The tenth generation of the Apple Watch came and went without much fanfare last year, and the arrival of the Series 11 is similarly subdued. Not much appears to have changed with Apple’s smartwatch, with no redesign to be seen. Still, that isn’t to say the Apple Watch Series 11 is unimpressive or unexciting. It has new health-related features, improved durability, 5G connectivity, support for a wrist-flick gesture and, for the first time in years, the promise of longer battery life.
Editor's note (on September 19, 8:00AM ET): The Apple Watch Series 11 is now officially available in retail outlets, and those who have pre-ordered their devices will be receiving them starting today. As you make your decisions on whether or which of these you should buy, make sure to check out our reviews of the iPhone Air, the iPhone 17, the iPhone 17 Pro and Pro Max, as well as the AirPods Pro 3. We also published a closer look at the Apple Watch Ultra 3’s satellite connectivity feature, which has some impressions of what it’s like to use in real life.
The most noteworthy of these is Apple’s new hypertension alerts system, which only received FDA clearance last week soon after the “Awe dropping” launch event. It wasn't until early this week that I was able to test and set up the feature, which I did in the days after this review was published. That required making sure I had the latest version of iOS 26, going into the Health app, searching for the Heart section and looking for “hypertension notifications.” I went through the setup process, where I really only needed to input whether I was above the age of 22 and if I had ever been diagnosed with hypertension. Then, it was a matter of reading and tapping through a few pages of cautionary information and I was told the feature was set up.
So far, I’ve yet to receive alerts that I have high blood pressure, but I’ll be sure to write it up if I do. I should point out that I wanted to try and manually log a blood pressure reading but had to answer questions on whether I had a blood pressure cuff to do so. Because I wanted to use a reading from my last annual physical checkup rather than do a reading on the spot, I had to say no. I’ll have to wait till I’m near one (at a pharmacy, doctor’s clinic or with my parents where they have their cuff) to do so.
Because of the delay in rollout, I wasn't able to evaluate its practicality in this review, but even after it arrives, you won’t be able to use this feature to get ad-hoc blood pressure readings. Right now, all I can say is I think it’s an important area of health to pay attention to and I’m glad Apple is giving it due attention.
Of all the newness coming to the Series 11, the one that more people might encounter more frequently are the sleep score, wrist flick gesture and longer battery life.
Reviewed by Fafdatblog
on
September 22, 2025
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