Pros & Cons
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- Supports satellite connectivity for off-grid communication
- 5G comes standard
- Longest battery life of any Apple Watch
- Vibrant, wide-angle OLED display
- FDA-approved hypertension notifications
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- Expensive
- Bulky
- Same sensors as the previous model
Apple Watch Ultra 3 Specs
| Battery Life | 63 hours (tested) |
| Display Size | 1.9 inches |
| Display Type | Always-on LTPO3 OLED |
| Fitness Features | Accelerometer |
| Fitness Features | Barometer |
| Fitness Features | Blood Oxygen Monitor |
| Fitness Features | ECG |
| Fitness Features | GPS |
| Fitness Features | Gyroscope |
| Fitness Features | Heart Rate Monitor |
| Fitness Features | Light Sensor |
| Fitness Features | Pedometer |
| Fitness Features | Temperature Sensor |
| Phone Call Capacity | |
| Phone OS Compatibility | iOS |
| Processor | Apple S10 |
| Separate App Store | |
| Watch OS | watchOS |
Wearing the Apple Watch Ultra 3 indoors almost feels like overkill. Like its predecessor, the $799 Ultra 3 is a smartwatch you'll want to take on a mountain biking trail or a diving expedition. In addition to tracking your adventures, the Ultra 3 can help you feel safer, as it lets you contact emergency services, send a text, or let a contact know your location via satellite if you’re out of range of a traditional cell signal. It also has 5G connectivity, a refined screen that is viewable from more angles than the Ultra 2, and the best battery life of any Apple Watch. If you don't spend much time off the beaten path, the Apple Watch Series 11 has the same set of sensors and lifestyle features for half the price, making it our Editors’ Choice and top recommendation for most people. But the Ultra 3 has enough extra tools to be worth considering for those who can’t resist the call of the wild.
Design and Display: Same Durability, Better Off-Angle Viewing
Compared with its predecessor, the Apple Watch Ultra 3 adds 5G, satellite connectivity, more battery life, and faster charging without a price increase, but it’s still very expensive at $799. Unlike the more affordable options in the latest Apple Watch lineup, the Ultra 3 only comes in one 49mm size and titanium configuration.
It is available in two colors: black or natural titanium. For different occasions, you can buy it with a few different types of bands, including an Alpine Loop for hiking in the woods, a lightweight Trail Loop for running, an Ocean Band for underwater adventures, or a fancy Hermès band for a night on the town.
To support your adventures and justify its premium price, the Ultra 3, like its predecessor, is significantly more durable than either the Apple Watch Series 11 or the budget-minded Apple Watch SE 3 (starting at $249). It’s water resistant to a depth of 328 feet, instead of 164 feet on the other models. It's tested to the MIL-STD 810H durability standard, meaning it can withstand extreme temperature changes, blowing sand, and other environmental stressors such as vibration and shock. It has an EN13319 certification for diving and water sports. The Ultra 3 and the Series 11 also have an IP6X dust resistance rating, which the SE 3 lacks.
These specs outdo Samsung’s $649.99 Galaxy Watch Ultra, which has the MIL-STD 810H rating but isn’t rated for diving or high-speed water sports like jet skiing. The Apple Watch Ultra 2 has the same durability ratings as the Ultra 3.
Also like the Ultra 2, the Ultra 3 has a large rectangular frame made of titanium, a tough sapphire crystal display cover, and a ceramic and sapphire crystal back. It has rounded corners, but its display cover is completely flat instead of slightly domed like the Series 11, giving it more of a utilitarian look, while its sibling has the edge in style. It’s much bulkier than the Series 11 as well, measuring 0.47 inches (12mm) thick compared with 0.38 inches (9.7mm) for the Series 11. Otherwise, the case measures 1.93 by 1.73 inches (49 by 44mm, HW), with all of its dimensions matching the Ultra 2.
The Ultra 3 differentiates itself from its predecessor with its screen. Like the last generation, the Ultra 3 has an always-on Retina display with a brightness range from 1 to 3,000 nits (the Series 11 caps at 2,000 nits), but it now uses wide-angle OLEDs that make it easier to read from sharper angles, a component Apple first introduced in last year's Series 10. The Ultra 3 also moves to the more power-efficient LTPO3 display tech, enabling the faster 1Hz always-on refresh rate we first saw in the Series 10, and a thinner display bezel for more active screen area in the same size case as last gen.
The active screen area increases to 1.93 square inches (1,245 square millimeters) from 1.84 square inches (1,185mm^2) on the Ultra 2. That gives the Ultra 3 a higher resolution at 514 by 422 pixels, compared with 502 by 410 pixels on its predecessor. Thanks to the 1Hz always-on refresh rate, the Ultra 3 display refreshes more often when your wrist is down, every second compared with every minute last gen, keeping certain watch faces and apps like Stopwatch and Timers updated even if you don’t wake up your watch.
Most of the underlying technology carries over from the last generation. Ultra models have a customizable Action button and a loud emergency siren, features you won't get on the Series and SE models. In addition, they have dual-frequency GPS with support for L5 on top of the less accurate L1 GPS, and a three-microphone array (instead of one in the Series 11 and SE 3) with extra wind and noise mitigation for phone calls. The altimeter in the Ultra series has the widest operating range (from –500m to 9000m elevation) of the Apple Watch lineup, and the depth gauge works down to 130 feet, compared with 20 feet on the Series 11.
Otherwise, the Ultra 3 is powered by Apple’s S10 chip (one generation newer than the Ultra 2's S9 processor), a 4-core neural engine, and has 64GB of onboard storage, specs that match the Series 11 and the SE 3.
Like its predecessor and the Series 11, the Ultra 3 has an electrical heart rate sensor to take an ECG, a third-gen optical heart rate sensor, an ambient light sensor, a compass, a gyroscope, and a water temperature sensor. All three support blood oxygen saturation (SpO2) monitoring, sleep apnea detection, and support Apple’s new FDA-approved hypertension detection, detailed below.
Setup and Controls: Simple and Customizable
Setting up the Apple Watch Ultra 3 will be a familiar process if you've used any recent Apple Watch. To get started, you’ll need your iPhone and the Watch app. The watch requires an iPhone 11 or later, and make sure you’ve updated to iOS 26 before you begin.
The Ultra 3 ships with your band of choice, the charging puck attached to a USB-C cable with no brick, and a small booklet with controls and setup information. Install the band by sliding the ends into the slots on the top and bottom of the case until you hear them click. Press the buttons on the bottom of the watch to release the strap if you want to swap in a new one.
Turn the watch on with the side button just beneath the rotating crown. You’ll be prompted to bring your iPhone nearby, and the Watch app should kickstart the process automatically. If not, hit the All Watches button in the upper right corner, then scroll down and select Add Watch.
At that point, the phone app will guide you through pairing the watch and setting it up. You’ll decide on your wrist of choice, read the terms and conditions, fill out demographic details like birthday, sex, height, and weight so Apple can calibrate your health and fitness data, create a passcode, turn on Siri, and set up Apple Pay.
During setup, you’ll be prompted to enable safety features, including crash detection, fall detection, noise monitoring, and Emergency SOS via satellite.
You can then configure the Ultra 3’s Action button. I set it to open the Workout app, but other options include launching Accessibility functions, the Control Center, Compass Backtrack or Waypoint, the Dive app, the Flashlight, Shazam, the Stopwatch, Translate, or Voice Memo. Finally, the Apple Watch app asks if you want to automatically open the Depth app when you submerge. The watch will then wrap up the setup process with a quick tutorial on controls.
Press the crown from the watch face to open the app drawer, or press it from any other screen to return to your watch face. Press the side button to open the Control Center (to check your battery life, connection status, and more). Double-tap it to open Apple Pay. Long-press it for the power and emergency menu. Hold the Action Button to trigger the watch’s siren, or press it once to launch your function of choice.
You can use the iOS Watch app to adjust what the Action Button does, as well as manage settings and customize your watch face. The Apple Health app shows your vitals and sleep in detail. The Fitness app shows metrics from tracked workouts and offers a premium Fitness+ section for $9.99 a month that includes guided classes, meditations, and workout plans. I would prefer it if I could manage the data collected by my Apple Watch with fewer phone apps, but you need three for Samsung’s watches as well.
Battery Life: Good for a Full Weekend
If you’re not keen on adventuring, the main reason to consider the Ultra 3 over the Series 11 is battery life. The Series 11 makes strides on this front with Apple increasing the battery estimate to 24 hours, up from 18, for the first time on a Series watch. The Ultra 3 goes well beyond that with a 42-hour estimate, up from the Ultra 2's 36 hours.
Apple tends to be conservative in its battery estimates. The Ultra 3 lasted just short of three days on a charge with the always-on display enabled, needing to be plugged in after 63 hours. That test included multiple workouts using the GPS, downloading apps, sending messages, and regularly checking my activity stats and Sleep Score. That 63-hour result is a nice improvement over the 55 hours the Ultra 2 posted in our testing. The Series 11 lasted 43 hours, which is a fine result for the flagship model, but the Ultra 3 distances itself from the pack when it comes to longevity. You can go away for a weekend and leave your charger at home with the Ultra 3.
Charging speed has also been increased. According to Apple, the Ultra 2 goes from 0 to 80% in one hour, whereas the Ultra 3 only takes 45 minutes. It can purportedly gain 12 hours of use from 15 minutes of charge.
Satellite Connectivity: Emergency Preparedness
The Ultra 3 is the only Apple Watch that can communicate via satellite. The upcoming Google Pixel Watch 4 ($349) will also have this capability, but will only be able to contact emergency services via satellite. With the Ultra 3, you can contact emergency services, send a text to recent contacts, and even keep your loved ones updated with your location. You’ll be able to contact emergency services even if you don’t have a cellular plan for your watch, but the other features will require it.
The Emergency SOS should trigger automatically and use the strongest signal available if one of the other safety features, like crash or fall detection, occurs and you’re unresponsive. For ideal use and finding a good satellite signal quickly, the software recommends going to a spot with a clear view of the sky, as opposed to under a roof or tree cover.
Since I live in Chicago, a major metropolitan area, finding a spot to test the feature within 100 square miles that has both a clear view of the sky and no cell signal was tricky. Still, I was able to at least demo it in a couple of ways.
By simply turning off the cell signal and wandering away from my phone, I saw the little satellite icon pop up on the top of the watch face. Tapping that offered the option to send an Emergency SOS or see a demo. During the demo, the watch then searches for a satellite connection, and beeps and vibrates with increasing frequency as it narrows its search. It alerts you when it finds one, and then directs you to turn your wrist in a certain direction to lock in the best possible signal.
I also saw the feature in action, including the full process for an Emergency SOS, during a controlled demo at Apple's Cupertino headquarters. The initial screen for satellite connection has options to send a text or update a contact with your location, and tapping either button offers a small list of people you’ve been in touch with recently.
For the Emergency SOS, once you hit the button to initiate the process, the software takes you through a questionnaire to gain the details of your situation. It asks what type of emergency you’re experiencing, with options for a car or vehicle-related incident, crime, fire, sickness or injury, or that you're lost or trapped. It asks if it’s you who needs help or someone else in case you’re a reporting bystander. Finally, it asks if there are injuries, then follows up for more details on the emergency itself.
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During the demo at Apple Park, the person selected "lost or trapped," then "lost" instead of other options like stranded or trapped. On the next question, they specified the condition of steep terrain, then chose to notify emergency contacts in addition to emergency services. At that point, the questions were done, and the watch instructed the wearer to find a satellite signal by moving their arm in the direction indicated on the display. The watch connected to a satellite a few moments later. The process felt long in the moment, and might seem drawn-out during an actual emergency, but in actuality, it only took a few seconds.
Once it connects, the watch sends a report to a relay center that includes the answers to your questionnaire, as well as your location, medical ID, and the battery level of your watch. It CC’s you on that report as well, so you can see what you sent. Then you can use the feature to chat with the person at the relay center until help arrives. The demonstrator had to turn their wrist once during the chat to keep up with the position of the satellite in the sky and maintain the connection to keep the conversation going.
Both during the demo at Apple Park and during my own test run, using the satellite connectivity feature took a little longer than I expected and involved a bit of futzing. The process feels less polished than other watch features, but I doubt a little tedium will matter in case of an actual emergency.
Hypertension Alerts: Diagnosing Untreated High Blood Pressure
The Apple Watch Ultra 3’s other new safety feature is hypertension alerts. This feature is also available on the Series 11, as well as the Series 9, the Series 10, and the Ultra 2.
Developed using data from 100,000 people, the hypertension alerts don’t actually check your blood pressure. Instead, the software analyzes your heart rate over the course of a month, looking for patterns matching those with high blood pressure.
You’ll need to use the iOS Health app to set up the alerts and begin the monitoring process. At launch, I didn’t see a prompt to start the process from the watch during setup or when I opened the Health app, but it wasn’t hard to find once I knew where to look. You can search for it using the magnifying glass icon in the lower right corner of the main app page. Alternatively, tap your profile icon in the upper right corner, and then go to Health Checklist, and you’ll see it.
Setting up the feature requires going through a brief questionnaire. The app asks if you’re over 22 and if you have a history of high blood pressure. It’s not recommended for younger users and folks who are already diagnosed. Apple cited that 1.3 billion people in the world have hypertension, with almost half undiagnosed. The goal of the feature is to provide info to the latter group so that they can get checked out before the problem escalates.
After you answer the questions, the watch provides a few disclaimers. It warns you to turn off the feature if you’re pregnant. It notes that it can’t detect every instance of hypertension, and states that the feature isn’t designed to detect heart attacks.
Once set up, the monitoring operates in the background. You cannot check progress or get intermittent updates. It just goes to work silently and gives you a simple yes or no response after 30 days. After that initial yes or no, it will keep monitoring in the background in case signs of hypertension pop up in the future.
The feature was launched a couple of days ago, so I have not yet received my first notification, but I saw a demo of it in action. It will certainly be a bracing experience to see a big alert pop up on your watch telling you to go see a doctor, but that’s the point. I’ll be curious to see if this feature helps spur people to the doctor and reduces the number of undiagnosed cases of hypertension.
Lifestyle Features: Smooth and Plentiful
The Ultra 3 does everything you’d expect of a high-end smartwatch. You can make calls, send texts, listen to music, give commands to Siri by simply raising your wrist, and pay for things with a tap.
The App Store has a large selection of third-party software to supplement the built-in features. Android smartwatches running Wear OS are catching up on this front, but Apple still wins in terms of sheer volume. Thanks to 5G, you can download apps and music without your iPhone nearby, and it feels just as snappy as doing so on your phone.
The S10 chip makes the Ultra 3 controls smooth and responsive, including the buttons, gestures, and touch screen. The Ultra 3 supports the double-tap gesture, which lets you make selections in certain apps by tapping your thumb and index finger together twice without needing your other hand. A new wrist flick gesture lets you turn your hand to dismiss calls or alarms and return to the home screen.
The wrist flick gesture comes courtesy of Apple’s latest watch software, watchOS 26. The update includes Call Screening for unknown numbers in the Phone app, Hold Assist for customer service calls, and Live Listen for real-time captions. Buttons and other elements on the watch interface are translucent as part of Apple's Liquid Glass makeover.
As for other watchOS 26 changes, the smart stack of widgets will show an icon on your watch face if it has a particularly relevant suggestion, like enabling Do Not Disturb when a meeting on your calendar is about to start. The watch will automatically raise and lower the volume of notifications based on the level of background noise. Additionally, Live Translation is now available in the Messages app, so incoming texts can be shown in your preferred language. The update also includes new sleep and exercise tracking features, which I detail below.
Health Monitoring: Accurate Tracking
The Apple Watch Ultra 3 does an excellent job of tracking activity, exercise, and sleep, matching the capabilities of the Apple Watch Series 11. On the exercise front, you can use it to automatically or manually track a wide range of sports and other types of workouts.
The Workout app gets an overhaul with watchOS 26. New buttons in the corners offer detailed customization options. The upper left button lets you set which metrics are visible as you work out and group them into screens, in your preferred order. The lower left button lets you set media to automatically play as you start working out, either your own playlist or Apple's curated selections. The upper right button takes you to a menu to set goals and targets for metrics like distance, pace, and time. The lower right button turns on Workout Buddy.
Workout Buddy is an AI-powered assistant compatible with outdoor and indoor runs and walks, outdoor cycling, high-intensity interval training, and both traditional and functional strength-training workouts. You can choose from a number of different voices and customize the information it relays. It’ll always chime in with words of encouragement at the start and end of a workout and at certain milestones throughout, but you can also have it keep you up to date on your heart rate or pace, for instance.
Since Workout Buddy is powered by AI, you’ll need to pair your Ultra 3 with an iPhone with Apple Intelligence, such as an iPhone 15 Pro or later. You’ll also need a set of paired Bluetooth earbuds, such as the AirPods Pro 3.
I tested the Ultra 3’s tracking accuracy during a 30-minute run while wearing the Samsung Galaxy Watch 8 Classic ($499.99) on my other wrist. The Ultra 3’s heart rate numbers stayed within 3 to 5 beats per minute (bpm) of the Classic throughout. However, it adapted slightly slower than the Galaxy Watch when I started sprinting at intervals toward the end of the workout.
I thought it peaked at too low a number, but when I checked the metrics afterward, the heart rate chart and max heart rate numbers lined up with the Galaxy Watch exactly. I either missed the peak number when the screen showed it, or the screen was slightly delayed, but the measurements were ultimately accurate. After the workout, its values for my average heart rate and cadence lined up with Samsung’s exactly. For outdoor running, the Ultra 3 also tracks calories, distance, and pace, as well as advanced form metrics like ground contact time, stride length, and vertical oscillation. Each metric lined up reasonably well with Samsung’s measurements.
During the run, I enjoyed the music that Apple picked for me and my interactions with Workout Buddy. The cheery voice shows the most personality at the start of a workout, as it thanked me for getting started and offered words of encouragement. Most of the rest of the interactions were just metrics updates, including a full stat breakdown at the end of the workout.
When testing the feature previously, I noted that I found Workout Buddy annoying if I enabled additional reminders like heart rate or pace updates. Samsung’s comparable Running Coach can also become annoying, but it offers more prescriptive guidance for crafting a running workout and building toward a goal like a 5K or a marathon if that’s what you’re looking for. The Workout Buddy is more of a blank slate for your own goals.
The Ultra 3 also accurately tracked my sleep. I tested it while again wearing the Watch 8 Classic on my other wrist. The Ultra 3 measures time asleep and time in each sleep stage. It also charts heart rate and respiration over the course of the night. Each of these metrics, including the sleep stage chart, lined up well with Samsung’s.
New to watchOS 26, the Ultra 3 also offers a holistic Sleep Score to encapsulate the rest of your sleep data on a scale from 0 to 100, with five levels of classification: Very Low (0 to 29), Low (30 to 49), OK (50 to 69), High (70 to 89), and Excellent (90 to 100).
You can tap the info icon under your Sleep Score to see a breakdown of how it was calculated. You can earn up to 50 points for duration, up to 30 for keeping a consistent bedtime, and up to 20 for minimizing interruptions, with the total equalling your score out of 100.
Both Google and Samsung provide similar sleep scores in their respective smartwatches, and they take more criteria into account. Samsung’s, for instance, factors in data like deep sleep and sleep latency. Apple’s is the simplest and the most straightforward, as it's the only one that shows exactly how the different criteria add up to the overall score.
Like Workout Buddy, Apple's Sleep Score isn’t meant to be prescriptive, just informative. Samsung's Galaxy Watch 8 models have a Sleep Coach, which does offer prescriptive advice if you want that help.