If you own an Apple Watch, you’re probably already excited about the new features heading to the wearable this fall, including automatic handwashing detection, sleep monitoring, new workout types, additional watch faces, cycling directions, and more. After previewing the next generation of its smartwatch operating system in June, this week Apple released the first public beta for watchOS 7 and I was eager to check it out.
The beta software is available for the Series 3, Series 4, and Series 5 Apple Watches paired with an iPhone 6s or later. Just keep in mind that once you install the public beta, you won’t be able to restore your Apple Watch software to an older version, which could mean dealing with some bugs until they’re ironed out.
How to Get watchOS 7
Getting the beta up and running on my Apple Watch Series 5 took more than three hours. You first need to enroll your iPhone in the iOS 14 beta program, and install that on your handset. On my old iPhone 7 Plus, this first step took the bulk of the time, around 2.5 hours. Once you overcome that hurdle, you can enroll your Apple Watch into the program, then download and install watchOS 7.
If that sounds like too much hassle, don’t worry. When the software arrives for the general public this fall, the process for downloading it will be simpler.
Sleep Tracking
For me, sleep tracking is the most highly anticipated feature in watchOS 7.
After enabling sleep tracking on your Apple Watch and wearing it to bed, you can visit the Health app in the morning to see your stats. It shows your total time in bed and how long you slept. Aside from that, there’s a graph showing your heart rate throughout the night, including your maximum and minimum beats per minute.
After my first night of tracking sleep with the Apple Watch, it said I spent 7 hours, 5 minutes in bed and 5 hours, 6 minutes asleep, which seems accurate. It also records what time you fall asleep and wake up, and there’s a graph showing when you were asleep throughout the night. When you click Show More Sleep Data, it shows your average time in bed and average time asleep.
When you scroll down in the Sleep section of the Health app and press Show All Data, you can see all the times throughout the night your Apple Watch recorded you sleeping. The first night I tracked my sleep with the Apple Watch, I turned off the lights around 11 p.m. but kept getting disrupted by my restless boyfriend until about 1 a.m., and the recorded data accurately reflects that.
As far as sleep tracking goes, these stats are pretty basic. Many other wearables, including the affordable Fitbit Charge 4, track your deep, light, and REM sleep. Some even track changes in your breathing as you sleep. Many also give you a sleep score that can help you quickly gauge the quality and restorative value of your shut eye. Over time, I’d love to see Apple add more advanced sleep tracking metrics.
On the plus side, I like that the Apple Watch’s display dims and locks itself at your specified bedtime. I’ve had issues with other wearables accidentally illuminating and waking me up at night, and that shouldn’t be an issue here. The Watch’s silent haptic alarm is also a nice feature, especially if you sleep with a partner and have different wake-up times. I woke up before the alarm, but it went off at the specified time.
You can enable sleep tracking via the Settings menu on the watch itself, or set it up in the Health app on your phone, as I did. It works in conjunction with some new sleep features rolling out as part of iOS 14, including Sleep Mode and Wind Down, which I’ll discuss in a moment.
When setting it up on your phone, you have the option to set a sleep goal (I went with eight hours a night) and a schedule for your bedtime and waking time. You can have a different schedule for every day of the week, but I set my bedtime for 11 p.m. and wake-up time for 6 a.m. on weekdays. The app informed me that I wouldn’t meet my eight-hour nightly sleep goal with that schedule, but I kept it as is.
Next, you can enable Sleep Mode, which automatically simplifies your phone’s lock screen and enables Do Not Disturb at your scheduled bedtime. After that, you can set up Wind Down, a new feature that sets a bedtime routine to help you relax. Apple recommends enabling Wind Down 45 minutes before bed, so I went with that. At that time, Sleep Mode and Do Not Disturb turn on. You can also add relaxing apps and shortcuts on your lock screen, so they’re easily accessible during the Wind Down period. I opted to add the Core Meditation Trainer‘s companion app to mine.
iOS 14 Wind Down and Sleep Mode
Handwashing Detection
The new handwashing detection feature in watchOS 7 is awesome, and I give Apple props for its ingenuity on this, especially in light of COVID-19.
The watch uses motion sensors to detect handwashing movements and the microphone to listen for the sound of running water. When it detects that you’re washing your hands, it will display a 20-second timer on the screen. It hasn’t worked every time I’ve washed my hands, but it has most of the time.
You can also enable handwashing reminders, so the watch will bug you if you haven’t washed your hands within a few minutes of returning home. Both the handwashing timer and reminders are helpful, and these days, essential.
If the watch senses you’ve stopped washing before the time is up, it will encourage you to keep going. About three seconds before the timer went off, it showed a message saying “almost there.” When I finished, it congratulated me with a second message saying “nice one.” Another time, it showed a message on the screen saying “washing your hands for 20 seconds removes germs that might make you sick.”
Since COVID-19 hit, I’ve gotten into the habit of washing my hands as soon as I get home, but I love that I now have a reminder, just in case it slips my mind. This morning, I took my dog to the vet, and when I got home, my Apple Watch told me it was time to wash. “After being out and about, it’s a good idea to wash your hands when you get home,” it encouraged.
In the Health app, it even shows your average hand washing time, and keeps track of how many times you wash your hands each day. There’s also a graph showing when you washed and for how long.
New Workout Types
WatchOS 7 brings four new activity tracking options to the Workout app: dancing, core training, cooldown, and functional strength training.
The first three are self-explanatory, but you might be unfamiliar with functional strength training. I only learned about it recently, when visiting a resort with my boyfriend, Austin, and his family. As his stepdad led us on a very long (masked) walk around the resort grounds, I remarked that I was thankful I work out because if I didn’t, I might not have had the stamina to endure such a trek.
“That’s functional strength training,” Austin’s mom said, explaining it’s a type of exercise designed to help you train your muscles to perform everyday activities—like impromptu long walks—with ease.
Many workout studios and gyms offer functional strength training classes, so it’s nice that Apple is adding this new workout type.
Meanwhile, the dance tracker combines data from the heart rate sensor, accelerometer, and gyroscope to measure your calorie burn. Apple says it has tested and validated that it delivers accurate metrics for four of the most popular dance styles: Latin, Bollywood, Hip-Hop, and Cardio Dance. I followed along with a Cardio Dance fitness class on YouTube this morning to try it out. According to my Apple Watch, I burned 129 calories during that 17-minute dance session, or 42.2 more calories than I burned during a 32-minute yoga session afterward. That seems accurate given the intensity of the dance workout.
Other New Features
WatchOS 7 is a major release with many other fresh features, including new watch faces and complications, cycling directions in select cities, more mobility metrics, hearing health notifications for headphones, on-device dictation, and Siri language translations. A new Face Sharing feature promises to make it easy to customize watch faces to suit your preferences, and to share them with others.
I’m just scratching the surface of what it entails in this first look, so be sure to check out our full review of WatchOS 7 when it arrives this fall.
