watchOS 11: Don’t Wait Until Fall: Try These Apple Watch Features Now

The Apple Watch is gaining a slew of new health, fitness, and safety tracking tools with watchOS 11. The new software is expected to be released this fall alongside the next Apple Watch and the rumored iPhone 16.

But if you don’t want to wait until then to try it out, the watchOS 11 public beta is available to try right now on any Apple Watch Series 6 and newer, and the second-generation SE. Along with iOS 18, the public beta serves as a preview of these new features ahead of their general release in the fall.

I installed the beta on my Apple Watch Ultra 2 and have been testing new features like the Vitals app and Training Load for about a month now. I’ve already found a few favorites that you should check out.

To try out the watchOS 11 public beta, you’ll need to have iOS 18 on your iPhone paired with your Apple Watch. Features may change between now and the final release, so I recommend backing up your Apple Watch and iPhone before installing. Keep in mind that you won’t be able to revert to watchOS 10 or earlier versions if you install the public beta.

Change your activity rings

In watchOS 11, you can finally customize your Activity rings and take a rest day if you’re sick. In the Activity app, tap the three rings, then tap pause bells. You can pause for a day, week, or month, or you can set a custom goal.

Another great new feature is the ability to change the goals for each ring: move, exercise, and stand. If you know the 30-minute exercise goal isn’t right for you, you can adjust it up or down.

You can also customize individual days of the week. Go to the calendar icon in the upper right corner, then press schedule AND adjust accordingly. I know my Tuesdays are usually pretty low-workout since I’m in the office, so I set that goal lower, and then raise my weekend goals since I’m out a lot more.

The Vitals app monitors your health at night

When you wear your Apple Watch to track your sleep, it also tracks other key metrics, like heart rate, respiratory rate, and wrist temperature. The Vitals app displays these metrics in the morning, so you can see them on your wrist instead of pulling out the Health app to dig into menus. Use the screen or the dial to scroll through the metrics.

One helpful view is the last seven days view, which lets you know if any of your vital signs are out of range and highlights them in pink. You’ll also get a notification on your wrist if two or more vital signs are off.

Training load helps you control your training

Training load is a way to measure the intensity of your training so you can monitor your progress, whether you’re training for a marathon or simply avoiding overtraining.

Open the Activity app and find the new icon in the top right corner. Tap the graph symbol and a white line will show you a 28-day weighted average of your activity, with the last seven days compared to it. You can scroll through the Digital Crown to revisit your workouts from the past week. They’ll be categorized as anything from “well above” to “well below” your average, and each one will be given an effort rating.

Compatible cardio workouts like walking, running, hiking, and rowing will have an exertion rating on a scale of 1 to 10. Apple Watch calculates this based on data like your height, weight, and age, as well as calorimetric data from your workout like GPS and heart rate.

You can adjust this stress rating if you feel it doesn’t reflect your training. Say you’re really tired late at night and you force yourself to run, but the run was slower than usual, you can change the stress rating to more accurately reflect how you’re feeling. Tap the stress rating to view the graph and turn the crown to change the rating.

A nice bonus if you have an Apple Watch Ultra or Ultra 2 is the ability to view your vital signs and training load data on the Modular Ultra watch face by adjusting the side bezel.

Check your security with your Apple Watch

There’s a new security tool on the Apple Watch called Check In with WatchOS 11. It works from both the Workout app and the Messages app. Similar to the Check In feature in iOS 17, you open the Messages app and tap the plus icon to find Check In. Here, you can customize it to “check in” with a friend or family member based on a time period or when they arrive at a specific destination.

During a workout, swipe right and tap Check In. It will automatically send a text message to the selected contact after you finish your workout. If your Apple Watch notices that you’re not progressing as expected, if your speed spikes, or if your heart rate drops close to resting during an intense workout, it will ask you to respond.

Otherwise, your location will be shared with your contact, on a limited or full basis, depending on your choice.

Once you start Check In, it also starts a Live Activity on your watch, which appears in the Smart Stack. As with iOS 17, Check In only works if the recipient is also using iOS 17 or later, and won’t work for other contacts who don’t use iMessage.

New version of the Photos watch face

watchOS 11 doesn’t have any new watch faces per se, but the Photos watch face is getting more features. Pull out your iPhone and head to the Watch app, where you can choose photos of people, animals, nature, or the city to highlight on your wrist.

In the background, the phone evaluates the best photos based on composition and facial expressions to highlight the best images to display on your watch face. You can go a step further and change the time size and font, as well as the background colors of the photos, to make your watch face more personal.

Remote app gets even more tools

I use the Remote app on my Apple Watch more than I’d like to admit, and in watchOS 11, it has even more controls. Open the Remote app, then tap the three dots in the upper-right corner. From here, you can mute and unmute your connected Apple TV, turn on subtitles, and even turn off your connected device with a single tap.

Translation app

The translation app is now available on Apple Watch. Simply say a phrase and choose the target language, and then Apple Watch will play the translation. You can change the speed in the settings to make it slower or faster. You can also download 20 different language packs, so the app will work even if you don’t have your iPhone paired with you.

Here are some of my favorite features of watchOS 11:

• Additional tools to help you track your pregnancy in the Health app.
• Live activities are now visible in the Smart Stack, like when you order a car or snooze your alarm.
• The offline maps feature in Apple Maps now lets you use voice-guided turn-by-turn navigation while hiking.
• Tapback notifications in iMessage look different, which is a nice and subtle change.
• Double Tap now lets you navigate any app—news, weather, and virtually anything else—in two steps.

Since you’ll need to download iOS 18 to try watchOS 11, you can also check out some of its new features. Check out our iOS 18 cheat sheet for the features to try.