Product3 publishers2 min readPublished
Apple held the Series 12 at $399 while Google and Samsung raised their watch prices
The new Health Sensing System samples heart rate every five seconds where older Apple Watches tried every five minutes, and the entry price did not move. Two reviewers put the battery 24 hours apart.
The Product Desk · Product desk
What happened
- Apple rebuilt the Series 12 and Ultra 4 sensor array with wider-contact electrodes, photodiodes rearranged in a ring, and larger green LEDs, replacing the Series 11's two ECG electrodes with 32.
- PCMag's review puts Series 12 heart rate tracking at every five seconds, where earlier models attempted a background reading every five minutes and only when the wearer was mostly stationary.
- PCMag reports that Google raised the Pixel Watch 5 by $50 to match Apple's $399, while a $30 increase took Samsung's Galaxy Watch 9 to $379.99.
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Why it matters
- cost The price freeze applies to the configuration fewest buyers choose; the 46mm with cellular runs $549, and anyone drawn to the ceramic case pays more than twice the advertised entry price.
- constraint CNET says the Readiness score needs seven nights of sleep and consistent round-the-clock wear, which puts the feature in direct conflict with an overnight charging routine.
- contradiction With two reviewers 24 hours apart on battery life, a buyer cannot tell from the coverage whether one charge covers a workday plus a night of sleep tracking, and that decides which hours of the day go unrecorded.
- decision The accuracy case for moving a Series 11 owner up rests on a study Apple ran itself, so whoever makes that recommendation internally is passing along the vendor's own comparison.
Put the watch on the charger at 11pm and the new sensor records nothing until morning. The change itself is a factor of 60: the Series 12 logs 60 background heart rate readings in the span where an older Apple Watch attempted one [5], and the older attempt only ran when the wearer was mostly stationary [3].
Whether the stream runs unbroken through a night is a number the reviews disagree about. CNET measured about 30 hours in a week of testing, four more than the Series 11 [6]. PCMag reported 54 hours of real-world battery life [7]. The two reviews land 24 hours apart on the same watch [8]. CNET's own summary lists "Battery life still requires frequent charging and trails longer-lasting competitors" among the drawbacks [9].
Dynamic Readiness updates as the body recovers through the day, according to CNET [11]. CNET also could not test the Audio Intelligence features or the revamped Health app, both due in later updates [30].
On price, $399 covers the 42mm aluminum with Bluetooth only [12]. The 46mm is $449, which PCMag notes is $20 more than last year's size step, so that step went from $30 to $50 [13][14]. Cellular adds another $100 [15]. A 46mm with cellular comes to $549, 38 percent above the entry price [16]. Titanium starts at $699 and the Hermes titanium at $1,399 [18][19]. None of the new health features sit behind a subscription, CNET reports [22].
CNET reports that Apple ran its own study comparing the Series 12 with top wearables including Oura and Garmin and concluded it is the most accurate wearable for heart rate tracking [23], and CNET says that lines up with what it saw testing the Series 11 [24]. PCMag's review lists "Minor heart rate inaccuracies in testing" among its cons [25]. CNET reports more frequent HRV readings too, without giving an interval for them [26].
Whether they sleep in the watch, and whether anyone looks at the record afterwards, settle the upgrade question. Neither is on the spec sheet. A Series 11 owner who does both gets data their current watch cannot produce, including a single-lead ECG read across 32 electrodes instead of two [28]. A Series 11 owner who charges overnight and opens the Health app twice a year gets the same summary screens at a higher sampling rate. Either way, the watch needs an iPhone 11 or later running iOS 27 [32].
What to watch
- Whether Apple publishes the study it ran against Oura and Garmin, or only the conclusion CNET reported.
- Whether the Audio Intelligence features ship as promised, and whether Sound Recognition's false alerts follow them.
- Whether the revamped Health app, due in a later update, changes what the five-second heart rate stream is used for.