Apple Watch Series 11

The Apple Watch Series 11 is the main model in Apple's 2025 watch line-up and, in Apple's words, the ultimate health and fitness companion. It looks much like the Series 10 that preceded it, but it adds two headline health features, hypertension notifications and sleep score, stretches battery life to 24 hours, uses a tougher glass on aluminium models and gains 5G cellular. This page summarises Apple's launch announcement, explains the new features in plain language and notes the caveats that come with health-related claims.

Launch, sizes and price

Apple announced the Series 11 on 9 September 2025 and opened pre-orders the same day in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, India, Japan, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, the United States and more than 50 other countries and regions, with stores receiving stock on Friday 19 September. It comes in 42mm and 46mm sizes. Aluminium cases are available in jet black, rose gold, silver and a new space gray, and polished titanium cases in natural, gold and slate. In the United States the watch started at 399 dollars. New band colours arrived in the same season, including forest, neon yellow, anchor blue and purple fog, plus new Nike Sport Band and Sport Loop colours and a reflective yarn on the Nike Sport Loop. Apple's Hermès collection added a Faubourg Party knit band and a Grand H metal link band. If you are comparing generations, our Watch Series 10 page describes the previous model, and the Watch Series 10 vs Watch Series 11 table shows the differences side by side.

Hypertension notifications

The most important new health feature is a notification for signs of chronic high blood pressure, or hypertension. Apple notes that hypertension affects about 1.3 billion adults worldwide, is a leading modifiable risk factor for heart attack, stroke and kidney disease and often goes undiagnosed because it has no symptoms and is easy to miss in a single clinical measurement. The watch does not measure blood pressure directly. Instead it uses the optical heart sensor to analyse how your blood vessels respond to each heartbeat, working passively in the background and reviewing data across 30-day periods. If it sees consistent signs of hypertension, it notifies you. Apple says the algorithm was built with machine learning using data from studies with more than 100,000 participants and validated in a clinical study of over 2,000 participants, and it expects the feature to notify more than a million people with undiagnosed hypertension in its first year. Apple also says that the feature will not detect every case. If you receive a notification, Apple recommends logging your blood pressure for seven days with a third-party cuff and sharing the results with your doctor, in line with American Heart Association guidance. At launch Apple said regulatory clearance, including from the FDA, was expected soon and that the feature would be available in more than 150 countries and regions, so availability depends on your location. It also works on the Series 9 and later and on Ultra 2 and later models with watchOS 26.

Sleep score

Sleep score is the second health addition. The watch already records heart rate, wrist temperature, blood oxygen and respiratory rate during sleep and can warn of possible sleep apnea. Sleep score combines duration, bedtime consistency, how often you wake up and the time spent in each sleep stage into an overall score and category, shown each morning in the Sleep app with a breakdown of what to improve. It can also appear in a watch face complication or the Smart Stack, and your history is stored in the Health app on iPhone. Apple says the scoring follows guidance from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, the National Sleep Foundation and World Sleep Society and was developed and tested with data from over 5 million nights in the Apple Heart and Movement Study.

Battery, glass and cellular

Battery life increases to up to 24 hours in the same thin design as the previous generation, which Apple says makes it easier to wear the watch to bed after a full day. Fast charging adds up to eight hours from 15 minutes on the charger. The cover glass on aluminium models is 2x more scratch resistant. It remains Ion-X glass, but Apple now treats it with a ceramic coating applied by physical vapour deposition that bonds to the surface at an atomic level. Titanium models keep their sapphire front crystal, which Apple calls the most scratch and crack resistant material used to cover a watch display. Cellular models add 5G, with a redesigned antenna covering more bands and the ability to use both system antennas at once in weak coverage. A cellular plan lets you make calls, send messages and contact emergency services without your iPhone nearby.

watchOS 26

The watch ships with watchOS 26, a new design called Liquid Glass and a fresh watch face gallery, including Flow and Exactograph, plus over 20 updated faces that show a ticking second hand in always-on mode without raising the wrist. A new wrist flick gesture dismisses notifications, stops timers or silences alarms with one hand, joining the double tap gesture. Smart Stack hints offer proactive suggestions. With Apple Intelligence, Live Translation in Messages can translate incoming texts on the wrist when paired with a supported iPhone, and Workout Buddy delivers personalised spoken motivation based on your heart rate, pace, distance, rings and fitness history, starting in English with Bluetooth headphones and a nearby supported iPhone. Hold Assist and Call Screening come to the Phone app. The Workout app has a new layout for Workout Views, custom workouts, Pacer and Race Route, and Apple Music can pick workout playlists. watchOS 26 works with Series 6 and later, SE (2nd generation) and later and all Ultra models, and requires an iPhone 11 or later on iOS 26.

Environment

Apple says the watch is made with 40 percent recycled content, including 100 percent recycled cobalt in the battery and 100 percent recycled aluminium or titanium in the case, and titanium cases are 3D-printed using half as much raw material as earlier generations. It is manufactured with 100 percent renewable electricity across the supply chain.

Which watch should you look at?

If you want the same health features at a lower price, Apple introduced the Watch SE 3 at the same event, and if you want a larger screen, longer battery life and satellite communication, look at the Watch Ultra 3. Owners of the earlier Watch Ultra 2 also get hypertension notifications through watchOS 26. Browse more options under smartwatches.