'I Tested The New Apple Watch Series 8—Here's What You Need To Know'
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I’ve been wearing an Apple Watch since it became available almost seven and half years ago. I vividly remember, because it dovetailed with my youngest child’s birth. Days after I took George home from the hospital, I trekked from Brooklyn to a Manhattan hotel for a top-secret briefing with Apple.
My son has grown from infant to crawler to preschooler to a now-2nd grader who excels at soccer and bringing his parents and siblings to happy tears with his enchanting antics. The Apple Watch has evolved and changed in nearly as many ways over the years.
The Apple Watch Series 8 (starting at $399, available September 16) is an all-over level-up, with a slew of impressive features you can leverage to boost your health, protect your safety, and illuminate more about your body’s inner workings. And because this is Apple, there are a ton of surprise-and-delight elements you don’t need but will love, as well.
First things first. You’ve probably heard about the new Apple Watch Ultra…
It’s a different model entirely from the Series 8. The Ultra goes on sale September 23, and is tricked out with hardcore performance features designed with endurance athletes, backcountry hikers, and scuba divers in mind. But for those not in that elite enthusiast category—and those not interested in spending $799 on a watch—there is a lot to love in the new Series 8.
Let’s start with the bells and whistles you can only enjoy with the Series 8 hardware improvements.
You can accurately track your menstrual cycle.
I gasped at the Apple Park presentation last week, where I first learned about the new women's reproductive health features. A two-sensor design—one on the back of the watch, nearest the skin, and another just under the display—allows users to pinpoint ovulation.
The implications are major for women who are trying to conceive—our bodies experience a biphasic temperature shift in the days preceding ovulation, and yup, the watch catches it—as well as for those experiencing cycle irregularities due to polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) or peri-menopause.
Combined with the new Cycle Tracking app, where you log details like symptoms, spotting, and more, you can accurately estimate your period and fertility windows. (This takes about two full cycles.) Armed with these insights, you can make empowered decisions about your body…and even share the info with a medical professional for guidance and support.
Whether you ovulate or you don’t, the sensor is a powerful indicator of what’s happening in your body. Why? Body temperature can also be a marker of stress, sickness, or overtraining too.
Security and privacy features mean your data is safe.
Let me be crystal clear: All of this data is yours, and yours alone. Apple developed the technology with privacy and security at top of mind, which means the information is two-factor authenticated and encrypted in the cloud, should you choose to store it there. Unless you share it, no one else, not even Apple, has access to your data. For those concerned about privacy via period tracking apps, this should give you some peace of mind.
A life-saving feature knows when you’ve been in a car crash.
All new Apple Watches have fall detection, a technology powered by accelerometers, that identify when the user falls...and then automatically alerts close contacts and emergency support. (Maybe you even encouraged your aging parents to purchase an Apple Watch for this feature alone? I did.)
Series 8 also detects when you’ve been in a car crash. This is possible due to a new, more powerful gyroscope and accelerometer, plus the watch's barometer and GPS, combined with the microphone's ability to detect smoke and loud audio. (One million hours of real world driving and crash data also went into these enhancements.) I’d make a James Bond nod here, but this is 100 percent serious stuff.
My oldest kids are 11-years-old so they’re not about to start driving soon, but I can imagine many parents breathing sighs of relief that their kiddos will have this functionality strapped to their wrists.
Prepare yourself for a beautiful screen.
The Series 8 comes in a 45mm or 41mm crack-resistant face, with curvature that extends all the way to the edges. The result is more information displayed with each glance. You can now select up to a hundred complications—the quick hits of information you choose to access at any time from your homescreen, like the outside temperature or a stopwatch.
Your Series 8 goes longer between charges.
You get up 18 hours of battery power out of the box. That’s even with the “always on” retina display, running apps, the works. (So yes, you can wear the Series 8 overnight.)
You can also now save battery power when you’re running low on juice. In Low Power Mode the watch sunsets non-essential functions, gifting you six more hours of life. This is a game-changer if you’re, say, on a redeye flight across the country and your watch charger is tucked into an overhead bin. (Which just happened to me.)
With those features, you’re looking at a much longer-lasting watch…about 36 hours. That’s a lot! I ran the New York City Marathon with my first Apple Watch, for example, and it died riiiight after I crossed the finish line in 3 hours and 44 minutes.
*All Apple Watch* users will also enjoy these level-ups with the new watchOS9 update:
You can learn all about your night of sleep.
At this rate, soon Apple will be able to download our dreams. I kid, but the sleep insights in the watchOS9 software update are impressive, and users have been asking for them for a long time.
Why should you care? Because magic happens while we rest overnight: It’s when the body repairs itself, bolsters the immune system, solidifies memories in our brains, and more. The Series 8 captures information about how you rested by leveraging its accelerometer to track movement as you sleep, identifying three phases: core, deep, and REM sleep.
Many of us are using, or have considered investing in, products like the Oura Ring and Whoop (both newly minted WH Sleep Award winners, fyi) to gain sleep insights. This Apple Watch upgrade certainly gives those devices some new competition, especially because sleep tracking can be paired with watch extras like your ability to set an alarm and a Zzzs goal.
Compass Backtracking and Waypoints mean you won’t get lost.
As a human who seems to have been born without an internal compass, this is big for me, whether I’m hiking in my happy place in the Colorado mountains, or exploring the trails of Prospect Park in my own neighborhood.
How it works: Open the compass app, and drop markers as you go. Lose your way? Backtrack. Forget to turn on this functionality? As long as the compass is running, the enhanced GPS functionality means Series 8 tells you where you started your journey. Even for those of you with a great sense of direction, the reassurance you’ll gain will be big. [Note: These compass enhancements can be used with Series 6 and later models.]
You'll never forget to take your medications again.
The new Medications app, which you'll leverage with your phone, helps users manage and track prescriptions, vitamins, and supplements. You can create a Rx list, set up schedules and reminders, and even receive alerts about contraindications. I like to #OwnMyMorning with a probiotic and magnesium routine—yet often forget to take them—and now I'm set.
You can work out more efficiently.
If I’m sweating, it’s most likely with kettlebells. I love that the update now allows me to go directly into a strength-training workout from my watch’s homescreen. If you have a go-to way to exercise, this is a nifty shortcut you’ll use a lot.
You can also program custom workout segments—say alternating periods of high intensity effort and rest, or heart rate zone training. This all makes it a cinch to build your own workout without another app open.
And for the triathletes out there, a new multi-sport workout modality recognizes when you’re transitioning from swim to bike to run.
A software update coming soon will even make it possible to save segments (say, a race course or regular running loop) and compete against your own previous performances.
It’s fun to play with the new home screens and complication options.
This is admittedly small potatoes given all of the above, but I dig the new fonts as well as the homescreens that feature the lunar calendar. The Easter eggs are endless as you go deeper and deeper down the new Series 8 (as well as OS9) rabbit hole.
The bottom line on the Apple Watch Series 8:
The fitness enhancements, which likely would’ve blown all of our minds a few short years ago, are delightful but almost feel like quiet extras at this point. That’s how epic the health and safety capabilities of cycle and sleep tracking, as well as crash detection, of the Series 8 are. Where will Apple Watch go next? George and I can’t wait to see.
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