10 Coolest watchOS 11 Features You Should Try

watchOS 11 is a feature packed update and it brings a ton of cool new abilities to your Apple Watch. So, if you have a watchOS 11 compatible Apple Watch, and you’ve just installed the new update, here are the 10 coolest watchOS 11 features you need to try.

Note: All of these features (except where specifically mentioned) will be available on all watchOS 11 compatible devices including Apple Watch Ultra 2, Ultra, Series 10, Series 9, Series 8, etc.

1. Pause Activity Rings

Fitness enthusiasts, this one is probably the best feature for you. We all use our Activity Rings to keep a track of the number of calories we’re burning, ensuring we exercise enough, and don’t lead a very sedentary lifestyle (thanks to the Stand goals). However, there are times when you simply can’t workout or are taking a break.

Well, with watchOS 11, you can pause your Activity Rings for a day, a week, a month, and more (up to 90 days) to ensure that your activity streak isn’t broken because of a few days of rest and recuperation.

2. Set Different Activity Goals for Different Days

If you’re like me, you don’t get in the same amount of exercise every single day, and you probably have rest days as well. With watchOS 11, you can now set Move, Exercise, and Stand goals individually for every day of the week. So, if you tend to do intensive workouts on Fridays and spend the weekend giving your body some rest, you can increase your activity goals for Friday, and reduce them for the weekend.

This watchOS 11 feature ensures you don’t feel the pressure of over-exerting yourself just to close your rings, and that you can use the Apple Watch to work according to your requirements and preferences. By the way, if you’re looking for the best Apple Watch faces for keeping track of your rings, you can use the Activity watch face.

3. View Notifications using Digital Crown

Up until watchOS 10, you could open the Smart Stack by scrolling the Digital Crown, but you still had to swipe down on the screen to view your notifications. With watchOS 11, you can now scroll down on the Digital Crown to open the Notification Center on your Apple Watch.

This makes it easier to get to notifications and scroll through them by just using the Digital Crown.

4. Smart Stack is Now Better

The Smart Stack has received major improvements with watchOS 11 as well. For one thing, it now supports Live Activities, which means when you book an Uber, order yourself a meal, or even have a timer running, the Smart Stack will automatically show up that Live Activity.

The Smart Stack also opens up by default now, whenever a Live Activity is ongoing, which makes it easier to keep a track of things without always having to scroll up or swipe up to check the widgets stack.

Personally, though, the best thing about Smart Stack is the new Now Playing widget. Until watchOS 10, if you were listening to music, audiobooks, or a podcast on your iPhone, the Now Playing app would take over your entire Apple Watch display, which is annoying. In watchOS 11, the Now Playing app shows up in the Smart Stack, like a widget, and you can tap on it to get to the full screen view if required.

5. Check In During Workouts

Apple’s Check In feature is very useful when you’re out and about and want to ensure the peace of mind of your friends and family by automatically letting them know when you’ve reached your destination. In watchOS 11, you can now use the Check In feature while working out.

This is extremely handy for situations such as if you’re going out for a walk or a run alone. Just start a Check In with your Apple Watch, and it will automatically notify your selected contacts when you’re done with the workout and are safely back home.

6. Quick Menu in Action Button (Apple Watch Ultra and Ultra 2 Only)

If you use an Apple Watch Ultra or Ultra 2, you can now long press on the Action button to open a Quick Menu where you can choose from a number of different actions that are supported by the button. This makes it easier to choose a desired action without having to go into settings.

7. Resume Workout without Losing Any Minutes

Another fitness feature that’s new in watchOS 11 is automatic reminders for resuming a workout. Basically, if you pause a workout to take a break, and you forget to resume the workout, Apple Watch will ask you whether you want to resume your workout tracking. The coolest part is that your watch will also retroactively add in the minutes that you have worked out already before you remembered to resume the workout tracking on your watch.

This is great because I make this very mistake almost every day in the gym, where I pause a workout, forget to resume it, and only remember about it once I’m done with my exercise and I see that my watch just doesn’t have any of my workout data recorded.

8. Play Audio Through Apple Watch Speaker (Apple Watch Series 10 and Ultra 2 Only)

If you have the new Apple Watch Series 10, or the Apple Watch Ultra 2, you can now listen to music and podcasts directly on your Apple Watch speaker as well. This means you no longer need to connect your AirPods to your watch to listen to songs or podcasts.

It goes without saying that you shouldn’t use this feature in public places or while using public transport so that you don’t annoy other people in your vicinity. However, this watchOS 11 feature is extremely useful for listening to music and/or podcasts at home, because you can listen to your songs, and also ensure that you can hear your doorbells, or anyone calling for you from elsewhere in the house. Yup, pretty cool.

9. Translate Directly from Watch

For travellers, watchOS 11 brings the Translate app straight to your wrist. You can now just speak the phrase you want to translate, choose the target language, and your Apple Watch will speak out the translation for you.

You can also download languages to use the app without having your watch paired with your iPhone. And if you have a cellular Apple Watch, you can use the app directly on your watch without downloading any languages as well.

There’s support for 20 languages right now, including Dutch, Chinese, French, Italian, Japanese, Russian, and more.

The Translate widget can also be added to your Smart Stack for faster access.

10. New Vitals App

watchOS 11 brings a new Vitals app that tracks important health metrics like heart rate, breathing, and wrist temperature while you sleep. It can then show you important metrics about your health in the morning. The app also notifies you if there are any outliers in the recorded data or if it notices a significant change in any of your health metrics over time.

You will have to wear your watch to sleep for at least 7 days before the Vitals app will start showing information, but once you do that, the data displayed is quite useful and well organized.

Well, those were the 10 coolest watchOS 11 features that you should check out when you update your Apple Watch. If you think I missed out on any important features, do let us know in the comments and I will definitely check them out.