Apple’s latest event may have come and gone without a mention of the elusive iPhone 12, but they did shine a light on the brand new Apple Watches on offer from next week.
The Apple Watch 6 is the latest and greatest in Apple’s smartwatch line up but this year it’s also joined by a more affordable Watch SE, aimed at a younger audience as well as the more budget conscious or those who own a new iPhone SE.
The Blood Oxygen measurement took centre stage in a watch that’s already full of health scanning tech. This can help look for signs of asthma, heart disease, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) by using green, red and infrared LEDs to shine light onto the blood vessels in your wrist. Coupled with the new sleep app, this can also pick up unusual sleep patterns caused by Sleep Apnea.
The new S6 processor is based on the same processor found in the iPhone 11, powering a much smaller watch this becomes much more powerful. The watch has the same battery life as the Watch 5, meaning that it should be fine to track sleep without having a dead battery the next morning. Though it’s not a bigger battery, as many were hoping, Apple have now allowed the watch to be fully charged in an hour and half, so you could theoretically place it on the stand while you take a shower in the morning.
The outside of the watch has changed in colour, if not a lot else. The new colours are certainly striking in their new blue and (product) red colours but the traditional colours are also available. New ‘Solo Loop’ bands mean no more finding a buckle to close your watch, it’s all one big stretchable loop and this comes in plain silicone or braided, with various colours available.
The Watch SE is the lower cost new option with the same design as the Apple Watch 6 but with most of the components of the Apple Watch 5. It’s a great idea that gives you a more affordable choice while only sacrificing the new blood oxygen meter and the always-on display. It’s the ‘family’ option which happens to come at the same time as Apple’s family watch plan, where you can assign watches with their own phone number and location settings to family members who don’t have an iPhone.
