We first reported Xiaomi was exploring Apple Watch support back in December 2024. At the time it felt like one of those ideas that would eventually disappear, yet here we are nearly two years later with it actually launching alongside the Xiaomi 18 Pro series.

The feature was introduced alongside the Xiaomi 18 Pro series this week as part of HyperOS 4. Xiaomi’s own compatibility page now spells out exactly how it works, and this goes quite a bit further than simply forwarding the odd notification.

What actually works

Once connected, calls, text messages and app notifications from the Xiaomi phone can appear on the Apple Watch. Xiaomi’s Super Island live activities can also be sent across, while health and exercise information recorded by the Apple Watch can travel in the opposite direction and appear inside the Mi Fitness app.

There is also two-way device finding. A Xiaomi phone can make the Apple Watch ring, while the watch can do the same to the phone, which makes the connection feel more like a proper device pairing than a basic notification workaround.

Xiaomi handles this through its Xiaomi Connect app on the Apple Watch. After installing it, the watch displays a QR code that you scan using the Xiaomi phone, then you grant the relevant permissions on both devices.

The official compatibility requirements are fairly broad. Xiaomi says the phone needs HyperOS 4 or later, while supported Apple hardware includes Apple Watch Series 6 and newer, Apple Watch SE 2 and newer, and every Apple Watch Ultra model running watchOS 11 or later.

You still need an iPhone

There is a pretty big catch, though. This does not turn the Apple Watch into a normal Android smartwatch that you can buy, take out of the box and pair straight to a Xiaomi phone.

Xiaomi explicitly says the Apple Watch must first be paired with an iPhone and activated before it can connect to the Xiaomi handset. So an iPhone is still part of the setup process, even if the Xiaomi phone can take over some of the everyday interaction afterwards.

What the company has done is make the watch considerably more useful after someone moves from iPhone to one of its phones. You could keep an existing Apple Watch rather than immediately replacing it simply because you changed smartphone platform.

Part of a bigger push

Xiaomi has been steadily building bridges to Apple’s ecosystem, with file transfers and connectivity for iPhone, iPad and Mac already in place. The watch was always the toughest piece to crack. Xiaomi’s own watches are still the simpler choice, but they’re not who this is for.

Xiaomi admits some features depend on the specific device. It’s not full independence from the iPhone, but it’s a lot closer than anyone expected two years ago.

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Until now this was a real pain if you trained on a Garmin but lived in Google Health for everything else. The workout would show up fine, yet Cardio Load acted like it never happened. Google Health 5.09 fixes that.

Why Garmin users should care

Plenty of people split things up these days. Garmin does the serious training, while a Fitbit or Pixel Watch handles sleep, passive tracking and the Google side of things. I’ve written before about Fitbit Air working better alongside a Garmin than as a replacement for one.

The trouble was that a hard Garmin run did nothing for your Cardio Load. Pick the “wrong” watch for a session and your numbers looked lower than they should. People had been complaining about it for months. Google said it would pass the feedback on, and now it has actually done something about it.

Heart-rate data is required

There is one important condition. The imported workout needs heart-rate data, because Google uses that information when calculating how much Cardio Load to assign to the session.

For Garmin and Apple Watch workouts, that should not be a hurdle. Both normally record heart rate throughout exercise, although the relevant data still needs to make it through the sync into Google Health.

Google is not importing Garmin’s own Training Load score or Apple’s training metrics. It is taking the workout information it receives and using that data to calculate its own Cardio Load figure.

Which means Garmin’s Training Readiness, recovery metrics and deeper training analysis do not suddenly become Google Health metrics just because the workout has synced across. I saw that difference first-hand when I ran a 5K with Fitbit Air against Garmin. The basic heart-rate and distance figures were very close, but Garmin still provided far more depth once the workout was finished.

What actually syncs

Garmin data gets in via Health Connect on Android or Apple Health on iPhone. That covers workout summaries, heart rate, steps, distance, floors and calories. Garmin’s HRV, VO2 max and detailed lap data still don’t come through.

Apple Watch shares a bit more, including routes, VO2 max and some overnight vitals. For Cardio Load none of that really matters though. If the workout carries heart-rate data, Google can use it.

One odd detail

Google’s support page still says Cardio Load only uses first-party data, which flatly contradicts the 5.09 release notes. The update only started rolling out on September 25, so the help page just hasn’t caught up yet.

Small change, big win if you mix brands. You can train with whatever watch you like and still keep Cardio Load honest.

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A very specific watchOS update

Unusually, the firmware update is only available for the Series 12 and Ultra 4. Apple’s release notes are about as straightforward as they get, saying the update fixes an issue where Apple Watch may restart unexpectedly.

We covered the issue earlier this week. Series 12 and Ultra 4 owners had reported their watches suddenly showing the Apple logo and restarting, sometimes while actively using the watch and sometimes while it appeared to be doing very little.

The crashes were not tied to one obvious activity. Reports included reboots while using Siri, Maps, the App Store and watch faces, as well as during workouts. Some happened while the watch was apparently idle, which made finding a simple trigger difficult.

More importantly, several diagnostic logs shared by affected owners pointed toward the same Apple Neural Engine timeout. In those cases, the Neural Engine appeared to stop responding before a watchdog triggered a kernel panic and restarted the watch.

Apple moved quickly on this one

The two watches only went on sale on September 18, so the turnaround here was pretty quick. Reports started appearing almost immediately, and the dedicated patch followed less than a week after launch.

It also strengthens the likelihood that this was a software or firmware problem rather than something owners needed to solve by exchanging their watches. Some affected users had already tried wiping their Apple Watch and setting it up again, while at least one report involved the same problem appearing on a replacement unit.

That said, Apple only says the update fixes the unexpected restart issue. It has not published a detailed explanation of what changed.

For anyone affected, though, installing watchOS 27.0.1 is the obvious move before doing anything else. Apple says updates can be installed directly from the watch through Settings, General and Software Update, or through the Watch app on the paired iPhone. The watch needs at least 50 percent battery and should remain on its charger while the update installs.

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Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman is back with a fresh report, and this time the language is different. Apple isn’t just exploring an idea anymore, it has actual prototypes sitting somewhere in Cupertino. They’re described as a thin fabric band paired with a sensor equipped computing module.

From a maybe to an actual thing

The project is currently in what Bloomberg calls the technology investigation phase. In English, this means the stage where Apple works out whether the sensors, the battery and the software can actually come together into something worth shipping.

Which is why the timeline attached to this is so far out. Bloomberg says a launch, if it happens at all, wouldn’t come before 2028.

That lines up with something we said back in May when first floated the idea of an Apple Watch Air, a lightweight health tracker that sits alongside the main Apple Watch rather than replacing it. Apple clearly likes that framing, wear the Watch for maps, workouts and notifications, then switch to the band for sleep or for days you just don’t want a screen on your wrist.

The people behind it matter here

What’s new and genuinely worth paying attention to is who’s backing this internally. Gurman names Eddy Cue and Tim Cook as supporters of the project. Cue took over Apple’s health division last October after Jeff Williams left, and this might be a hint of the direction he wants to take it.

It also fits a pattern we have been tracking for a while. Garmin has already proven a screenless band can complement rather than replace a full watch with CIRQA, and Google did the same thing at a lower price point with Fitbit Air. Apple watching two competitors validate the category before committing real engineering resources isn’t surprising, it’s just how Apple tends to operate.

Don’t expect this soon

Just yesterday, we looked at how how Garmin, Oura, Whoop and Apple’s own readiness scores all share the same evidence gap. It’s a good reminder that even if Apple ships this thing in 2028, the software side of health wearables still has real questions to answer. That’s on top of everything else Apple has going on with its current Watch lineup rebooting issues.

For now this stays a prototype, and prototypes get killed inside Apple all the time. But the fact that Tim Cook is reportedly involved, that there’s a defined design direction, and that the timing lines up with everything else happening in this category, makes this feel less like a rumour and more like a project with real momentum behind it.

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The first reports appeared shortly after the two watches went on sale on September 18. The problem does not seem tied to one app or activity, which makes it particularly awkward to pin down.

The Apple logo appears without warning

Owners describe the screen suddenly switching to the Apple logo before the watch starts up again. It has happened while using Siri, editing a watch face, opening Maps or the App Store, making a call, starting a timer and recording a workout.

Some watches have also restarted while apparently doing nothing. One overnight reboot left a large gap in the wearer’s health data, while others have lost part of an active workout.

The strongest clue comes from the diagnostic files. A few shared “panic-full” logs show the same Apple Neural Engine timeout, with the processor apparently hanging for around two seconds before a watchdog forces the watch to restart.

A panic log records a low-level system crash rather than an ordinary app closing unexpectedly. Seeing the same Neural Engine reference in several logs suggests there may be a common fault, although it does not tell us whether the underlying cause sits in watchOS, firmware or the hardware itself.

Both watches use Apple’s new S11 chip, which handles more on-device processing than previous generations. It supports the new audio features, Apple’s Readiness system and more frequent heart-rate and HRV tracking.

Resetting the watch may not solve it

The crashes have appeared on the original watchOS 27 software and after the day-one update downloaded during setup. Some owners say the problem continued after they erased the watch and configured it as a new device.

One Series 12 owner reportedly received a replacement that produced the same Neural Engine panic. That does not rule out a hardware problem, but it makes replacing the watch less convincing as a guaranteed fix.

A few people running the watchOS 27.2 beta say they have not experienced further restarts. That is encouraging, but the reports remain too limited to show that Apple has fixed the problem, and installing beta software introduces its own risks.

Apple has not acknowledged the reboot issue or published a specific workaround. The number of public reports remains relatively small compared with the likely number of watches already sold, so it is too early to judge how widely the problem extends.

What affected owners can do

The sensible first step is to install the latest public watchOS update. Apple could address this through software if the crashes come from the operating system or Neural Engine firmware, but there is no confirmed fix yet.

If the watch restarts, open Settings, followed by Privacy & Security, Analytics & Improvements and Analytics Data. Look for a recent file beginning with “panic-full,” as this can help Apple Support distinguish a system crash from a normal restart.

Repeatedly erasing the watch does not look worthwhile when others have already tried it without success. A manual restart may help with an ordinary software glitch, but it is unlikely to remove a fault that continues generating the same kernel panic.

Anyone seeing frequent reboots should contact Apple Support and keep a note of what the watch was doing when each one occurred. If the problem regularly interrupts workouts, sleep tracking or calls, it also makes sense to raise it while the watch remains inside its return period.

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That matters more now because these scores are popping up everywhere. Garmin, Oura, Whoop and Fitbit already have their own versions, and Apple has now joined them with Readiness on the Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4.

The basic idea sounds sensible enough. Your wearable looks at HRV, resting heart rate, sleep and recent activity, then boils everything down to a number telling you whether to push harder, take it easy or have a rest.

The final score is the weak link

Topol was not questioning whether wearables can measure heart rate, sleep or HRV. He wanted to know whether the final readiness score can actually tell someone what to do next.

If Apple says “Recover” or Garmin reports low Training Readiness, does ignoring that advice lead to a worse workout, slower recovery or a greater risk of injury? Topol could find almost no published research testing those recommendations against real outcomes.

A 2025 review of 14 wearable health scores reached a similar conclusion. Most scores used HRV, resting heart rate, sleep and activity, but few manufacturers had published evidence validating the final number produced from that data.

The strongest example Topol found was a Whoop study involving 389 professional golfers. Players performed around half a stroke better when their Recovery score was 10 points higher, but the study had no control group and could only show an association.

That is the missing piece. Wearables can detect changes in the body, but companies have not yet shown that their scores consistently turn those changes into the right advice.

Your wearable may not be measuring HRV in the clinical sense

The HRV figure used by most readiness scores does not come from an ECG. Watches and smart rings use an optical sensor to track the timing of pulse waves at the skin, producing a closely related measurement called pulse-rate variability.

That distinction does not make the reading useless. Optical measurements can match ECG-derived HRV reasonably well while someone rests or sleeps, but the agreement becomes less reliable when movement, sensor fit, circulation or certain health conditions affect the pulse signal.

The research connecting low HRV with poorer health outcomes mainly uses ECG measurements. We cannot automatically apply those findings to short-term changes recorded by a consumer wearable.

HRV is also affected by exercise, alcohol, illness, stress, sleep and many other factors. A lower reading may show that something has changed, but it cannot tell the wearable what caused that change.

Useful signal or daily instruction

None of this means you should ignore readiness scores. A falling score can draw attention to a combination of poor sleep, higher resting heart rate and lower HRV, particularly when the pattern continues for several days.

The problem is the precision implied by the final number. An Oura score of 80 does not have the same meaning as 80 from another platform, and neither score follows a recognised clinical standard.

Readiness scores therefore make the most sense as personal trend indicators. Several unusual days from the same device deserve more attention than one low score after a poor night, late meal or unusually hard workout.

The sensors may have detected a genuine change in your body. The part that remains uncertain is whether the wearable knows exactly what you should do about it.

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What older Apple Watches actually get

First, the compatibility bit. As we covered in our watchOS 27 release guide, the software runs on Apple Watch Series 9, Series 10, Series 11 and Series 12, along with Ultra 2, Ultra 3, Ultra 4 and SE 3. So if your watch is not on this list, you’ve lucked out.

But having watchOS 27 does not mean having the entire 2026 Apple Watch feature set. The older watches get the compatible software additions, including the redesigned Find My app, changes to Smart Stack, improved treadmill distance estimates and the new Cycle Tracking support for perimenopause and menopause.

That is the first bucket. These are watchOS features, so Apple can bring them to supported existing hardware without changing anything inside the watch.

The health features are where things get more confusing.

Readiness and Recovery HRV need the new watches

Readiness is not hiding somewhere in the settings of your Series 11. Apple limits the Readiness app to Series 12 and Ultra 4, and ties it to the new Health Sensing System introduced with those watches.

The new hardware takes background heart-rate readings every five seconds and can measure HRV as often as every five minutes. That denser stream of data feeds into Readiness, alongside sleep, recent activity, training load and other vitals.

We have already gone into why older Apple Watches miss out on Readiness, so there is little point going through the hardware argument again here. The important bit after the watchOS 27 rollout is simply that updating the software does not change that restriction.

Recovery HRV falls on the same side of the line. Apple now explicitly says that the feature is available on Series 12 and Ultra 4, so an older watch running watchOS 27 does not suddenly gain the new Recovery HRV metric.

That is separate from the HRV data older Apple Watches have recorded for years. Apple is now distinguishing Recovery HRV from Overall HRV on its newest watches.

Health Age is different again

Then there is Health Age, which you should not expect to find after installing watchOS 27 either. That one simply has not launched yet.

Health Age is part of Apple’s redesigned Health app, which the company says is coming later this year. It will sit inside a new Longevity section and compare things such as VO2 max, resting heart rate, sleep and HRV with your chronological age. Apple also says users will be able to add lab information such as A1c and LDL to give the system more context.

There is an important difference here, though. Apple currently says Health Age requires an Apple Watch, but it has not said that you specifically need a Series 12 or Ultra 4. So it would be premature to put Health Age in the same hardware-only bucket as Readiness and Recovery HRV.

The redesigned Health app is also due to arrive first in U.S. English. Apple has not given an exact release date yet, so Health Age is something to look for later rather than something that should have appeared with yesterday’s watchOS 27 installation.

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If you have a recent Apple Watch, today is basically software update day. Apple first showed us watchOS 27 at WWDC back in June, but that was the preview. September 14 is when the finished update starts reaching regular users.

Which Apple Watches get watchOS 27

You need an Apple Watch Series 9, Series 10, Series 11 or Series 12. Apple Watch Ultra 2, Ultra 3 and Ultra 4 are also supported, along with Apple Watch SE 3.

That means Series 8 and anything older are out. The original Apple Watch Ultra is also left behind, even though it is hardly ancient by smartwatch standards.

Your iPhone matters as well. Apple says watchOS 27 requires an iPhone 11 or later, or an iPhone SE 2nd generation or later, running iOS 27. So update the iPhone first if you are planning to install watchOS 27 today.

The actual installation process is the familiar one. Keep the Apple Watch at least 50 percent charged and on its charger, make sure the iPhone is connected to Wi-Fi, then open the Watch app and head to General and Software Update. You can also check directly from the watch under Settings, General and Software Update.

If the update does not appear immediately, there is not necessarily anything wrong. September 14 is the release date, but availability can take a little time to reach every device.

What you can actually try today

The most obvious change is Siri AI. Apple says the new version of Siri is rolling out in English with watchOS 27, bringing more natural conversations, broader knowledge and the ability to use personal context. There is also a dedicated Siri app where previous conversations can be picked up again.

The app grid has also changed. It can now surface Siri-suggested apps based on what you use regularly and what you have opened recently, which should make the grid a little less dependent on remembering where Apple decided to put every tiny circular icon.

Smart Stack gets more attention as well. Apple has added a single-tap gesture for opening a highlighted widget, while new contextual suggestions can surface things such as a parked car location or a reminder linked to someone’s birthday.

Workout Buddy has been expanded too. It can use more of your fitness history when generating spoken feedback, and it can now work without the iPhone physically nearby. You still need a paired Apple Intelligence-capable iPhone, Bluetooth headphones and either Wi-Fi or cellular connectivity when leaving the phone behind.

Treadmill users get a less glamorous but potentially more useful upgrade. Apple says new machine-learning models improve indoor walking and running distance estimates from the start of a workout, rather than relying as heavily on previous outdoor calibration.

There are smaller changes scattered around the system as well. Find My gets a more map-focused interface, Wallet can store custom QR code and barcode passes, Smart Stack suggestions are more proactive, and Cycle Tracking adds perimenopause and menopause support.

Readiness and the new HRV tracking are different

There is one important catch. Installing watchOS 27 on an older watch does not suddenly give you Readiness or the new higher-frequency HRV tracking. As we covered in our look at why older Apple Watches miss out on Readiness, those features are tied to Series 12 and Ultra 4 hardware.

The new watches can check heart rate in the background every five seconds and HRV as often as every five minutes. That extra data feeds into Readiness, while Apple has also added Recovery HRV alongside Overall HRV. We explain the difference between the two HRV measurements here.

So a Series 11 running watchOS 27 gets the new software features, but not the new health-sensing setup. For that, you need Series 12 or Ultra 4.

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At first, you could easily put that down to the new ceramic version or the way Apple has photographed the watch. But the regular aluminium and titanium models have changed as well.

The case is wider

Let’s look at the published specs.

Apple Watch Series 11 measures 46 x 39 x 9.7 mm in the larger size and 42 x 36 x 9.7 mm in the smaller one. Series 12 keeps the same height and depth, but the aluminium and titanium versions are now 40 mm and 37 mm wide respectively.

So both Series 12 sizes have gained 1 mm in width. That is a small change, but on a watch it is enough to make the border around the screen look noticeably wider.

The display resolution has not changed. The 46 mm Series 11 and Series 12 both use a 416 x 496 pixel display, while the smaller versions remain at 374 x 446 pixels.

Apple also lists both generations at 326 pixels per inch. That points to the active display remaining essentially the same physical size while the case around it has become wider.

The difference is easiest to spot with a bright watch face. Dark OLED backgrounds disguise the bezel much more effectively, while white or colourful faces make the edge of the screen obvious.

Apple’s display figures complicate things

There is one slightly confusing detail in Apple’s specifications. The Series 11 specs list a display area of 1,220 square millimetres for the 46 mm model and 989 square millimetres for the 42 mm version.

The Series 12 specs instead give figures of 1,196 and 970 square millimetres. Read literally, that would suggest the Series 12 display has actually become smaller.

Apple’s own Watch comparison page tells a different story. It now lists Series 11 with the same 1,196 and 970 square millimetre figures as Series 12, which conflicts with the dedicated Series 11 specifications page.

The unchanged resolution and identical 326 ppi figure also make an actual reduction in display size unlikely. The most likely explanation is that Apple has changed how it reports display area, or one of the Series 11 pages is using an older measurement.

So this does not look like Apple shrinking the Series 12 screen. It looks more like the same basic display sitting inside a slightly wider case.

The ceramic version goes a little further

The ceramic Series 12 has different dimensions again. The 46 mm ceramic version measures 47 x 41 x 9.85 mm, compared with 46 x 40 x 9.7 mm for the aluminium and titanium versions. That makes the bezel difference particularly noticeable on ceramic.

For most buyers, this probably will not be a major reason to choose one generation over the other. Our Apple Watch Series 12 vs Series 11 comparison covers the larger differences between the two watches.

Still, it is a curious move after several generations of Apple gradually pushing the display closer to the edges. Series 12 appears to take a small step in the other direction, even though the usable screen itself seems to be effectively unchanged.

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Under the hood, HealthKit also adds RMSSD alongside Apple’s existing SDNN metric. That helps explain why Apple is treating the two readings separately.

HealthKit points to RMSSD

Apple Watch has historically stored HRV in HealthKit as SDNN. Apple’s developer documentation describes SDNN as the standard deviation of the intervals between normal heartbeats, but HealthKit now includes a second type called heartRateVariabilityRMSSD.

The company has added native RMSSD support just as Series 12 and Ultra 4 introduce Recovery HRV. Meanwhile, the existing HRV measurement remains available as Overall HRV.

Apple has not explicitly confirmed that Recovery HRV equals RMSSD and Overall HRV equals SDNN. That mapping therefore remains an interpretation, but it fits with how the two calculations are described.

RMSSD looks at changes between consecutive heartbeat intervals and is particularly useful for tracking short-term changes in autonomic activity. That makes it well suited to recovery tracking, where the useful question is usually whether today’s HRV has moved away from your own normal level.

SDNN measures variability differently. It looks at the overall spread of normal heartbeat intervals during a measurement period. It remains useful, but the result depends heavily on how and for how long HRV is measured.

That distinction explains Apple’s new terminology. Recovery HRV gives Apple a metric specifically suited to short-term recovery, while Overall HRV retains the broader HRV measurement Apple Watch users already know.

Apple is also measuring HRV far more often

This is not only a change in calculation. Series 12 and Ultra 4 can measure HRV as often as every five minutes, which Apple says is up to 24 times more frequently than before.

That is a major shift from the relatively sparse HRV readings of previous Apple Watches. Heart rate itself is now measured every five seconds throughout the day, giving Apple much denser data for Vitals and its new Readiness score.

We covered the hardware changes in our Apple Watch Series 12 launch story. The higher sampling rate also helps explain why Readiness is limited to Series 12 and Ultra 4, rather than arriving on older watches through watchOS 27.

More frequent sampling matters because HRV can move considerably depending on sleep, training, stress, illness and time of day. A denser stream of measurements gives Apple much more information from which to identify changes against someone’s normal range.

Overall HRV still needs explaining

Recovery HRV is the easier of the two to understand. Apple compares it with your own baseline and uses it to identify day-to-day changes in stress and recovery.

Overall HRV is less straightforward. Apple says it is better for broader health and cardiovascular insights, but HRV remains highly individual and SDNN in particular depends strongly on measurement duration.

We also do not yet know exactly how Apple creates the Overall HRV value from measurements taken throughout the day. Apple has not explained whether it averages readings, selects particular periods or processes them in some other way.

Those details should become clearer when watchOS 27 reaches users. What we already know is that Apple Watch is moving from one generic HRV measurement to two HRV variants, while HealthKit gains RMSSD alongside SDNN and the watches collect HRV far more frequently.

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