With watchOS 9, your Apple Watch will get some major upgrades in terms of fitness tracking, sleep health, and more.
At the WWDC22 conference, the Apple Watch in watchOS 9 ushered in a series of new and exciting software updates. Here are some of the features of watchOS 9 that will help you improve your health and fitness habits.
1. An improved workout app
One of the most popular uses of the apple watch is as a fitness companion, and the Workout app is being updated with a number of new features, including:
1. Heart Rate Zones let you monitor the intensity of your workout.
2. Custom Workouts enable you to create your own structured workouts with rest intervals.
3. New alert types, including heart rate, pace, and power, can guide you through your training.
4. An enhanced display has more workout views available. You will be able to cycle through these using the Digital Crown.
5. Cardio Recovery data allows you to monitor how quickly you recover from a workout. This is a helpful indicator of cardiovascular health.
2. Multi-sport exercises and specific exercise enhancement measures
Popular sports such as swimming and running have been significantly enhanced, including:
1. Multisport workout types that switch automatically between swimming, biking, and running workouts can help triathletes analyze performance easily.
2. New metrics for runners include Stride Length, Ground Contact Time, and Pacer Experience, which gives you a pacesetter on runs and allows you to compete against your best time.
3. Enhancements for swimmers, such as kickboard detection, unlock new pool swim workouts.
All the data can be analyzed in your iPhone’s fitness and wellness app to measure trends and patterns. Your iPhone will also get an important software update with iOS 16.
3. Improvements to Apple Fitness+ exercise data
If you’re going through the rigors of Apple Fitness+ Workouts, watchOS 9 now has a more detailed display to help you get the most out of your workouts. These will vary depending on the type of workout you choose. For example, if you’re boating, you can now observe your number of boats per minute (SPM), or if you’re cycling, you can check your revolutions per minute (RPM).
These metrics will appear in real-time on your iPhone, iPad, or Apple TV display to keep you working towards your fitness goals.
4. Added sleep stages in the sleep app
Sleep Phase is a new addition to the excellent sleep features already available on the Apple Watch. It will allow you to collect data about sleep stages, measuring the amount of time you spend in REM sleep, core sleep, or deep sleep.
This will appear in the Health app on your iPhone, along with measurements such as your heart rate and sleep time.
5. AFib History Gives Insights Into Heart Health
The Apple Watch has been able to identify potential signs of atrial fibrillation, which is the leading cause of stroke.
In watchOS 9, if you are diagnosed with atrial fibrillation, you can use the Atrial Fibrillation History feature to find out how often your heart rhythm shows such irregular signs. You can analyze these insights and track patterns in health apps, which also include lifestyle factors that may affect atrial fibrillation. You can also download a PDF file to share this information with your healthcare professional.
This innovative, potentially life-saving technology has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
6. A New Medications App
The new drug features of watchOS 9 and iOS 16 allow you to track and manage medications, vitamins, and supplements. You’ll be able to create schedules to remind you when it’s time to take your medication.
When Will The New watch OS9 Software Arrive?
Apple’s watchOS 9 update will be available in Fall 2022 as a free update for Apple Watch Series 4 or later. Your Apple Watch must also be paired with iPhone 8 or iPhone SE (2nd generation) or later that’s running iOS 16.
The Apple Watch continues to evolve and improve
Apple Watch evolves with each software update and becomes an integral part of your healthy life. watchOS 9 is no exception, and it has tons of new health and fitness features to help you feel your best.
