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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The Forerunner 70 is the better deal

The Forerunner 70 currently has the larger percentage discount. The Forerunner 170 is also below its original price, so it is worth checking both before buying.

As we covered when Garmin launched the Forerunner 70, this is no longer a particularly basic entry-level running watch. Garmin has pushed a lot of its training software down into the cheaper model.

It has a 1.2-inch AMOLED touchscreen, built-in GPS and up to 13 days of battery life in smartwatch mode. You also get Training Readiness, Training Status, wrist-based running power and running dynamics.

That means the Forerunner 70 already covers most of what many runners will actually use. Getting it below its launch price makes the argument for moving further up Garmin’s range a little harder.

What you get with the Forerunner 170

The Forerunner 170 shares a lot with the cheaper watch, but adds a few useful extras. We went through the changes in our Forerunner 170 vs Forerunner 165 comparison.

The main additions over the Forerunner 70 include a barometric altimeter, Garmin Pay and some extra cycling features. There is also a Forerunner 170 Music version if you want onboard music storage.

So the choice between the two is fairly simple. The Forerunner 70 gives you most of Garmin’s core running and recovery tools, while the 170 makes more sense if you specifically want those extra hardware and everyday features.

Garmin’s Birthday Sale is also live

There is quite a bit of Garmin discounting beyond these two. The company is currently running its Birthday Sale, with reductions across a much wider selection of watches and other devices.

Several Fenix 8 versions are $150 cheaper, so there are some much large reductions once you move further up Garmin’s range. Enduro 3 gets this same discount.

The Venu X1 is another one worth looking at. Garmin has knocked $100 off the slim 2-inch AMOLED watch, bringing it down from its normal $659.99 price.

There are discounts on more mainstream Garmin watches too. The Venu 4 gets a $50 reduction, while the Vivoactive 6 is $70 cheaper during the promotion. Venu 3 is a whopping $150 off.

So there are two quite different Garmin sales worth watching right now. We have the first proper discounts on the new Forerunner 70 and 170. At the same time there’s a much broader Garmin promotion with some fairly substantial reductions across the range.

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There is more here than a few feature flags

For Blood Pressure Trends and Insulin Resistance Trends, Google Health already contains dedicated routes, onboarding components and chart handling. There are also separate states for when the app has no trend data to display, including specific messages for no blood pressure trends data and no insulin resistance trends data.

That does not tell us anything new about how the two features work, and Google has already explained that publicly. What it does tell us is that the app is prepared to take users through setup, receive the resulting data and display it once the features become available.

This is particularly relevant for Fitbit Air because so much of the experience happens on the phone rather than the wearable itself. As we noted in our Fitbit Air review, the screenless tracker depends on Google Health much more heavily than a conventional smartwatch.

Sleep Breathing Quality reveals a bit more

Sleep Breathing Quality is where the APK actually gives us some information Google did not spell out in its announcement. The app defines four Sleep Breathing Quality levels, HIGH, MEDIUM, LOW and VERY_LOW.

Google had already said users would get a daily view of how much of their sleep was spent in optimal breathing, followed by a longer-term monthly assessment. It had not explained that the app would also categorise breathing quality using these four levels.

There is also more detail on how Google Health Coach fits in. One piece of text says Coach insights can cover factors ranging from sleeping on your back to having a drink too close to sleep, while another says daily breathing insights can feed into deeper trend analysis and recommendations for better sleep.

That gives us a slightly clearer picture of the feature. Sleep Breathing Quality will not simply drop another number into the Health tab. Google is preparing explanatory and coaching elements around the result as well.

By the end of this month?

The company’s device comparison page lists Blood Pressure Trends, Insulin Resistance Trends and Sleep Breathing Quality for September 2026. The Fitbit Air product page, on the other hand, still says “coming soon”.

Whether Google still plans another app update before launch is impossible to tell from the APK alone. But the user-facing pieces we found do not appear to be waiting for a future build.

APK teardown note

This article is based on an APK teardown. Code found inside an app can reveal features or devices that are under development, but there is no guarantee they will appear in a future public release.

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Suunto Run 2 is now live on the company’s website. It takes the original Run and fills in most of the gaps that kept it from feeling like a complete running watch. It is still ridiculously light at 35 grams, but now you get offline maps, a much brighter screen, a bigger battery, upgraded sensors and new tools such as EnergySense, Live Finish Prediction and Heat Strain Score.

The funny thing is that Suunto hasn’t really changed the basic idea. Run 2 is still small, light and clearly aimed at people who actually want to run with their watch rather than carry a miniature outdoor computer on their wrist. It just does a lot more now.

View on Suunto’s website.

The same lightweight design

The Run 2 measures 46 x 46 x 11.7 mm, compared with 46 x 46 x 11.5 mm for the original Run. So despite all the extra hardware, Suunto has only added 0.2 mm to the thickness.

More importantly, the weight stays at just 35 grams. That is particularly impressive when you consider the bigger battery, offline mapping and upgraded sensors squeezed inside.

Construction remains pretty straightforward, with a stainless steel bezel, Gorilla Glass, a fiber-reinforced composite case and 5 ATM water resistance. Visually, Suunto has not tried to reinvent the watch either, and there was not much reason to.

The original Run was already one of the lighter options in this part of the market. Run 2 keeps that advantage instead of turning into another bulky outdoor watch.

The display jumps from 600 to 2,000 nits

Both watches use a 1.32-inch AMOLED display, but the brightness difference is huge. Suunto Run tops out at 600 nits, while Run 2 reaches 2,000 nits.

That is more than three times the quoted peak brightness. For a watch designed mainly for running outdoors, this is one of those upgrades that makes immediate sense.

The Run 2 also uses an LTPS AMOLED panel. The bigger story, though, is simply that the display is far better suited to bright outdoor conditions than the one on the original model.

A 600-nit display never made the first Run unusable, but it did look pretty modest next to newer sports watches. Run 2 brings Suunto right back into the range we now expect from a modern AMOLED running watch.

Offline maps completely change the comparison

Offline maps are easily one of the biggest differences between the two generations. Suunto Run 2 has them, while the original Run does not.

Worldwide maps can be downloaded directly to the watch before heading out. They include topographic contours, outdoor heatmaps and route climb profiles, and remain available without cellular data.

That gives the Run 2 a much broader use case than its predecessor. The first Run was easy to understand as a lightweight road-running watch, while Run 2 now makes a lot more sense for trail running, unfamiliar routes and travel.

It also makes the 35 gram weight look even better. Lightweight running watches with proper offline mapping are still not exactly everywhere.

The original Run asked you to accept some fairly clear compromises in return for the low weight. Run 2 removes one of the biggest ones.

GPS and heart rate both get new hardware

Suunto Run already had dual-band GPS, so this is not the first time the series has supported L1 and L5 positioning. Run 2 instead moves to Suunto’s new-generation navigation hardware.

Support includes GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, BeiDou and QZSS. Suunto says the upgraded system improves recorded distance, pace and track accuracy, with particular attention paid to filtering out multipath signal reflections from tall buildings.

That is a more interesting upgrade than simply adding dual-band GPS to a watch that previously lacked it. The original Run was already capable here, so Suunto is refining an area that was one of the stronger parts of the first watch.

The optical heart-rate sensor changes more noticeably. Run 2 uses a new 12-channel optical sensor positioned behind curved 2.5D sensor glass.

Suunto specifically points to improved tracking during hard intervals, sudden changes in intensity, long efforts and running in heat. Those are all situations where optical sensors can have a harder time keeping up, so this is a sensible area to target.

A bigger battery without a bigger watch

Battery capacity increases from 295 mAh on the original Run to 380 mAh on Run 2. That works out to roughly 29 percent more capacity.

Daily use increases from eight days to 10 days, while high-performance dual-band GPS rises from 20 hours to 24 hours. Those are useful gains, particularly because the display is also considerably brighter.

Suunto has not turned Run 2 into an ultra-endurance watch, and it does not need to. The attraction here is getting decent battery life without carrying something much larger on your wrist.

The fact that weight has stayed at 35 grams is probably the most impressive part of the battery upgrade. Suunto has added capacity without giving up one of the original Run’s main selling points.

Music now includes offline podcasts

Suunto Run 2 also expands what you can take with you when leaving the phone behind. Music and podcasts can be stored on the watch and played offline.

That fits particularly well with the addition of offline maps. You can head out with navigation and audio available directly from the watch, which makes the Run 2 considerably more self-contained than the original.

Suunto lists the Run 2 as a 4GB model, although its comparison information also references 4/64GB storage. The important practical point is that local audio playback is now part of the package, including podcasts rather than just music.

That makes more sense for a running watch in 2026. Plenty of runners want to leave the phone at home, and Run 2 now does a much better job of supporting that.

EnergySense goes further than ordinary pacing tools

It is not all about the hardware upgrades. Some more interesting additions are on the software side.

EnergySense calculates live physiological output and dynamically estimates your remaining stamina percentage and how far you could continue running at your current pace. That makes the comparison with Garmin Stamina fairly obvious, although Suunto may be approaching the same general problem differently.

Plus you get Live Finish Prediction. Which takes the current pace and shows where it leads, giving a real-time view of the finishing time. Both features are built to inform the call while there is still road left to act on it: hold the pace, ease off, or push.

This becomes particularly interesting because Suunto already has ZoneSense. That system uses DDFA, or Dynamical Detrended Fluctuation Analysis, to analyse RR interval dynamics and estimate physiological intensity during exercise.

ZoneSense is not simply another set of fixed heart-rate zones. It looks at how your body is responding in real time, while EnergySense attempts to answer the next question, which is how much you have left if you continue at the same effort.

There is also a new Heat Strain Score. Suunto says it combines external weather conditions such as temperature, humidity and wind with heart rate to calculate cumulative heat stress during training. The idea is to give runners a better indication of when heat is starting to affect pacing, hydration and recovery.

Recovery and readiness tracking also takes overnight HRV baselines, Training Stress Balance, sleep stages and subjective feeling scores into account. None of these features changes what the Run 2 fundamentally is, but together they make the software side of the upgrade look considerably broader than it first appeared.

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