Apple’s latest wearables are front-and-center for making some of the biggest health claims on the market, but owners of recent Apple Watch models won’t be forgotten. Apple has confirmed that two of the Series 11’s flagship upgrades—Sleep Score and hypertension notifications—are coming to many countries’ existing watches via watchOS 26.
It’s a significant change in Apple’s approach. Instead of reserving wellness advances for new hardware, the company is relying on sensors that it has added over the past few generations of the Apple Watch and driving improvements through software, expanding the audience for features that really make a difference day to day.
Sleep Score Arrives on More Wrists
Sleep Score combines several signals to deliver a snapshot, 0-100 rating of your sleep quality. Apple here cites bedtime regularity, total duration, heart rate, respiratory rate, blood oxygen, wake events and wrist temperature, where this is available, turning that into an average, then breaking it down into components so you can see what dragged your score down.
Importantly, Sleep Score isn’t a Series 11 exclusive. It is coming to Apple Watch Series 6 or later, Apple Watch SE (2nd generation) and both Apple Watch Ultra models when they’re upgraded to watchOS 26. You also need an iPhone 11 or higher running iOS 26 to view the Health app and get trend analysis.
The first-generation Apple Watch SE is the primary exception here, as that model is aging out of software support. For everyone else on the compatibility list, Sleep Score data will also appear in the Sleep app on the watch, within the Health app on iPhone and as a Smart Stack card or watch face complication for quick peeks.
If you’ve used competitors, the concept will be familiar: Fitbit and Garmin and Oura have offered sleep scoring for years. Apple’s angle leans on its close ties to iPhone for coaching and trend context, and it leverages sensor streams the company has consistently widened since Series 6.
Heart Insights Left Over by Hypertension Notifications
Apple is also adding hypertension notifications, a new feature that scans for patterns that look like they might be related to the risk of high blood pressure over a rolling 30-day window. It monitors heart rate and other timing signals to alert you when your cardiovascular system might be under persistent strain prompting you could speak with a clinician.
Apple says this is not a blood pressure reading or diagnosis. It’s a slow signal to remind you to pursue an appropriate evaluation, akin in spirit to the company’s infrequent rhythm notifications. Regulatory approval is pending, and Apple says the feature will become active once approvals are granted.
This is support that will be carried over to the Series 9, Series 10 and Apple Watch Ultra 2, not replacing the older models. That dovetails with the sensor generations Apple requires for the analysis pipeline. With almost half of U.S. adults having hypertension, according to the American Heart Association, even a mild early-warning system could have a meaningful impact at scale.
Compatibility, Guess What, and Where to Find It
Once your watch is updated to watchOS 26 and your iPhone to iOS 26, you can start using Sleep Score on an older watch.
Make sure your watch is charged to at least 50 percent, connect your devices to Wi-Fi, and then follow the prompts in the Watch app’s Software Update menu. Sleep Score is displayed in the Sleep app on the watch and in the Health app’s new Sleep section, where daily scores also appear along with longer trends.
Hypertension alerts are handled in heart-related settings in the Health app if triggered when they come. As with all of these heart features, it’s probably a good idea to turn on notifications and scroll through the educational material in the app so you know what the alerts mean and, importantly, what they don’t.
Why Apple Can Get Away With Backporting These Features
Backporting is effective here with sensors that have been in place for generations.
Optical heart rate, accelerometer and gyroscope data, along with blood oxygen and wrist temperature (on newer models), provide Apple with enough inputs to model sleep quality as well as your long-term cardiovascular patterns without adding any new hardware.
Just not all of the senses are on every device, so Apple’s algorithms can weight the available signals and still give you a useful score. Which is something that Series 6 and SE (2nd gen) owners can take advantage of, with even the first-gen SE’s older platform coming off worse here as the company begins to sunset support.
How It Compares With Rivals
Despite growing competition, Fitbit’s established sleep score and Garmin’s trove of training metrics continue to look great, and ring makers like Oura have popularized readiness-style overviews. Apple’s own advantage is in ecosystem reach: hundreds of millions of active iPhones and deep Health app integration that transforms raw metrics into trends and coaching most people might actually look at.
For hypertension, medical groups like the American College of Cardiology stress that cuffless wearables cannot substitute for validated blood pressure monitors.
The company’s stance does dovetail with that -notifications as a nudge to see a doctor, and if need be, verifying with a medical-grade device.
A Few Tips to Help You Make the Most of the Update
Establish a regular sleep schedule in the Health app and wear your watch snug at night for better signal strength. You can add the Sleep Score complication to your favorite face or pin your card to your Smart Stack for a quick early morning look. In the long run, focus on week-over-week shifts rather than a single-night blip.
If you get a hypertension notification, think of it as a prompt for a conversation with a clinician. Check your trends in the Health app recently and the medications, amount of caffeine or alcohol consumed and recent training loads, and consider verifying at home with a validated cuff before your appointment.
