Apple starts preorders for Watch Series 12, Ultra 4 with new Health Sensing System

Apple claims that the new wearables have the most accurate heart rate sensing in any wearable based on a study “on a diverse population of over 1,000 participants.”

The new Watches will also introduce “readiness” scores, which Apple says “analyze a user’s recent activity, training load, vitals, and sleep score to offer insight into their capacity for the day ahead” on a scale from 0 to 10. This score updates throughout the day based on the user’s activity.

Apple will update the iOS Health app later this year, allowing Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4 users to access a new “Health Age” score.

“The Health app also includes movement evaluations that measure flexibility, strength, balance, and more using vision-based AI models on iPhone and heart rate data from Apple Watch. Users will be able to schedule and purchase new labs that feature over 50 key biomarkers for $119 directly through the Health app at approximately 2,000 Quest Diagnostics locations in the US,” Apple said.

Apple Intelligence features

The Watch Ultra 4 comes in “natural” and “black titanium” colorways.

Credit: Apple

Apple is also incorporating more Apple Intelligence-based features into the new watches. These features include the ability to use the Shazam song detection feature, Live Rewind, which Apple said “shows the previous 15 seconds of a conversation as a text snippet” when users double-press the Digital Crown, and Siri Recap, which, per Apple, “can create high-level summaries of conversations that users can review later to jog their memory.”

Both watches are available for preorder today and will ship on September 18. The Watch Series 12 starts at $399, and the Ultra 4 starts at $799.