I have some good news for Apple Watch users. If you’re using an older Apple Watch, like the Series 9, Apple’s tossing you a couple of features that we previously thought were going to be exclusive to the new Series 11. At its “Awe Dropping” event yesterday, the company released three new Apple Watches with new features related to health tracking, but there’s a good chance you’re going to get them on a device you already have.
That’s because Apple didn’t mention on stage that these new features are actually software updates coming to watchOS 26 and iOS 26, and some of them don’t need new hardware. This means you might not need to upgrade your Apple Watch to get new high-blood pressure notifications or an Apple-generated Sleep Score.
Hypertension notifications come to Apple Watch Series 9 and higher
Credit: Apple
Apple has a new blood pressure monitoring system that sends a notification to the user when a pattern of high chronic blood pressure is detected. Apple isn’t using a cuff-based blood pressure monitor here. Instead, it’s using the optical heart rate sensor to analyze how a user’s blood vessels respond to the beats of the heart. It uses data-analysis over a period of 30 days to determine if there’s a consistent pattern that points to possible hypertension, then notifies you if so.
Because this feature is based on the optical heart rate sensor, it’s turns out it’s not limited to the Series 11 and Apple Watch Ultra 3. In fact, it’s supported by Apple Watch Series 9, Series 10, and Ultra 2 as well (but not the Apple Watch SE 3). The feature will be live for the users after the watchOS 26 update, and after regulatory approval. Apple says that it should be rolled out to 150 countries by October.
Sleep score comes to every Apple Watch since Series 6
Credit: Apple
The Apple Watch’s new Sleep Score metric is, again, a data-analysis feature. It combines sleep data like sleep duration, sleep stage duration, frequency of wakefulness, and more to come up with one score that informs you just how good your overall quality of sleep was. It uses data from multiple sensors like heart rate, wrist temperature, blood oxygen, and respiratory rate to rate the overall quality of your sleep.
This number can then help you decide if you want to tackle a more intensive workout, or you want to take things easy and turn in earlier that day.
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And as it turns out, it’s going to be rolled out to all Apple Watches that support sleep tracking. That’s every Apple Watch Ultra, Series 6 and above, and even the Apple Watch SE 2.
Similarly, a few other software based features highlighted in the keynote aren’t exclusive to Series 11. The new wrist-flick feature in watchOS 26 will be supported on Series 9 and higher, and the Apple Watch Ultra 2.
Outside of the realm of Apple Watches, this also goes for the AirPods Pro 3 as well. The Live Translation feature that Apple introduced with the AirPods Pro 3 will actually work with AirPods 4 and AirPods Pro 2 as well, as long as it’s paired with an iPhone 15 Pro or higher (essentially, your phone needs to support Apple Intelligence). This means you can use the older AirPods to translate speech from multiple supported languages, without springing for a new $250 AirPods Pro.
