Apple Watch Series 8 Price And Release Date Revealed
Apple has unveiled its latest Apple Watch, the Series 8, alongside a release date and a price at its 2022 Apple Event. The new watch contains a host of new features and style options that Apple hopes will put it ahead of Samsung's Galaxy Watch 5 and Google's upcoming effort.
Apple has added to its fall detection, and SOS features present in its previous watches. Crash Detection is a new feature that will notify and send your location to the emergency services and call your emergency contacts if the watch detects you have been in a serious accident. While errors may be a concern, Apple says its AI has been trained on over a million hours of actual crash data — which should improve accuracy and cut down on the number of accidental calls.
Potential customers with battery life concerns will be pleased to know the Series 8 has an estimated 18 hours of battery life with regular use, which can be doubled using a new Low Power Mode. For travelers, international roaming is now coming to the cellular version of the Apple Watch, and the device is also said to be swimproof, dustproof, and crack resistant. Along with Apple's take on features that have become standard on smartwatches, like blood oxygen measurements, ECG readings, and sleep tracking, the Series 8 Apple Watch has some features that focus on the health needs of a very large demographic.
Temperature tracking could be a gain for women's health
While the temperature tracking system included in the Series 8 Apple Watch will benefit all of its users in a number of ways, women, in particular, could benefit more than others. The new feature builds on the menstrual cycle tracking feature Apple added to its devices three years ago. Amongst the new set of advanced cycle tracking features is an ovulation tracking function. The retrospective ovulation tracker uses temperature and menstrual cycle data to estimate when a woman is ovulating. The fertility feature is based on the biphasic shift women experience from changing hormones — which tends to indicate ovulation has happened. That information could then be used to increase the chances of a couple who are trying to conceive.
Users can also receive notifications on menstrual cycle deviations, which can further help female Apple Watch users keep track of their health. Other health features include continuous temperature monitoring. The new Apple watch will take a temperature reading every five seconds. It also uses a pair of sensors to better estimate those temperatures. One takes a reading close to the skin, and a second temperature sensor under the device's screen is used to eliminate ambient temperature bias. Apple estimates the watch is accurate enough to spot a temperature difference of 0.1 degrees. The Series 8 Apple Watch will be released on September 16. The GPS-only version retails for $399, while the GPS and Cellular model costs $499.