After 10 days with the Apple Watch Series 12, I'm disturbed by one 'slightly off' reading

Date:
Tue, 29 Sep 2026 17:00:00 +0000

Description:
After more than a week of wearing the Apple Watch Series 12, I've learned at least one surprising thing about my health.

FULL STORY ======================================================================Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Threads Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter Remember when the Apple Watch was just a fitness gadget, primarily devoted to notifications and workout tracking? Now it's like a medical technician on your wrist, measuring everything from heart rate (with readings every 5 seconds), temperature,
blood oxygen, respiratory rate, and sleep. It's so comprehensive that it can now, with the enhanced Vital apps, give an overall sense of your current well-being.

Apple gave its now two-year-old Vitals section a makeover in preparation for the upcoming Readiness view in the soon-to-be-released redesigned Health App. In the meantime, you can see Readiness in Fitness. It uses readings from
Apple Watch (Vitals, Sleep, Activity) to come up with a Readiness score. Basically, the number, on a scale from 1 to 10, tells you how ready you are
to take on the challenges of the day. Today, I'm a 7! (Image credit: Future) I'm not a health nut, but I try to keep physically active and in shape, and I generally watch what I eat (and sometimes that means watching myself eat a donut). On my Apple Watch Series 12 as with previous Apple Watches I enjoy tracking my workouts and, ever since I started wearing the watch to sleep, my sleep score. Apparently I get, on average, roughly 4.75 hours or so of sleep
a night (ugh). Latest Videos From TechRadar Watch full video here: For my needs, knowing that I completed a workout and that my sleep is good (or not) is enough, but perhaps I'm not typical. Certainly, Apple has seen an opportunity to transform the Apple Watch into a true and more proactive
health wearable, one that can not only measure vitals in real time but also alert you to potentially serious issues. Apple Watch knows a lot about you We've all read stories of the Apple Watch detecting potential heart issues
and people then getting checked out by a professional and discovering a real, albeit treatable issue. Apple Watch has long been able to help you in dire situations like a car crash or fall. When I took a spill not too long ago, I set off Apple Watch's fall detection (I wasn't hurt, so I stopped it from dialing emergency services), and I saw it do the same when a relative took a particularly dramatic tumble, where I think we let the call go through (she's fine). I do often recommend the Apple Watch as an eldercare device. You may like It's about time Apple got a Readiness score to compete with Fitbit and Garmin Apple Watch Series 12 vs Garmin Fenix 9 Pro: Some big HR and calorie differences Ive worn the Apple Watch Series 12 for a week the biggest
changes are underneath

These are all positives, but I'd be lying if I didn't admit that the level of physical data my Apple Watch is now collecting and collating in the Health
app (and Fitness App) is overwhelming. (Image credit: Future) With Apple leaning harder and harder into health tracking, Apple made a major sensor change for the Apple Watch Series 12. Its new sunburst-style heart rate
sensor features large green LEDs (replacing the sparser red diodes) in a ring array capable of taking heart rate readings every five seconds (there's also 24% more watch surface-to-skin contact). Now I have Heart Rate Variability (HRV) readings that are fed to, among other things, the enhanced Vitals section in Health. Get daily insight, inspiration and deals in your inbox
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us on behalf of our trusted partners or sponsors By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over. (Image credit: Lance Ulanoff / Future) It's here that I happened to notice a single "Slightly Off" Vital reading and started spiralling, wondering, worrying, and also laughing because it would not be
the first time I've been called "Slightly Off". Normal readings are called "Typical", and, I guess, if you're lucky or super healthy, "Favorable."
What's wrong with me? Vitals combine respiratory rate, wrist temperature, Blood Oxygen, Recovery HRV, and sleep duration (each day shows the average
for each measurement). The single "Slightly Off" reading was attributed to a high heart rate while sleeping. Apple Watch Series 12's ability to measure heart rate every five seconds (previous Apple Watches could only do it every five minutes) meant that this was probably a pretty accurate reading.

According to Vitals, my typical sleeping heart rate is 51bpm. On September 25th, the heart rate shown was 60BPM. That's not super high, but based on my average, it is, in fact, "Slightly off". What to read next 5 new Apple Watch features that are more than just health-tracking tools Apple tells us about its approach to the new Readiness score on the Apple Watch Wearables are making us anxious Heres what we can do about it

So what am I to do with this information? For now, nothing. After all, this
is a single day and, since then, I've had nothing but "Typical" Vitals measurements.

We're still weeks or more away from a Health App redesign that might make all this data even more digestible, to say nothing of all the AI features (Live Rewind and Siri Recap) that are due in late 2026.

Even though Apple Watch Series 12 doesn't look much different from its predecessor, I've come to realize that the almost constant heart monitoring, and the sheer mountain of data the wearable is now collecting, is potentially a health game changer. I still find it all overwhelming, but I can guarantee I'll be watching like a hawk for the next "Slightly Off" reading. 369 at Amazon Follow TechRadar on Google News and add us as a preferred source to
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Link to news story: https://www.techradar.com/health-fitness/smartwatches/ive-been-wearing-the-app le-watch-series-12-for-10-days-but-i-cant-stop-thinking-about-one-slightly-off -reading


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