Apple’s 2025 Watch lineup — the Series 11, SE 3 and Ultra 3 — is focused on everyday enablers. This includes sleep tracking that feels credible, charging speeds that keep you moving, 5G connectivity that loosens the iPhone tether, and safety tools that blend quietly into daily life. Each model leans on those upgrades in its own way — the flagship gets tougher and thinner, the SE loses its compromises, and the Ultra edges closer to Garmin’s orbit.
Apple Watch Series 11 – The refined default
The Series 11 is Apple’s most polished mainstream Watch yet. The case is thinner and more comfortable, offered in 42mm and 46mm sizes, with aluminium finishes in jet black, rose gold, silver, and a new space grey, or polished titanium in natural, gold, and slate. The aluminium models gain a new Ion-X glass with ceramic coating that’s two times more scratch-resistant, while titanium sticks with sapphire crystal for maximum durability.
Battery life stretches to 24 hours, and with fast charging (15 minutes = 8 hours), you can finally wear it all day and still top it up for sleep. That matters because the new sleep score is more than a vanity number: it follows guidelines from the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, National Sleep Foundation and World Sleep Society, and was tuned on 5 million nights of study data. Duration, consistency, stages and interruptions are broken down in a way that both users and doctors can actually interpret them. To be clear, it doesn’t mean that it is more accurate, just that it follows standardised metrics that healthcare professionals can understand.
The Watch is also Apple’s first mainstream model with 5G, and a redesigned dual-antenna layout means stronger signals even in weak coverage. Workout Buddy, powered by Apple Intelligence, pipes tailored motivation during sessions, while watchOS 26 adds small but useful touches: a wrist-flick gesture to dismiss alerts when your hands are full, a redesigned Liquid Glass UI with two new faces (Flow and Exactograph), over 20 updated watch faces with always-on seconds, Smart Stack hints for proactive suggestions, and a Notes app that finally lives on your wrist. Add Live Translation, Hold Assist, Call Screening, plus Check In to reassure friends and family when you’re heading home, and the Series 11 feels less like an accessory and more like a daily fixture.
Apple Watch SE 3 – The gateway without compromise
The SE used to mean compromise; the SE 3 makes it harder to tell. For SGD 349, you now get an Always-On display — a long-standing omission — alongside fast charging that gives 8 hours in 15 minutes. Its 18-hour battery is the same on paper, but far more usable day-to-day with quick top-ups. The 40mm and 44mm aluminium cases come in midnight and starlight, protected by Ion-X glass that’s four times more crack-resistant.
Health tracking is no longer second-tier either: the SE 3 inherits the sleep score, plus wrist temperature sensing, retrospective ovulation estimates, and sleep apnoea notifications that flag signs over a 30-day period. It joins the standard Apple Health suite of heart rate alerts, Cycle Tracking, cardio fitness, Fall and Crash Detection, and Emergency SOS. Parents also get a new option: Apple Watch for Your Kids, which sets the Watch up with its own Apple ID and number while staying tied to a parent’s iPhone.
Inside, the S10 chip powers faster performance, on-device Siri with access to health data, and familiar gestures like double-tap and wrist-flick. You can even play music and podcasts through the speaker, with Voice Isolation making calls clearer in noisy spaces. In workouts, Apple Music can also auto-select tracks or podcasts based on your recent habits or the type of exercise. watchOS 26 brings the same design updates as the flagship — from Liquid Glass and new watch faces to Notes, Smart Stack hints, Live Translation, Hold Assist and Call Screening — meaning the SE 3 now feels far closer to a full Apple Watch experience.
Apple Watch Ultra 3 – The adventure challenger
At 49mm, the Ultra 3 is still the behemoth, but Apple has refined it with its largest and brightest display yet. The new LTPO3 wide-angle OLED thins the borders, improves off-angle readability, and even refreshes once a second in always-on mode so you can see a ticking seconds hand. A new Waypoint face offers live compass navigation with a one-tap Night Mode for low-light treks.
Battery life climbs to 42 hours in standard use, or 72 hours in Low Power Mode, with 20 hours of outdoor workouts when GPS and heart rate are constantly engaged. Fast charging nets 12 hours in 15 minutes, which is invaluable mid-race or mid-hike. Connectivity gets a boost with 5G and the same dual-antenna trick as Series 11, tuned for weak-signal zones.
Athletes now have more to work with: running dynamics like vertical oscillation and stride length, cycling support with power meter integration and Power Zones, swimming metrics like SWOLF scores, and full offline hiking maps with Backtrack in the Compass app. A customisable Action button can be set for Precision Start or lap marking, and third-party apps like Strava, Nike Run Club, Runna and TrainingPeaks now integrate more deeply. Even golfers get their share, with Golfshot, Arccos and 18Birdies tapping into Apple’s motion APIs.
The titanium case comes in natural or black, with new Trail Loops woven with reflective yarn, fresh Ocean and Alpine Loop colours, and an Hermès Scub’H Diving band joining the mix. With WR100 water resistance and Oceanic+ dive-computer support, the Ultra 3 isn’t just a smartwatch; it’s a dive and adventure companion. At SGD 1,199, it still trails Garmin on multi-week endurance and recovery analytics, but it’s finally credible as a serious sports watch for iPhone users.
Hypertension Notifications — not here yet
In the US, the Apple Watch Series 11 also debuts hypertension notifications, a first-of-its-kind feature that utilises the optical heart sensor to track how blood vessels respond to every heartbeat. The algorithm runs quietly in the background, analysing data over 30 days, and issues a notification if it sees consistent signs of high blood pressure. Apple stresses this isn’t diagnostic — users are asked to confirm with a home cuff and a doctor, in line with American Heart Association guidelines.
What sets Apple apart is scale: instead of spot checks or cuff-style wearables, it’s a passive, continuous system trained on over 100,000 participants and validated in a 2,000-person study. Apple expects it could flag over one million undiagnosed cases in year one.
But while the US and EU will see rollout this month, Singapore’s release didn’t mention hypertension at all — almost certainly because, like ECG in past years, Singapore’s Health Sciences Authority (HSA) needs to give it the go-ahead as this crosses into detecting a medical condition and requires regulation.
Pricing and Availability
Individually, features like sleep scoring, faster charging, 5G and proactive safety aren’t groundbreaking. But together, they shift the Apple Watch into a more practical daily role: you can wear it all day, charge it briefly, trust it overnight, and lean on it when things go wrong. The Series 11 refines the formula into the polished mainstream default, the SE 3 makes budget trackers harder to justify, and the Ultra 3 earns a spot in the conversation with Garmin. Not revolutionary, but evolutionary in ways that make living with an Apple Watch easier than ever.
Apple Watch Series 11 starts at SGD 599, available to pre-order now, and in stores from Friday, 19 September 2025.
Apple Watch SE 3 starts at SGD 349, also up for pre-order now, with availability beginning 19 September 2025.
Apple Watch Ultra 3 is priced from SGD 1,199, available to pre-order now, and in stores from 19 September 2025.
watchOS 26 will be released on 15 September 2025 for Apple Watch Series 6 or later, Apple Watch SE (2nd gen or later), and all Ultra models.
New bands, including Nike and Hermès options, will also be available on 19 September 2025.
