5 Standout Features Coming to Your Apple Watch This Week

The next big software update for the Apple Watch, watchOS 11, is dropping on September 16.

Published September 11, 2024

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Updated September 16, 2024

At Apple’s big hardware event earlier this week — where it revealed its new iPhone 16 lineup, the Apple Watch Series 10, and two new wireless earbuds, the AirPods 4 and AirPods 4 with active noise-cancellation — it also announced that it was going to roll out watchOS 11 to all compatible Apple Watch models on September 16.

This next big software update will deliver a bunch of new features to the Apple Watch — some you’ll use, some you may not. I’ve been using the public beta of watchOS 11 for the last several weeks to find out what the most useful new features are. Here are my five favorites.

WatchOS 11 will be compatible with all Apple Watch models that are Series 6 or later, including the SE (2nd generation).

Pause your Activity Rings for rest days

There are a couple of new fitness features coming with watchOS 11, but by far the most game-changing one is the ability to pause your Active Rings. This is awesome for days when you’re sick, injured, traveling, or just not feeling up to it.

WatchOS 11 makes pausing your Activity Rings super easy. All you do is tap on your Activity Rings and select the “Pause Rings” option. From there, you can pause your Active Rings (and mute coaching notifications) for the day, week or month.

Change your workout goals for different days of the week

WatchOS 11 also allows you to quickly change activity goals — your Activity Rings for Move (red), Exercise (green) and Stand (blue) — for different days of the week. This is super helpful and just makes sense because, well, our schedules are different on different days of the week.

To quickly adjust your activity goals, you do the same thing you would to pause your Activity Rings (see above), but select “Change Goals” instead. Once pressed, you can add or subtract for your Move, Exercise and Stand goals for that day.

Compare the intensity of your workouts

Admittedly, I’m not somebody who works out super intensely or is training for something specific (like a marathon or bike race). But for those who do, there’s a new workout feature called Training Load that measures the intensity of your workouts and lets you compare them to your other workouts over a week and month.

Your Apple Watch will give each workout an “effort” rating on a scale of one to 10. According to Apple, these effort ratings are generated using a combo of data sources “like age, height, and weight, alongside workout data like GPS, heart rate and elevation.”

If you’re training for something, you can see the intensity of your workouts. This is designed to help you make a better-informed decision about future workouts — whether you need to ease off, ramp up, or stay the course — to get in better shape or avoid injury.

Turn your Apple TV off right from your wrist

The Remote app on your Apple Watch lets you control Apple TV right from your wrist. And, to date, it’s been quite limited — you’ve only been able to do a few simple controls (like turn on your Apple TV on, select something to play, go back or adjust volume).

With watchOS 11, your Apple Watch’s remote app is getting a few really helpful tricks. It gives you the ability quickly mute/unmute, turn on captions and, most significantly, turn off your Apple TV completely. All you have to do is select the new ellipsis button in the top-right corner.

If you’re somebody who uses the Remote app on your Apple Watch — because you can’t find your actual remote and/or don’t want to use the Remote app on your iPhone — this is super helpful.

An easier way to see your sleep metrics

If you wear your Apple Watch at night and use it for sleep-tracking, watchOS 11 makes it a lot simpler seeing your overnight metrics — thanks to app called Vitals.

The Vitals app shows you key metrics — such as heart rate, respiratory rate and wrist temperature — from your wrist. It also tells you how these metrics compare to previous nights’ data so you can see if something is off.

Previously, you could see these same metrics on your iPhone’s Health app. But Vitals lets you see them right from your wrist when you wake up.

Bonus: Apple Watch Ultra wearers can quickly customize the Action Button

Apple Watch Ultra quickly change Action Button

If you have an Apple Watch Ultra or Ultra 2, watchOS 11 allows you to quickly customize the Action Button right from your wrist. Previously, if you wanted to change the functionality of the Action Button, you had to go through your iPhone’s Apple Watch app — it was a pain.

But with watchOS 11, you can long-press the Action Button and you’ll be prompted with a screen that lets you pick a new functionality. This lets you quickly change the Action Button from starting a workout to turning on the Flashlight or starting a Stopwatch.

This is a game changer and, if you’re like me, will encourage you to use the Action Button a lot more.

To learn about all the new features of watchOS 11 — not just our favorite ones — check out Apple’s support page.