Apple Watch Series 8 has a temperature sensor and crash detection
As is tradition, Apple is pulling the cover off of a new Apple Watch at its September event. Rumors suggested that the Apple Watch Series 8 would be a mostly iterative update to last year's model, and that appears to be the case so far: It looks essentially identical to the Series 7.
The first main new feature is a temperature sensor that Apple is tying to women's health. It'll use readings to give an estimate on when you may be ovulating. It's meant to be used overnight, sampling your wrist temperature every five seconds so you can see nightly shifts from your baseline temperature. This will work for everyone, but for people that ovulate it'll help indicate where they are in their cycle. You'll also get notifications on potential deviations from your norm.
There's also a new safety feature called Crash Detection. Much as current watches can detect when you fall, the Series 8 can detect car crashes thanks to two new accelerometers. It works in concert with the other sensors already included in the Apple Watch to detect four different types of crashes, including rollovers, front impact, back impact and side impact.
Apple says that the Series 8 has the same 18-hour battery life, but there's a new low power mode that can give you up to 36 hours on a full charge. It keeps a lot of the core features like activity tracking and fall detection while also turning off things like the always-on display. Anyone who knows they'll be away from a charger for a long time should appreciate this feature, and it's coming to older Watch models as well, from Series 4 onward.
Apple Watch Series 8 comes in four aluminum colors (silver, a black-ish midnight, a gold-ish starlight, and red), as well as three stainless steel finishes — looks like the titanium models are going to be saved for the Apple Watch Pro, which we'll probably hear about momentarily. The GPS-only model starts at $399, while the cellular models start at $499. All will be available on September 16th.
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