Designed to keep users more connected and safer wherever they are with built-in satellite communications, Apple Watch Ultra 3 allows users to text emergency services, message friends and family, and share their location, all while they’re off the grid. The ultimate sports and adventure watch now features the largest screen of any Apple Watch, a display with a 1Hz always-on refresh rate, 5G cellular capabilities, the most accurate GPS in a sports watch, and up to 42 hours of battery life — with up to 72 hours in Low Power Mode. Notifications for signs of chronic high blood pressure, also known as hypertension, offer a groundbreaking new health insight, and sleep score helps users understand the quality of their sleep. Updates to the Workout app, including Workout Buddy — a first-of-its-kind fitness experience powered by Apple Intelligence — add to a robust suite of advanced fitness features.
From its much-improved screen tech to the long-awaited ability to monitor blood pressure, here’s what I made of the Apple Watch Ultra 3 after getting hands-on with the device at its launch event in Apple Park, Cupertino.
Although the Ultra is largely sold on the basis of its athletic pursuits, to a lot of people, it’s the Apple Watch you don’t have to charge every day. That’s especially the case for the Ultra 3, which claims a battery life of up to 42 hours, the longest yet on a Watch. Whether your idea of a weekend well spent is a trail run to the middle of nowhere or otherwise, anyone picking up a Watch Ultra 3 will appreciate this device’s recent design tweaks. Especially if you’ve not yet caught onto its slick new new PVD black colourway and titanium Milanese loop that first debuted last year. Make no mistake, this is still a big ‘ol chunk of smartwatch, but you’ll be far more comfortable wearing it when you’re not running at pace past someone in the great outdoors.
Since the Watch Ultra 3 is a big, serious, survivalist smartwatch, it’s got a couple of notable new features to underline its prepper instincts. The most impressive of which is the introduction of blood pressure monitoring, the latest preventive health feature for Watch. Although it won’t be quite as precise as a proper, medical-grade cuff, blood pressure monitoring on the Ultra 3 can monitor trends blood pressure over time and alert you to any possible cases of hypertension. Much like single-lead ECG and atrial fibrillation detection on the Apple Watch, this is one of those features that’s not a big deal for most users until it becomes a potentially life-saving deal. For now, it’s another string to the Watch Ultra 3’s bow, given how notoriously tricky blood pressure monitoring can be on a wearable.
MacDailyNews Take: The Holy Grail of Health Metrics is noninvasive glucose monitoring. Still, blood pressure monitoring is impressive and will generate some additional sales.
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