on what strap you go for, the Apple Watch is fit for all occasions. I’m a huge fan of the sleek, square design, and the range of straps is excellent. The new sports loop is very comfortable and, to my surprise, dries quickly enough that you can use it for workouts without suffering soggy fabric on your wrist for the rest of the day. That said, I’d still recommend the full silicone strap for your sweatiest outings.

Apple Watch Series 5 In-Depth

As an extremely keen runner who exercises six days a week, I’m not usually all that concerned about my steps, active minutes or calories burned. Yet when I strap on an Apple Watch, I become obsessed with filling the rings every day, to the point where on my one rest day each week, I’ll be found walking up and down the stairs in my house at 7pm to make sure those suckers are closed.

The three rings represent active calories burned, active minutes and hourly movement. The only target you can adjust is the calories burned – the red ring. The default is 500 calories but at the start of each week the Watch will notify you how you did last week and suggest a new target if appropriate.

The green ring will fill if you’re active for 30 minutes each day, while the blue ring will fill if you move at some point in an hour for 12 hours in total. You’ll get an alert at ten minutes to the hour if you’ve been sedentary for the first 50 minutes of that hour, so you can go for a quick walk to keep your streak going.

Fill your rings every day and you can feel pretty confident that you’re doing a decent job of at least maintaining your fitness, even if you might need to do a bit more to lose weight or hit other, more strenuous goals.

The new Watch software – watchOS 6 – also includes a feature in the Health app that can identify trends in your activity. During the test I found I was taking fewer steps this month than last but was also earning more exercise minutes, a combo achieved by doing a little more cycling. This adds more depth to Apple’s everyday tracking, but it’s not all that engaging. All I really cared about was filling my rings each day.

Sleep tracking remains a glaring omission on the Watch, but until it has a battery life that lasts at least a couple of days it would simply raise the problem of when to charge it, especially has it takes two-and-a-half hours to go from empty to full.

How Often Am I Going To Have To Charge It?

Each and every night, and possibly during the day as well. The Series 5 is listed as having the same 18-hour battery life as the Series 4 but, while with the latter I found that to be a conservative estimate, when using the Series 5 there were days when I was perilously close to running out of juice before bedtime – no doubt down to the always-on screen.

That’s especially the case if you use the Watch for long outdoor activities where the GPS is running and if you use it to listen to music as well. A 30-minute run with music playing on the watch cost me 11% of battery, while a two-hour run with no music knocked 20% off.

Generally it’s not something you should be too concerned with – I generally ended the day with 20-25% of battery left, whereas with the Series 4 I frequently had 45-50% left. That’s a trade-off I’m more than happy to make for an always-on screen. However, if you have a marathon lined up, on race day you’d have to be very careful indeed not to run out of juice during the run.

Running With The Apple Watch Series 5

One of the strengths of the Apple Watch is that you can pick from a range of apps to track your runs, including Strava, Runkeeper and my usual favourite iSmoothRun, which makes the device more like a traditional running watch, with customisable screens where you can choose the stats you want to see.

However, since the always-on screen only works with the native Workout app, that’s the one I used. This meant I could see the key stats on my run – up to five of them – without having to deliberately turn my wrist to activate the display.

The Workout app is basic but satisfactory. Apple has added more running stats since the first Apple Watch, including cadence and rolling pace, which gives you the pace of your last mile or kilometre. However, it’s still missing some basics, including lap pace – the average pace of your current mile or kilometre – which is something I find much more useful when pacing my runs.

It’s a perennial gripe, but you still can’t sync your runs to Strava or anywhere else from the Workout app easily. You can use the RunGap app to pull the data and send it to third-party apps, but you have to buy that app and others like it and it’s a whole lot more faff than simply having a “sync to Strava” option in the Workout app.

During runs I found the heart rate tracking exceptionally accurate, even when doing interval sessions. The reading barely lagged and matched up closely with a chest strap, even in cold conditions when other watches I’ve tried have struggled.

However, the same isn’t the case with GPS accuracy if you leave the Watch linked to your phone during runs. I found it consistently underestimated the distance covered, and it’s easy to see why when you look at the map of your activity afterwards – the corners are rounded off considerably and if you make a 180° turn the Watch will often miss a section of your run entirely. On a 30km run where I only made six turns in total it shortened the run to 29.17km, and losing at least half a kilometre on a run was pretty much standard until I disconnected the Watch from my phone during runs. As soon as I did that, the GPS accuracy was fine, matching up well with a Garmin watch linked to a calibrated footpod. If you care about GPS accuracy, I’d say leave your phone behind or turn off the Watch’s Bluetooth so it can’t piggyback on your phone’s GPS.

Overall, the Apple Watch doesn’t match up with what you get from a dedicated running watch – it’s harder to use during a run and doesn’t provide as much detail. It does a good enough job of tracking the sport for most people, but especially keen runners should still go to a company with more pedigree in this field like Garmin, Coros or Polar for a dedicated sports watch.

Working Out With The Apple Watch Series 5

There are no shortage of sports modes in the Workout app, although whether you choose fitness gaming, hunting or the “other” mode too you’ll be tracking time, heart rate and calories burned. Only running, cycling, swimming and walking add sport-specific stats like distance, speed or pace, and lengths (if you’re in the pool). Swimmers also get a breakdown of their session that includes automatic stroke recognition.

To really get the most out of the Watch when it comes to working out you need to dive into the App Store, where you’ll find hundreds of excellent options. This is especially the case if you want guided workouts, with the likes of Sworkit, Seven and Gymaholic providing strength sessions, and Pocket Yoga providing a go-to option for yoga. Runners can also download apps like Eastnine and Nike+ Run Club to find guided sessions, while swimmers have MySwimPro for the same.

Garmin, Polar and Fitbit all now offer guided workouts natively on their devices, but none of them can match the breadth of what’s available on the App Store.

The Apple Watch Series 5’s Heath Features

As with the Series 4 Watch you can take an ECG measurement using the Series 5, which can detect atrial fibrillation – an irregular heartbeat. You can set the Watch to check for an irregular rhythm itself periodically and notify you if it detects it, or open the ECG app to take the test whenever you want to. The Watch will also notify you if it detects that your heart rate is abnormally high or low. If you’re getting regular alerts, especially relating to an irregular heartbeat, it’s worth visiting your GP.

Apple has also introduced menstrual health tracking and a noise monitor with watchOS 6. The former allows you to log periods, as well as predicting your next period and your fertile window. The noise monitor constantly checks the decibel level of your environment and notifies you when it goes above a dangerous level of 90 decibels for an extended period. I found this feature a bit of an eye-opener in terms of how loud the London Underground was, with the noise levels on the Victoria Line reaching above 90 or even 100 decibels at times.

The Apple Watch Series 5’s Smartwatch Features

The Apple Watch is the most useful smartwatch I’ve tried. That starts with Apple Pay, which is partnered with all major banks and credit cards. Compare that with Fitbit Pay and Garmin Pay, which can only be used with one high street bank, Santander, along with a few challenger banks and third-party providers.

You can also load music and podcasts on to the Watch wirelessly. I have problems with the way this is done for podcasts – the Watch takes episodes from your phone automatically, rather than letting you transfer exactly what you want, and it’s far from flawless in doing this so I often wouldn’t have the episode I wanted available without my phone nearby. However, podcasts are there most of the time, and the Watch will sync how far you get through one with the Podcasts apps on your phone and laptop, so you can pick up where you left off on a different device.

Unsurprisingly, for music it’s Apple Music users who will get the most from the Watch, since they can sync playlists to it easily. Spotify users have to be content with controlling their phone using the watch, which is a shame as you can sync Spotify playlists with Garmin and Samsung wearables.

Aside from the always-on screen, a built-in compass is perhaps the biggest addition to the Series 5, and it makes following directions on the Watch far easier. Instead of a simple blue dot you get a dot plus an indication of which direction you’re facing. It’s a helpful addition to an important feature – being able to ask Siri for directions quickly and follow them on your wrist is definitely handy.

You can also store tickets, check your emails, monitor the weather, see your upcoming appointments, use apps like Citymapper and a whole lot of other things on the Watch. If you get the cellular watch you can do all of this without your phone nearby too, and even stream music from Apple Music too.

Where Can I Wear It Without People Laughing At Me?

It’s the Apple Watch, people will know what it is, and if they’re laughing it’s not because it looks bad. Perhaps you have something in your teeth? Apple has reintroduced a white ceramic version of the Watch to the range, alongside the aluminium, stainless steel and titanium (pictured, below) models, with aluminium the cheapest. There’s also a greater choice of straps than ever, so you’ll always be able to find one to suit the occasion.

Is The Apple Watch Series 5 Worth It?

If you have an Android phone then the Apple Watch won’t work for you, so absolutely consider buying something else. For iPhone users, however, there’s no other smartwatch that’s close to as good as the Apple Watch Series 5, aside from other Apple Watches – you can get the Series 3 for £200 less than the Series 5 and that’s a saving worth considering. The Series 3 has a smaller screen with no always-on option and a far less accurate heart rate monitor, but otherwise matches up well with the Series 5 and it even runs the latest watchOS software.

I’d also say that keen runners and triathletes probably won’t be satisfied by the detail and quality of the sports tracking on the Apple Watch. While you won’t find better smart features and design anywhere else, you can get superior sports tracking from Garmin’s smartwatches like the Vivoactive 4 and upcoming Venu, which has a bright AMOLED screen that comes reasonably close to matching the Apple Watch’s.

The heart rate monitor on the Apple Watch Series 4 is one of the best we’ve tested for accuracy on a wrist wearable, but until now we’ve only been scratching the surface of the device’s potential when it comes to heart health.

That’s because one of the key features of the Series 4 – the ability to take an electrocardiogram (ECG) – wasn’t available outside the USA, where the watch is an FDA-approved medical device. Now, after clinical trials proving its accuracy, the Series 4 has got the CE certification mark for use in the European Economic Area, with the UK and 19 other European nations now set to get the feature, and the ECG app has been added to the watch.

To enable ECG measurements you’ll have to update both your iPhone and Apple Watch (Series 4 only) to the latest software. Then go into the Apple Health app to set it all up and you’ll get a prompt to take your first ECG measurement on the watch, which you do by holding your finger on the digital crown for 30 seconds while keeping your arm still.

You’ll get one of three results from the test – sinus rhythm, AFib or inconclusive. Sinus rhythm means everything is normal, while AFib stands for atrial fibrillation, which means your heartbeat is irregular. If you get that result a few times it’s time to check in with your doctor. Inconclusive could mean that your heart rate was either too low (under 50bpm) or too high (over 100bpm) to take a reading, or that the watch was too loose or your arm too unsteady.

• Apple Watch Series 4 Review – A Big Upgrade
• The Best Heart Rate Monitors
• The Symptoms Of Heart Disease You Shouldn’t Ignore

Doing these checks regularly will provide valuable insight into your heart health, but a better plan of action is to set the watch to take regular ECG measurements when your arm is still throughout the day to automatically check for signs of atrial fibrillation. If it detects AFib on a few occasions, you’ll get a notification.

During testing to get the CE mark the Apple Watch Series 4 was compared with a gold standard 12-lead ECG in clinical trials on around 600 people, and found to be 98.3% accurate in detecting AFib and 99.6% accurate in detecting sinus rhythm in classifiable recordings. Of the readings taken, 87.8% could be classified by the ECG app on the watch.

The Apple Watch is pretty damn accurate then, and even if you just do a couple of tests for the novelty it’s absolutely worth trying the ECG if you do have the latest version of the watch. According to the NHS, atrial fibrillation affects around one million people in the UK. It’s not usually life-threatening, but can be uncomfortable and it’s absolutely something you should see your doctor about to check if treatment is required. Being able to take an ECG so easily with the Apple Watch could be genuinely important in maintaining good heart health, and is almost certainly a sign of things to come in terms of more wearables becoming medically-approved devices.

Tracking Activity With The Apple Watch Series 4

Nothing has changed here from past Apple Watches, but when you have a system this good there’s no need to mess with it. There are three activity goals – Move, Exercise and Stand – and corresponding rings are filled as you progress towards completing each one. While I’ll happily ignore Fitbit and Garmin reminders to move, I always feel I’ve got to fill Apple’s rings.

The red Move ring represents your active calories – those burned through moving around and exercising – and it can be set to any value you like, with the standard being 500. At the start of each week the Watch will recommend a new goal based on the previous week’s activity.

The green Exercise ring fills when you complete 30 minutes of activity each day. That target is fixed, as is the 12-hour Stand goal, represented by the blue ring. The latter is the only goal you can’t hit just by working out that day, because you have to move around at some point within each hour to get a point towards your goal. You get reminders to move at ten minutes to the hour if you’ve been sedentary for the past 50 minutes.

If you need an extra nudge to make sure you fill your rings, Apple provides coaching tips throughout the day. These might be a suggestion of what activity you need to do to complete your rings, like a 15-minute walk, or a mild scolding that you are normally closer to filling your rings at that point of the day. You can also compete against fellow Apple Watch wearers over seven days to see who does the best job of filling their rings, if that’ll help motivate you.

The rings system is simple and very engaging, and you can add the rings to your watch face either as a small icon or a larger part of the dial itself to keep yourself motivated.

Running With The Apple Watch Series 4

The arrival of watchOS 5 brought some notable improvements for runners, including cadence (stride rate) and rolling pace stats. The latter is particularly useful, showing your pace over the last mile or kilometre. This is a more accurate way to gauge your pace than a current pace stat, because that tends to jump around a lot with GPS devices. You can also set a pace target and get alerts from the Watch if you’re running too fast or too slow.

Apple has also added auto recognition of runs so you don’t have to manually start a session – the Watch will detect that you are running and buzz at you to ask if you want to start tracking it. I found this usually kicked in between 500m and 1km into a run, with the distance you’ve already covered included when you respond to the prompt.

In addition, the Apple Watch will also alert you if you forget to stop tracking, so your average pace isn’t knocked out of whack because you sat down for five minutes before remembering to press the finish button.

However, these improvements are largely redundant for anyone who wants to sync their runs to another app like Strava, because Apple doesn’t make that easy. It can be done by faffing around with third-party apps like RunGap that can access the workout data and send it elsewhere, but this is a pain and can be costly.

While there are plenty of running apps available on the Apple Watch, including all the big-hitters like Strava, Nike+ Run Club and Runkeeper, these are still quite basic – you get key stats like distance, pace, time and heart rate, and not much else.

That’s fine for the casual runner, but if you’re looking for the features of a running watch – like customisable interval workouts and more detailed stats – the Apple Watch is a let-down. There are apps that do provide these features, like the impressive iSmoothRun, but the experience is still not as slick as using a Garmin Forerunner, for example.

Beyond that, one minor annoyance that has existed with every version of the Apple Watch remains – the lack of an always-on screen option. This means you have to raise your wrist towards your face or tap the screen to see your running stats, rather than just glancing down.

I also noticed that when I ran with my phone and the Apple Watch, the GPS tracking was not as accurate as when running with the watch alone. The Watch will piggyback off your phone’s GPS if it’s nearby and this tends to lead to excessive smoothing of your route – cutting corners through buildings and the like – with the result that your overall run is shorter. It’s not a huge issue, but worth noting if you’re building up for a race and trying to hit a certain pace with your training runs.

Working Out With The Apple Watch Series 4

There are more sports modes than ever before in the native Workouts app, with watchOS 5 bringing yoga and hiking options to the table. Other workout options include functional training, HIIT, all the usual cardio machines and table tennis (but no other racket sports). For most of these you get basic stats like time and calories burned. Presumably there are different algorithms at play behind the scenes that decide how many more calories table tennis burns than yoga, with your heart rate feeding in to them.

As mentioned above there is no basic intervals mode, which would be really useful for many, but just as with running you can solve this problem with a third-party app. There are amazing yoga (Pocket Yoga), gym (Gymaholic), and intervals (Intervals) apps that do far more than Apple’s Workouts app, so it’s worth researching the best apps for your preferred activity to upgrade your experience with the Watch.

There are also many apps out there that will guide you through workouts, which is a real strength of the Apple Watch. Sworkit and Seven are two such apps, with both providing the exercises you should do and how long you should do them for, with pictures on the watch screen showing the correct form for the exercise.

Other smart wearables offer similar features to the above: Fitbit has its own Fitbit Coach built into the Versa and Ionic smartwatches, and Wear OS devices have an impressive app store to tap into themselves. Still, I’d back Apple’s array of workout apps as the most varied and best integrated.

Heart Rate Tracking On The Apple Watch Series 4

The Apple Watch’s lack of accuracy with heart rate tracking during exercise has been a bugbear of mine with previous generations, to the point where I’d generally turn it off entirely, because I’ll take extra battery life over inaccurate data any day. However, with the Series 4 those problems seem to have been solved. The Watch tracked my heart rate reliably throughout a variety of workouts and throughout the day.

That’s particularly good news because Apple has introduced several new features, including alerts if your heart rate drops to an unusually low level, to go along with the existing alert if it rises to an unexpectedly high level when not exercising. These didn’t kick in for me at any point, thankfully, but the alerts could be a way to detect any irregularities with your heart rate that should be checked out.

One of the headline features of the new Watch is the ability to take an electrocardiogram through the new ECG app, but this is only currently available in the USA, where the Watch is an FDA-approved medical device. However, everyone gets access to the new fall detection feature, which uses the accelerometer and gyroscope in the watch to detect if you’ve taken a tumble. More than a tumble actually, a hard fall, which will hopefully avoid false positives because a fall brings up the option to call emergency services with a quick swipe, and the Watch will make the call automatically if you are unresponsive for 60 seconds as well as messaging your emergency contacts. The feature is off by default, but could literally be a lifesaver.

The Apple Watch also provides information on how quickly your heart rate returns to normal after you finish exercising, with a faster recovery rate being an indication of good health. It’s something to check occasionally in the Activity app to see if your fitness is improving, as is your resting heart rate, which is another solid indicator of your overall cardiovascular fitness.

RECOMMENDED: Best Heart Rate Monitors

Cycling With The Apple Watch Series 4

If not having an always-on face available for running is annoying, it’s downright infuriating for cycling, when a deliberate movement to lift your hand off the handlebars is all the more awkward. Aside from that extra irritation the Apple Watch’s cycling capabilities are similar to running, with the native Workouts app offering basic stats and an array of third-party apps like Strava and Cyclemeter providing more detail.

The Apple Watch does link with Bluetooth heart rate straps if you want to use one while on the bike, but it doesn’t connect to ANT+ sensors and also won’t connect to any kind of power or cadence sensors.

Swimming With The Apple Watch Series 4

Both indoor and outdoor swims are tracked on the Apple Watch, and with the latter the GPS is engaged so you get a map of your swim in the Activity app on your phone afterwards. With either type of swimming the Apple Watch will also log how many metres you swim for each different kind of stroke you use and break it down for you on the watch afterwards. I found this to be fairly accurate but not infallible, and that’s not just down to my amateurish swimming technique – I asked a proficient swimmer to try it and there were still some errors in recognising the stroke they used.

Once again there are some third-party apps to consider, including MySwimPro which you can use to set up workouts to follow while swimming, but the native swim tracking is done well on the Apple Watch.

There is also a multisport mode of sorts where you can choose to directly switch to another sport instead of just finishing your session in the Workouts app. It’s not equivalent to a traditional triathlon mode because the activities will be recorded separately and you don’t get transition times, but it’s handy if you’re in the gym switching between different type of exercise.

RECOMMENDED: Best Waterproof Fitness Trackers

Listening To Music And Podcasts On The Apple Watch Series 4

As someone who runs most days and almost exclusively listens to podcasts while running, I considered the lack of native support for podcasts on past Apple Watches borderline criminal. So I was delighted to see its inclusion in watchOS 5, which syncs your Apple Podcasts app library when it’s charging. Aside from one day when all my podcasts suddenly disappeared from the Watch after updating my phone, this worked flawlessly.

Music is a similarly painless experience. You mark down what you want transferred to your phone and it syncs across at night. You can also set it to automatically send over any music you’ve been listening to a lot on your phone.

Apple Music is integrated perfectly, as you would expect, but the Watch has no Spotify app. It’s also unlikely one will arrive given it’s a competitor to Apple Music. Garmin recently added Spotify support to its Fenix 5 Plus range and Samsung wearables also link with the popular streaming service. Apple Music is just as good, but if you’ve already assembled a vast Spotify library of playlists you may miss having access to them.

Sleep Tracking On The Apple Watch Series 4

Apple offers absolutely nothing on this front, rightly assuming the vast majority of people will be charging the Watch at night. However, if you’re happy to charge it in the day there are third-party sleep tracking apps you can use like Sleep++.

RECOMMENDED: Best Sleep Trackers

The Apple Watch Series 4’s Smartwatch Features

The Apple Watch continues to set the standard of what you want a smartwatch to do, which is to be genuinely useful. It has an incredible array of apps and displays a lot more information at a glance thanks to the new Infograph watch face. This takes advantage of the Series 4’s bigger screen to host eight complications, which show information like the date, weather or your daily activity, as well as quick links to those apps on the Watch.

Apple Pay is widely available and you can store tickets, check your email and use apps like Citymapper and Uber through the Watch. All this can be done without your phone anywhere nearby if you opt for the cellular version of the Apple Watch.

You can also use the Apple Watch as a Walkie Talkie with other people who have one. I never felt the need to do this, and I’m not really sold on it being anything other than a gimmick. Maybe if my wife or someone else in my close family had an Apple Watch it might be more useful, but I’m not ready for anyone nearby to start talking to me through a speaker on my wrist.

How Often Am I Going To Have To Charge It?

Every night. I never found that the Watch was struggling to get through a day’s use, even with a long run where I used it to listen to music or a podcast, but it doesn’t have enough juice to reliably make it through two days. Charging it every night next to my phone wasn’t really a problem, but a longer battery life would be more convenient especially when travelling, and it would make sleep tracking possible.

Where Can I Wear It Without People Laughing At Me?

The new larger screen and thinner body make this the most attractive Apple Watch yet, and the variety of bands means there is definitely one for all occasions. It’s a seriously good-looking Watch and there are some lovely new watch faces with different-coloured smokes and flames. I’m a big big fan of those.

Is The Apple Watch Series 4 Worth It?

If you have an iPhone, use Apple Music and want to track your activity, you’d be crazy not to buy this Watch. It’s gorgeous, useful, does a sterling job of tracking daily activity and a pretty good job of tracking sports. There are some great OS Wear smartwatches that are compatible with the iPhone, but they are nowhere near as well integrated as the Apple Watch.

If you are, however, an obsessive runner, cyclist or triathlete, you might be better served by something like the Garmin Fenix 5 Plus or Fitbit Ionic, which do a better job of sports tracking and still offer some smart features like music and notifications, even if the Garmin and Fitbit app stores are minuscule in comparison with Apple’s. However, the Fenix 5 Plus is also a lot more expensive than the Apple Watch at £599.99. If the Garmin Forerunner 645 Music gets Spotify support soon that might be a stronger competitor to the Apple Watch at £399.99, though you’d still be taking a big hit in terms of smartwatch functions.

While the Apple Watch Series 3 was the best version of Apple’s wearable yet and the best sporty smartwatch available (unless you use an Android phone, of course), it was far from the complete package when it comes to health and fitness. Some of the issues can’t be fixed by software tweaks alone, like the one-day battery life, but the introduction of watchOS 5 will improve the fitness tracking experience on the Apple Watch considerably.

The free software update will be released this autumn, but Apple has already announced what users can expect to see. Here are the most exciting features coming to the Apple Watch.

Automatic workout detection

Did you forget to start your workout on the watch? No problem – the device will recognise that you are training and alert you to start a workout, and even give you retrospective credit for the exercise you’ve done before the alert. The same goes for the end of a workout. If you sit down after a run without pressing stop (happens to all of us), the watch will alert you to end the session, so your average pace isn’t skewed by a stationary half-hour at your desk. And speaking of pace…

Running pace alerts

The Apple Watch will alert you if your pace is above or below a preset target pace on your runs. A rolling pace stat will be introduced as well which shows your pace over the last mile. This is very handy for those trying to maintain a certain pace and usually better to use than current pace, which is so jumpy on most wrist wearables that it’s relatively useless.

New sports modes

Dedicated yoga and hiking modes are coming to the watch, complete with dedicated algorithms for estimating calories burned and tracking active minutes.

Activity competitions

In the past you could link your Apple Watch with friends and see what activity they’d done, but soon you can compete with them, which is far more exciting. You compete over seven days with points earned for closing your Activity Rings.

Cadence stats for runners and walkers

Your cadence is how many steps you take per minute and it’s an important stat for runners in particular. Too low a cadence can be an indication you are over-striding and putting your body at risk of injury, so check out your stats when the new feature arrives – a cadence of around 180 is widely considered to be optimal.

Podcasts

The arrival of the Podcasts app on the Watch is a great and overdue addition for anyone who likes to listen to podcasts while they work out, because you will be able to leave your phone behind without restricting your entertainment to music.

This is a public service announcement for all you Apple Watch 3 owners currently ignoring the notifications gently suggesting you should update your software. It’s time to update your software, because you’re missing out on an excellent new feature.

GymKit has arrived to make indoor workout tracking more accurate, and it’s incredibly easy to use. One caveat is that it’s not available in very many locations, but you can expect it to spread like wildfire over the coming months.

It’s not an app – it’s just part of the operating system. That means with one tap on a GymKit-enabled piece of cardio equipment, your Apple Watch 3 is linked privately with that treadmill, exercise bike, elliptical or stepper with information beaming both ways.

Stats like distance and elevation climbed, which are nigh on impossible to measure accurately indoors on a wrist wearable, will fly over from the machine to the Apple Watch.

For its part, the Apple Watch will share stats like heart rate and active calories burned (as well as total calories). The Watch will also give the machine personal info like your weight, which is crucial for accurate calorie measurements (and which only the most committed gym-goers remember to set up before a workout).

You can tap your Apple Watch on the machine at any point during your workout and it will match with all the info on the machine. This is great for those who forget to start recording a workout on the watch when they start on the treadmill – the Watch will catch up instantly when you tap it on the machine and start recording.

Apple has done an admirable job of making GymKit easy to use – you really do just have to tap the Watch on the machine to get going. The only current downside is the limited availability of compatible machines. In the UK, GymKit-enabled equipment is currently only available in Virgin Active’s Mansion House club, although it is likely to be rolled out to other Virgin gyms in the near future.

However, as the tech is available on TechnoGym equipment and is expected to come soon to other major cardio machine manufacturers like Life Fitness and Matrix Fitness, you’d imagine GymKit will be available in most commercial gyms soon.

The first Apple Watch was an oasis in a desert of smartwatch mediocrity. It looked great, was packed with features and had a slew of health/fitness apps that worked with it when it launched in April 2015.

But Apple being Apple, it was obvious a new version would arrive this year with significant upgrades. Since its release in September, Coach has put it through its paces and it’s clear these upgrades are actually significant: built-in GPS and waterproofing.

The newest edition of the watch, the Apple Watch Nike+, features exclusive ventilated straps and faces that can take you straight to the running app. A huge campaign featuring Mo Farah and actor Kevin Hart has ensured this edition is probably the most famous running watch in the world already.

Coach has been a dedicated Apple Watch fan since day one, impressed by its fitness features and ability to go from sporty to smart with a quick change of strap. But the new version really shows what we were missing out on for the first year and a half of the product’s life.

Previously an argument could be made that it was the best smartwatch on the market, but you could find better sports watches – this is no longer true. The GPS and swimming (or let’s be honest, showering as well) functions, along with the noticeably improved screen brightness, mean this is a massive step up.

Run and Ride Phone-Free

GPS capability means this is now a serious running and cycling watch; you can go for a run or ride without your phone but still listen to music (nanny Coach suggests you don’t do this on a bike) and track your route. This can be done through the core Workout app or one of many dedicated apps upgraded for this watch iteration, such as Nike+ Run Club or Strava.

Previously third-party apps couldn’t access real-time heart-rate data, but this has now been added to ensure you get extra feedback while on a Nike+ run, for example. With the GPS running, the Apple Watch battery life drops to five hours, still ample for all but the longest of runs, but it could mean a day’s cycling is best tracked via a phone.

RECOMMENDED: 5 Of The Best Apple Watch Fitness Apps

A Watch For The Water

The waterproofing is even more impressive. There are a pair of problems most smartwatches like this come up against: water setting off the touch features of the face and water getting in through “essential” holes such as the speakers. Apple has solved the first problem by implementing a lock screen option. The latter issue was a bit more complicated but has been remedied by using the speakers to shoot out the water taken on.

If you’re swimming indoor lengths you’ll want to enter the distance of the pool and then you can let the watch figure out from your movement when you turn at each end. If you’re swimming outdoors, the watch will use GPS whenever your wrist comes out of the water during a stroke.

While the Apple Watch works as a great everyday fitness tracker that’s improved its fitness features with each generation, it’s still somewhat lacking when it comes to pure run tracking, especially when compared with a dedicated running watch. The GPS tracking is iffy, the native workout app doesn’t link to third-party apps like Strava, and you can’t create and follow customised workouts.

But, off course, the great strength of the Apple Watch is a huge app market, and you can solve most issues by downloading your favourite running app directly to the watch. Strava, Nike+ Run Club, Runkeeper and many others all have Apple Watch apps to use, although even they won’t match the full experience of a running watch. The only app I’ve found that comes close is iSmoothRun.

It’s not the most impressive-looking app, and it does cost £4.99, but if running is your main sport then iSmoothRun is a crucial addition to the Apple Watch.

One of iSmoothRun’s best features is its ability to counter the sometimes questionable GPS tracking on the Apple Watch by tracking it via both the watch and your phone, rather than the watch alone, when you start a run. When accuracy is key – during interval workouts or race pace runs, say – it’s great to have this option, while you can still just use the watch’s GPS and leave the phone behind for easy runs where accuracy is less important.

You can customise the two in-run display screens on iSmoothRun with six different running metrics, including advanced options like how far behind a preset ghost racer you are, your cadence, and a metronome to follow if you’re working on your stride rate. The app also displays which heart rate zone you are in via a series of lights on the bottom of the screen.

For those who like to create their own workouts, you can easily set up multi-step sessions in the phone app and follow them on the watch. During a run, you can also access Apple Maps directly at the click of a button, although in my experience the map rarely loaded quickly enough to be of use.

When not running, the watch app shows your overall weekly mileage and the distance you’ve covered in each of the past four weeks. Beaming your data over to other apps takes seconds, and you can also set it to upload automatically.

It’s still not as complete an experience as you’ll get with a dedicated running watch, but iSmoothRun is as close as you’ll get while also having all the smartwatch features offered by the Apple Watch.

£4.99, App Store, ismoothrun.com