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Apple recently announced some big changes to the Health app, as well as new sensors in the upcoming Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4. The company bundled these and other health-related announcements together, but that doesn’t mean you need an Apple Watch 12 to take advantage of all the new features. Here’s the breakdown of which Apple Watches will get the new features—and which ones don’t need an Apple Watch at all.
Readiness and more accurate heart rate require the Apple Watch Series 12 or Ultra 4
You’ll need the new Series 12 or the Ultra 4 to get Apple’s new heart rate sensor—the one it’s billing as the most accurate in any wearable. (Huge if true.) These two watches also have the new S11 processing chip. The sensor and the chip are required for what Apple is calling its “health sensing system,” which gives you more frequent heart rate and HRV readings throughout the day.
According to Apple, the new systems measure heart rate every five seconds instead of every five minutes, and HRV every five minutes instead of every few hours. Overnight vitals will now include a Recovery HRV score that’s compared to your baseline (so you know when your body is under more or less stress than usual). The Readiness score seems to rely on these readings, so you’ll need one of the new watches to get that score.
The upgraded Health app needs an iPhone 15 Pro or newer
I recently wrote about the changes Apple has planned for the new Health app and noted that those are likely to be software changes that don’t require a new phone or watch. Apple writes in a footnote on the Apple Watch page that the redesigned Health app requires an Apple Intelligence-enabled iPhone (or iPad). The full list of Apple Intelligence-enabled devices is here, and they include the iPhone 15 Pro and all iPhones 16 and newer.
The new app includes “insights,” which seem to be similar to the trends you’ll see in the current Apple Health app. If you’ve ever noticed the little cards that say things like “your cardio fitness has been trending up for 8 weeks,” it seems we’ll get more of those, and they’ll be collected together into their own area of the app. There will also be text summaries of your data and recommendations for what to do next, apparently written by Apple Intelligence based on your data.
The VO2max test requires some kind of heart rate sensor (but not necessarily an Apple Watch)
The new Health app includes an on-demand VO2max test you can do indoors. Apple’s event video showed a person propping up their phone on the floor, making sure the phone’s camera could see their entire body, and then following along with a metronome by stepping in place on the beat. You’ll need a heart rate sensor to do this test and get your results, and Apple says that any Apple Watch will do—or AirPods Pro 3, or a third-party sensor.
In other words, it sounds like it can work with any device that broadcasts heart rate, which includes just about any wearable out there. If you have a Fitbit, a Whoop, or a Garmin (to name a few), you can probably get it to broadcast your heart rate and thus work with this test. Apple’s Fitness app can already read heart rate from these devices, so I expect the compatibility to be the same for the VO2max test.
The upgraded Workout Buddy will require an Apple Watch Series 9 or newer
Workout Buddy, which takes the form of a motivational voice in your ear during workouts, requires Apple Intelligence. Previously, this meant you needed to carry an Apple Intelligence-enabled phone with you during workouts, but that’s changing. The new Workout Buddy can work from your Apple Watch without needing a phone, so long as your watch has access to the Internet through either cellular data or a wifi network (such as your gym’s wifi). Compatible watches include the Series 9 and newer, the Ultra 2 and later, or the Apple Watch SE 3.
