Earlier this week at the Apple event, the company revealed the new Apple Watch Series 8. It looks pretty much identical to the Series 7 which was revealed in 2021. The main changes here are the new S8 SoC, new temperature sensor to help with women’s health as well as ‘Crash Detection’.
First off, the new S8 chip. Apple hasn’t said if the new chip is any faster than the S7 from 2021, which itself wasn’t any faster from the S6 before it. It most likely has a new chip due to the new temperature sensor, but the performance hasn’t changed here – which eight generations in, it doesn’t really need to.
Next the temperature sensor. Apple has actually added two sensors to the watch, one on the wrist and one just underneath the glass. The main purpose is to help with ovulation tracking. The sensors can also be used to simply log body temperature into the Health app too.
Crash Detection is a natural progression of fall detection and will detect four different types of crashes using a pressure sensor and two new accelerometers. Rollovers, front impact, back impact and side impact are all something the Series 8 can detect. If it does detect a crash, it’ll work like fall detection – ask if you are ok, if you don’t respond it’ll call the emergency services and notify your family members.
The Apple Watch Series 8 comes in various colours, for aluminium; Silver, midnight, starlight and red are all available. For stainless steel, Gold, Steel and Graphite are available.
Apple has also basically discontinued the Apple Watch Nike models, with no Series 8 version available. Instead, Apple is now allowing any Apple Watch to use the Nike watch faces and of course, the bands work with any watch anyway. The Hermès versions have been updated again for 2022.
Apple Watch Series 8 can be ordered now and will be available on 16th September. Prices start at $399 US and £419 UK.
