Apple Watch Series 6

Apple hit a sweet spot with the Watch Series 5, but its successor packs in even more sensors and this time – in the nicest way possible – it’s out for your blood

The king of wearables gets a throne upgrade

It’s been five years since the Apple Watch came to be, and the stampede to own the biggest-selling timepiece in history hasn’t slowed since. They’ve slimmed down, spruced up, sped along and generally got a little bit better with each iteration. You can’t ask for more… but that hasn’t stopped Apple packing the Series 6 version with even more skills.

Every smartwatch needs a headline feature. The Apple Watch S4 detected falls with potentially lifesaving consequences, the Apple Watch S5 was ‘always on’ – you know, like a regular watch – and the S6? It peers right through your skin to check the oxygen levels in your bloodvessels. SPO2 is the big buzz-term we’ve seen entering the techy vernacular this year – it’s a measure of blood oxygen and can reveal disorders such as sleep apnoea, which could cause you to stop breathing in the night.

The S6 isn’t the first wearable to offer this, and it comes with no official medical certification, but the Apple Watch does have a great record when it comes to health tracking – perhaps aided by the data from its sheer number of users – and what the inclusion of SPO2 here does is bring it to wider attention.

So are these updates really significant, or is it a case of the emperor’s new wearable?