Apple Watch Series Compare 1-9 + More Analytics

From the Official Apple Website https://www.apple.com/watch/compare

Only noting what is new or better or different after Series 1 specs. 

Noting the base models are made of aluminum, wifi & gps no cellular, & ion glass, while stainless, titanium & ceramic models have sapphire screen glass. 

The bigger more expensive ultra versions have even more features, functions, better screens, better speakers, better mic, better battery, stronger case, dive functionality, & are the strongest, most durable, longest lasting & most impact resistant one for people into extreme sports or international travel the Apple Watch Ultra or Ultra 2 are the way to go. 

I currently rock a Series 8 aluminum space grey color on my right wrist with an Ultra Deep Professional ULTIMAL bright orange & black nylon breathable velcro with black steel buckles strap. Meg rocks the Apple Watch Series 5 aluminum in silver color with a white zirconia ceramic & stainless steel band.

Click Read More to see the TL:DR comparison with NEW updated features...

Series 1

38mm or 42mm case
Retina OLED display
Ion-X glass display
S1P with dual-core processor
Digital Crown
Optical heart sensor
High and low heart rate notifications and irregular rhythm notification4
Splash resistant
Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0
Built-in speaker and mic
8GB capacity

Series 2 This one the first one I purchased

New Second-generation Retina OLED display

New Sapphire crystal display on stainless steel and ceramic cases
New S2 with dual-core processor
New Water Resistant 50 meters
New GPS/GNSS

Series 3

Brighter OLED display, up to 1000 nits
Better S3 SiP with dual-core processor
New W2 wireless chip
New Emergency SOS
New BT 4.2 

New Barometric altimeter

Series 4

New case sizes 40mm or 44mm
New Retina LTPO OLED display, up to 1000 nits (less energy use)
New Cellular models + Data Plan ESIM setup $10/mo
New S4 SiP with 64-bit dual-core processor

New W3 wireless chip
New Digital Crown haptic feedback
New Electrical heart sensor
New Second-generation optical heart sensor

New ECG app ; sleep stages
New Fall Detection
New 16GB capacity

Series 5 I purchased Series 5 shortly after it launched. 

New Always-On Retina LTPO OLED display, up to 1000 nits
New S5 SiP with 64-bit dual-core processor
New International emergency calling
New LTE & UMTS
New Compass
New Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5.0
New 32GB capacity

I purchased an Apple Watch SE 1 at Costco that was very similar to the Series 5 I gave Meg who still wears it today as her fitness tracker or wrist watch, though not all the time. 

Series 6

New S6 SiP with 64-bit dual-core processor
New U1 chip (Ultra Wideband)
New Third-generation optical heart sensor
New always-on altimeter
New Digital Crown Siri Activation

Series 7

New Case Sizes 41mm or 45mm case
New S7 SiP with 64-bit dual-core processor
New 50% Faster battery charging

Series 8 

I purchased this one after it launched & it's my daily now. I wear it nearly constantly, except when charging. I wear it in the shower, while sleeping, and only take it off after the shower to dry out the band, clean my wrist carefully, charge it, then put it back on again. This way it can do sleep tracking, fitness tracking & all the other functions. I usually do my main charging in the morning with its magnetic charging adapter plugged into my last intel iMac 24 inch, but often charge with a magnetic charging cable in my 2022 Corolla Hybrid, when I am also charing my iPhone 14 that the 8th generation Apple Watch is paired with. Apple Watches work well with Apple smartphones or on without an iPhone if you get the cellular Apple Watch with its own data plan. 

New Crash Detection
New S8 SiP with 64-bit dual-core processor
New Temperature sensor
New Wi-Fi 4 (80211n)
New Bluetooth 5.3
New Dust resistant (IP6X)

Series 9

New Always-On Retina LTPO OLED display, up to 2000 nits
New S9 SiP with 64-bit dual-core processor
New side button; double tap gesture; on-device Siri

Apple Watch Ultra & Ultra 2

Made of Titanium
Bigger Higher Resolution Brighter 3000nit Screen
2X Longer Lasting Battery up to 36 hours or 17 hours in low power activity tracking
Custom Action Button can be assigned many functions
100m Water Resistance better for diving performance 
Precision Dual Frequency L1 & L5 GPS superior tracking accuracy
Depth Gauge & Water Temperature Sensor + Dive Computer App
Dual Speakers Louder & 86 dB Siren Audible from 600 feet or 182m away

3 Mics with Beam-forming

People claim Apple not innovative, consider Apple Watch Ultra 2: 

The custom Apple Silicon S9 SIP or system in a package chip in Apple Watch Ultra 2 contains 5.6 billion transistors, and a new 4 core Neural Engine enabling improved on device Siri functionality + double tap gesture control. 

Answer a call, stop or stop a timer, or answer a message without touching the screen by simply double tapping with index finger & thumb. 

Connects to cycling power meter accessories to give better fitness tracking when riding bicycles equipped with pedal power meter systems. Heart rate zone tracking shows you level 1 to 4 training levels so you can know how intense your training & if your keeping your heart rate in the correct zone for the right amount of time to achieve your workout goals or personal improvement. 

The automatic fitness tracking also switches tracking modes from cycling, to running and swimming in a single workout, so you can track a triathlon event. If you use low power mode while fitness tracking in Ultra 2 it will do long duration tracking for up to 17 hours for marathons & other longer interval events like prolong upper alpine hikes. 

New fitness tracking API's are enabling more fitness focused Ultra 2 apps to show you Training Peaks, something elite sports athletes can used to gain an edge in performance data tracking. Custom workouts enable time, distance, and intervals to be measured including warmups, cooldowns, & even recovery time. Running metrics enable the measurement of stride length, ground contact time, and vertical oscillations. 

You can even compete against your previous performance tracking times with Race Route. Now using Apple Maps data & GPS the system can detect when you arrive at an official track, using track specifications to improve accuracy off pace, distance & route data collection, so you get even better health & fitness tracking. 

The dual frequency GPS provide superior route tracking in RF heavy urban environments filled with WIFI & Cellular & Radio signals or noise. The redesigned compass in Ultra 2 makes uses of the neural engine sensor fusion to radically improve navigation & route tracking precision. 

Detailed topographic maps in national & regional parks for mountains, valleys, bodies of water, trains, with contour lines, elevation, POI or points of interest, photos & more. Wide operating temperature range from -20° C to 55° C or -4 F to 131 F means it works in super cold or super hot conditions, and also from -500m to 9000m or -1640ft to 29528 ft elevation. The Ultra 2 on target for fitness focused people, athletes & extreme sports performers or anyone wanting to rock the pinnacle of wrist computer smart watch tech. 

Apple Competes with Other Wearables

Ultra 2 starting at $799 with $9.99 Premium Fitness tracking starts to blend over into the $399 Oura Titanium Smart Ring + $5.99 monthly data plan detailed fitness tracking via the app on android or iOS. Without a screen the Oura ring has 3-6 days of battery life. 

Ultra 2 also competing with Garmin sports & adventure smart watches that have even more elite fitness tracking features, but less all in one action compared to an iPhone paired with an Apple Watch, due to eco-system level tuning Apple does to make Apple Watch share data effectively with iPhones.

Garmin Smart Fitness Watches  

Garmin epix Pro Gen 2 for $1099 or epix Gen 2 for $659 or fenix 7 Pro for $897 or fenix 7 for $795 or the tactix 7 for $1279, we can see these elite sport & activity recreation watches hitting luxury wrist watch price levels. These Garmin fitness activity smart watches can do a month of battery life with solar PV charing in the bezel behind the sapphire lens, if it gets 3 hours of sunlight of 50,000 lux. That's 73 hours of GPS mode tracking with solar charing. 

SUUNTO Hand Made in Finland Smart Watches & Dive Computers 

I am also reminded of an OG in the smart watch category called SUUNTO, who was around long before any Apple Watch. They have dope diving wrist computer watches & cool smart watches. SUUNTO VERTICAL titanium solar adventure watch for outdoor expeditions & raining for $839. 

SUUNTO 9 PEAK PRO on sale for $469 originally $699 or the smaller one for $409 originally $549. These are hand crafted in Finland & made of military grade 5 titanium bezel & sapphire front glass, with 21 days of battery life & accurate GPS for a full features sports watch experiences ideal for off grid action stars or athletes and adventurers, the same target audience of Apple Ultra 2. 

Suunto 9 Peak Pro only 10.8mm thin with a glass fiber reinforced polyamide case, making it the thinnest of all GPS multiport smartwatches. Suunto been making watches since 1936 with heritage & tradition almost the exact opposite of an Apple Ultra 2 with its frenetic design update schedule. The Ultra OG was not even launched that long ago & they are already selling the 2nd Ultra & hard at work on the 3rd Ultra in pre commercialized beta testing & designing the Ultra 4 right now.  Or you could get a refurbished Suunto 9 Baro for $219 or go nuts on the SUUNTO VERTICAL TITANIUM SOLAR CANYON for $839 right up there with the Apple Ultra 2 pricing & feature set. 

No More Fossil Smartwatches

Fossil actually announce they are exiting the Google Android Wear OS smartwatch market due to low sales & competition from Samsung Galaxy Gear watches & Apple Watches. This reminds me of how Apple & Samsung smartphones are the gorilla of sales giants in the USA, dominating consumer awareness & market penetration or user base, meaning most people have either a newer iPhone or newer Samsung android phone, while all the other smartphone makers split the difference in the tiny sliver of the remaining segment of people who don't like Apple or Samsung products & will only buy things made by other companies. Did I mention that Samsung makes the OLED screens for Apple. 

Sony OLED Example 

Yes, Sony was first to market with OLED screens, but with many first movers entering the market too early at higher than consumer price point sensitivity levels, means they don't sell many units or much at those premium luxury prices. I am reminded of looking at a small Sony OLED TV many many years ago long before anyone else was selling OLED panels of any kind. It was thousands of dollars for a small Sony OLED TV back then. 

Plasma TV's from Back Then 

I remember in 1999 on the TV Cribs someone in Hollywood with the first Philips plasma TV, where each color pixel at little neon or argon high voltage glass bulb. Plasma TV in a pitch dark environment had superior black because the pixels are the light source, so if the pixel turned off there is no light, very different that LED or CCFL TFT LCD screens that are much more common as computer monitors and TV screens where a backlight is filtered through liquid crystals that act like voltage adjustable fast switching prisms to change the light color. Heavy & power hungry, the CCFL TFV & later LED edge lit & local dimming array improvements destroyed the plasma screen market, lighter, less expensive & vasty more power efficient, the CCLF & LED screens are also much brighter for use in light polluted or sunlit locations. 

Early Nintendo Electronics 

Yea, I have been following consumer electronics technology since the original Game Boy from Nintendo when I was a child. I was very interested when video games would become photo realistic like watching a movie or TV show or streaming movies with high bar CGI special effects. When would playing video games look almost exactly like reality to our eyes. As of 2024 we are not there yet, though it will not be long because of a technology called generative AI that will make making video games much faster & cheaper, meaning way more detail. 

Steam on Gaming Laptop 

I sometimes play No Mans Sky on Steam on the Asus F17 gaming laptop & it makes use of server level generative planet AI & eco-system AI generation to create virtually endless new space to explore, though much room for more detail can be accomplished. A far cry from a realistic simulator of reality. CS:GO my favorite game, and much more like an interactive cartoon. 

AI Accelerated Game Development

AGI or artificial general intelligence will also be used to produce games with superior realistic detail. I am forecasting that we will reach realistic looking game content with excellent lighting & appropriate super OLED+ 8K per eye VR goggles like Meta Quest 8 or further. I play Les Mills Body Combat VR on the Quest 2 for fitness training right now, as does Meg, and we both think it's fun & a great workout. 

Reluctant Cautious Use of Smartphones

Ironically I try to use my smartphone the least amount possible. I resent that people are always staring into their smartphones in public, while driving their cars, and in ways that are rude, inconsiderate, dangerous or socially unconscious. Meg & I started noticing that families at restaurants would be sitting together at a table not talking at all as each person in the family, mom, dad, the children, were on their phones, on social media, google searching, browsing Reddit, or Twitter (now X) or Facebook probably, or playing app games or something like that, instead of talking with or interacting with each other. 

Negative Effects of Smart Technologies

I am not blaming the market diffusion of smartphones as the cause of social division increasing, but experts are saying that many young children who overuse tablets & smartphones are having more behavioral & social problems & problems in class at school and when interacting with other teachers & students, such that since the introduction of smartphones & tablets children have become less socially intelligent & have an increasing in impulsive behaviors, being dopamine hit trained by instant click & touch feedback on electronic touch screens with glowing colorful animations & characters that draw young minds in, in what some irresponsible parents call the electronic nanny because they use electronics to get their children to leave them alone. 

Thus we have speed bumps in terms of the cultural diffusion of holding hand computers at times where it's not appropriate & causing many kinds of problems, mostly a safety problem by causing people to be distracted away from any situational awareness. 

Pay Attention to What Is Happening Around You

Criminals historically pray on people who are very distracted. We just had a safety training at work because one of my coworkers was car jacked in the parking lot at 4:23am by two younger black men wearing ski masks who also pistol whipped him in the face, he is 68 years old and was badly injured as they drove off in his older hood CRV. Now the DEA has the car in impound because the two criminals who stole it were using it to traffic narcotics & the DEA has to take finger prints & chemical samples from the car, so its stuck with them for over a month. 

Fortunately one of my other coworkers loaned the victim of this attack one of his spare cars. Here we see benevolence & kindness creating a solution where crime created a problem. In this way when I say we need more love in the world, that is what I am talking about. That is also what the authors of the Bible were talking about in Ephesians 4 & 5 about appropriate Christian Conduct. 

Watch giant Seiko maker of my Automatic Seiko 5 wrist watch with its 4R36 jeweled self winding mechanic movement or perpetual as Rolex likes to call it, was actually a first mover in the smart watch category with the Seiko RC 1000 in 1984. Later the Receptor MessageWatch launched in 1990, able to receive pager messages. Microsoft was also an early market leader in smart watch commercialization with SPOT or smart personal objects technology in 1994 Fossil & Suunto watches, able to receive new, stock updates, email, instant messagings & even weather over RF 1GPRS early wireless data systems. When Apple launched the Apple Watch in 2013, it was much earlier when people were using the small square iPod nano in a wrist watch holder 2010 that rumors of the soon to launch official Apple Watch were starting to circulate online, as other smart watches were launching. Google entered the smartwatch space with Android wear 2014.

Smartwatches In the Future 

Now in 2024 health & fitness data or biometrics or tracking of heart rate, breathing rate, blood oxygen saturation, steps, activities, movement, sitting time, sleep & sleep cycle tracking, menstrual cycle tracking, navigation, routing, flights of stairs climbed or altitude gained, recovery score, warmups, cool downs, there are more and more features to capture health data which is trending so that doctors have real patient numbers from reality to work with to help people more. 

CGM Powerful for Diabetic People 

Perhaps more aspirational that reality at this point, but CGM systems that help diabetic people track blood glucose save people from dying form critical low blood sugar & keep these people from being harmed by dangerous high blood sugars by setting off smartphone alerts the way the Dexcom G6 & G7 work with iPhone & Apple Watch to stream blood glucose data into actively update charting & graphing showing data trends in blood glucose over different time intervals, like in the last hour, or last 3 or 6 or 12 or 24 hours. 

Showing people these glucose trends helps them select how much insulin to take or not and so people can figure out how foods are affecting their blood glucose levels, which helps diabetic people make better food choices. It also shows people how activities & exercises affects their metabolic health with real blood glucose data. One of the most sought after Apple Watch features is glucose tracking, still not present on Apple Watch Series 9 or in the Ultra 2. Its anyones guess which Apple Watch will have optical, electrical, RF, microwave or similar non-invasive blood glucose tracking- this is considered the holy grail of smartwatch health technology, blood glucose tracking! 

Sleep Tracking Helps Sleep Disorders

Sleep disorders have been on the rise since the introduction of candles & oil lamps that extended the day length after the sun went down. Today lamps, bulbs & screens of all kinds are bombarding people with blue, green, red, light of all colors, such that people are even wearing blue blocking glasses & many tech companies now include night modes in devices that turn the screens orange hue & dimmer, even the Apple Watch Series 8, iPhone 14, Meta Quest 2 have night mode setting to dim & soften the color temperature of the screen. 

Screen night modes became more common on consumer electronics with screens after it became widespread public knowledge that the human eye's peak spectral sensitivity is 555nm or lime neon green, the same reason that bright green safety gear replaced bright orange safety gear in construction & other safety oriented workplaces where high-vis clothing required to improve visibility of people in order to reduce accidents. I have to wear a bright green coat as a School Bus driver for example. One of my coworkers H. wears orange blue blocker glassed to deliberately filter light so that it does not trigger a migraine headache. 

Value of Health Data Collected by Wearables

Health data very important because it helps people detect early trends in cardio vascular decline, or to spot other emerging health problems early as kind of preventative medicine technology, to screen for common heart problems for example, many current & newer or recently launched smartwatch's & fitness trackers have HR or heart rate tracking, with LED blinking & CMOS imaging sensors that shine light into the skin & then image the reflected light to study the wearers pulse, breathing rate, blood oxygen levels & other aspects of their physiology through electrophysiology. 

Apple Watches Amazing Already

I can make phone calls like Dick Tracy from my wrist, send text messages, see GPS routing data & way way more. Hard to even summarize all the features and functions of Apple Watch Series 8 or 9, as they keep adding more in each revision as noted in the content above. 

My Apple Watch Series 8 can do an ECG reading of my heart rhythm, if I activate that function & then hold still while holding the crown button. Electrodes on the back of the Apple Watch work with the conductive crown button to pass electrical pulses through the body as to read the cardiovascular electrophysiology activity & then plots this data as a moving red graph showing the heart beat & wave pattern of the heart on the screen, amazingly. 

SIRI been around since 2011, but only on device SIRI in the latest Apple Watches. Apple already selling iPhone 15 and Apple Watch Series 9 & Ultra 2 now :) 

Electrophysiology Body Scale

I have a cheap EufyLife smart-scale that has 2 electrodes for each bare food applied when taking a body mass measurement that stream health data over Bluetooth to the app on my phone that gives all sorts of body metric information from the electrophysiology measurement. My body mass is 74kg if you're wondering. 

Finding Diseases Emerging with Early Detection 

Many chronic disease have attributes that smartwatch technology can track using electrical, photo, RF, microwave & other signal generating technology & imaging tech to track relevant useful biological patterns or functions in order to help patients to make better lifestyle choices by giving them & their doctors actionable insight with powerful health data. Facts, what is actually happening to the patient, like how sedentary or active are they? What is their resting & walking heart rate like. What about their breathing rate, blood oxygen saturation, and movement during sleep & different sleep stages. There are so many useful data channels of health data collected by a smartwatch, that Apple even includes a Health app on the iPhone by default. The health app works with the Apple Watch to help people with health data. 

SUUNTO Early Smartwatch Precursor as Dive Computers 

I first noticed something similar to current smart watches at R.E.I known as SUUNTO, which are handmade in Finland. Suunto introduced many interesting technologies into class leading dive watches & later adventure & outdoor recreation & fitness watches.  Suunto was 1st with a wrist mounted dive computer able to calculate the length of the dive in 1987. 10 years later they launched the 1st diving computer that looked like a regular wrist watch. In 1998 the first Suunto aimed at adventurers. EPOC & training effort in t6 series aimed at athletes. Core in 2007. Elementum 2009. Movescount platform in 2010, when other smartwatch technologies were being broadly commercialized. The SUUNTO Ambit was the first GPS watch 2012. Eon models 2015. Spartan series 2016. SUUNTO still makes smartwatches aimed at fitness focused people in 2024.