{"slug": "new-apple-watches-add-better-health-sensors-ai-made-conversation-recaps", "title": "New Apple Watches Add Better Health Sensors, AI-Made Conversation Recaps", "summary": "Apple announced the Apple Watch Series 12 and Watch Ultra 4, featuring a new Health Sensing System and S11 chip that delivers heart rate readings every 5 seconds and 24 times more frequent HRV scans, alongside AI-powered Audio Intelligence features like Live Rewind and Siri Recap for conversation summaries. The Series 12 starts at $399, while the Watch Ultra 4 offers up to 50 hours of battery life, with Siri Recap and Live Rewind arriving as beta later this year.", "body_md": "Apple is improving the company’s smartwatches with a more powerful health sensor to offer even better, continuous tracking and data collection.\n\nAlongside the new iPhones, the company announced the Apple Watch Series 12 and Watch Ultra 4, which feature a new “Health Sensing System” and a successor S11 chip.\n\nThe key improvement is that the sensor under the watches has been upgraded across the electrodes, photodiodes and LED lights to better capture electrical and biological signals from the wearer.\n\nThe result can deliver “the most accurate heart rate sensing in a wearable,” Apple says. The sensor can take background heart rate readings every 5 seconds, or what’s 60 times more than before. The scans of heart rate variability, or [HRV](https://www.health.harvard.edu/heart-health/how-relevant-is-heart-rate-variability), another indicator of cardiac health, are also increasing about 24 times. \n\n“Recovery HRV is best for identifying daily signals of stress and recovery, while overall HRV is best for insights into a user’s broader health, including cardiovascular health,” the company noted. “Higher variability is generally associated with better overall recovery, while a lower variability value is an indicator of stress.”\n\nThe watches can also run select AI-focused Apple Intelligence features, or what the company calls \"Audio Intelligence,\" thanks to the new S11 chip. These features tap the microphone and revolve around the smartwatch listening in on your surroundings, which might sound creepy. But as an example, the company noted one Audio Intelligence feature called Sound Recognition has been designed to help deaf users flag important sounds, like a doorbell or siren, when they’re away from their iPhone.\n\nMeanwhile, Live Rewind “can help users recall what was just said in conversation. A double press of the Digital Crown shows the previous 15 seconds of a conversation as a text snippet, so the user can catch something they may have missed or are less familiar with.” Another feature called Siri Recap can create summaries of the user’s conversations if it’s been turned on, writing up the key points.\n\nApple emphasized the AI-powered feature can preserve user privacy since the S11 has been designed with a Secure Exclave, or “a dedicated hardware-isolated compartment that processes audio in complete isolation from the rest of the system, then immediately deletes it.” So no secret recordings.\n\n\"Users are in control and can choose whether to opt in to each Audio Intelligence feature. They can decide exactly where and when Siri Recap takes notes, and can turn Siri Recap on or off at any time, right from Control Center,\" the company added. \"By design, Audio Intelligence features do not identify and attribute speakers, to protect the privacy of both the user and those around them.\"\n\nExpect Siri Recap and Live Rewind to arrive as beta later this year. The AI-generated summaries and texts can be saved to a user's iCloud, but they'll be end-to-end encrypted, meaning Apple can't even access them.\n\nIn addition to the S11 chip, the watches also come with a redesigned pedometer, meaning they can both provide more accurate step counts for a user's long walks or runs. That said, battery life isn’t changing much for the Apple Watch 12 series. It’ll still offer up to 24 hours of everyday battery life, although the amount of battery for outdoor workouts now reaches up to 10 hours for a 25% increase.\n\nMeanwhile, the bigger Watch Ultra 4 has received a battery boost. “For everyday use, Apple Watch Ultra 4 now offers more than two days of battery life, up to 50 hours. In Low Power Mode, it offers up to 84 hours of battery life,” the company says. The device also charges faster; a mere 15 minutes of charging can add up to 18 hours of battery life.\n\nThrough WatchOS 27, both devices will also be able to run the new Siri AI, Apple's upgraded voice assistant, which is currently [available](https://v) as a beta.  \n\nThe Apple Watch Series 12 starts at $399 while the Ultra 4 will arrive for $799 and up, no price change from before. Both products go on sale Sept. 18th, but preorders begin Saturday, Sept. 12th. Stay tuned for our hands-on.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/new-apple-watches-add-better-health-sensors-ai-made-conversation-recaps", "canonical_source": "https://au.pcmag.com/smartwatches/119793/new-apple-watches-add-better-health-sensors-ai-made-conversation-recaps", "published_at": "2026-09-09 19:35:09+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-09-09 20:11:25.856655+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["ai-products", "ai-agents", "ai-ethics"], "entities": ["Apple", "Apple Watch Series 12", "Apple Watch Ultra 4", "S11", "Siri", "WatchOS 27"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/new-apple-watches-add-better-health-sensors-ai-made-conversation-recaps", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/new-apple-watches-add-better-health-sensors-ai-made-conversation-recaps.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/new-apple-watches-add-better-health-sensors-ai-made-conversation-recaps.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/new-apple-watches-add-better-health-sensors-ai-made-conversation-recaps.jsonld"}}