Apple Watch Series 11 includes 5G and a hypertension tracking feature

Apple announced three new smartwatches at its “Awe Dropping” event today. Along with new iPhone 17 models, we now have the Apple Watch Series 11 as the rumors predicted. Engadget’s Cherlynn Low, Sam Rutherford and Billy Steele are on the ground at the event, so we’ll have hands-on coverage soon, followed by full reviews in a week or so. In the meantime, here’s everything we know about the newest Apple Watch.

Apple Watch Series 11: Hypertension alerts and 5G connectivity

The keynote speech started off with dramatic testimonials of how the Apple Watch has helped people with their health and well being, alerting people to health issues and calling for help that saved their lives. The new model will help identify hypertension.

Apple’s VP of health, Dr. Sumbul Ahmad Desai introduced a feature that can help detect high blood pressure, aka hypertension, which affects over a billion people world wide and often has not obvious symptoms. It relies on the same optical heart sensor the Apple Watch has had for years, but now a new algorithm informed by both machine learning and a study involving more than 100,000 participants looks for high blood pressure. It works in the background over the course of a month to identify patterns associated with hypertension.

Desai made sure to state that it can’t detect all cases of hypertension, but that Apple expects to notify more than one million people that they may have undiagnosed hypertension in the first year of the feature being available later this month — of course, that depends on FDA clearance and Apple expects to gain that soon.

As for what’s new this year, we heard from Stan Ng, VP of Apple Watch and health product marketing, who called the Series 11 the thinnest and most comfortable ever. The ionX glass now has a ceramic coating bonded at an atomic level making it two times more scratch-resistant than before.

There’s a new color (Space Grey) and the case is now made from 100 percent recycled aluminum, up from 95 percent on the Series 10. There’s also a slate of colors in polished, 100 percent recycled titanium.

Cellular connection has improved as well with 5G connectivity from most carriers at launch. The modem and antenna architecture should provide wider coverage while being more power efficient.

The wearable will ship with watchOS 26, which showcases the new Liquid Glass design — and the Apple Watch is getting a new watch face: Flow a “modern reinterpretation of a traditional regulator clock.”

This is a developing story. Check back for updates…