The Apple Watch Series 8: A Review of its Features and Design

As I unwrapped my brand new Apple Watch Series 8, I couldn't help but feel a sense of excitement and curiosity about what this latest iteration had to offer. With a plethora of features and designs on display, it's clear that Apple is pushing the boundaries of what a smartwatch can do.

One of the most significant aspects of the Series 8 is its temperature-sensing feature. I'm fascinated by temperature and see a lot of potential in this area, but you do need a longer battery life to make the most of it or really change your habits. Apple claims that the watch can detect car crashes with an accelerometer and gyroscope that are more sensitive than ever before, which is certainly useful. However, I'm not planning on using this feature anytime soon, but I'm sure there will be people out there who will be eager to test its limits.

The way this feature works is by detecting up to 256 g of impact force with the accelerometer and gyroscope being more sensitive than before. This allows for faster sampling rates for all of that data, which is useful for motion tracking and other applications. I couldn't help but think about motion controllers and gestures when reading about this feature, and how it could be used in conjunction with Apple's rumored headset that's supposed to be released next year.

Speaking of the design, it's largely the same as previous models. The configurations are also mostly the same, although you do get a few extra features on the larger watch size. The price starts at $400, which is certainly an investment for anyone looking to upgrade their Apple Watch.

If you're in the market for a new smartwatch and want something fancy to show off, I would highly recommend the Ultra model. It comes with a range of features including better water resistance, a brighter display, and higher-quality GPS. However, if budget is a concern, the Apple Watch SE offers a more affordable option at $250.

One thing that's clear from my experience with the Series 8 is that it's not necessarily a must-have upgrade right now. If you already have an Apple Watch from last year or the year before, you're likely to be fine. However, if you're interested in seeing how some of these features will develop over time, I would recommend waiting and keeping an eye on what Apple comes up with.

In terms of health tracking, I think there's a lot of potential for Apple to finally get serious about this area. With all the sensor tech at their disposal, they could be calculating things like well-readiness scores or ambient senses of how you're doing throughout the day. However, you do need longer battery life or you might need to change your habits altogether.

Finally, I have to say that I'm curious to see how temperature is going to feel for me in the long run. Right now, it's still an embryonic feature, but I have a feeling that it could be really interesting. One thing is for sure: Apple is pushing the boundaries of what we expect from a smartwatch, and I'm excited to see where they go from here.

If you have any questions or comments about the Apple Watch Series 8, please let us know in the comments below. Don't forget to like and subscribe for more tech reviews and news!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enit used to be simple picking an apple watch there was one model a year not anymore the newest apple watch is here the apple watch series 8 or should i say newest apple watch is there's also the apple watch se and the apple watch ultra which do you get well let's start with the middle one the apple watch series 8 which i'm wearing on my wrist the 8 is the middle child of the lineup the sc is more affordable the ultra is the fancy new one that's also super ruggedized more expensive and may not be for your wrist the eight though doesn't have that many more features compared to the seven last year now here are the two key ones that i've been noticing one temperature apple's talking about temperature on this being a new feature that can help with ovulation tracking and maybe with some other things but it's not new to wearables in fact i've been wearing the aura ring gen 3 on my finger for the past year and i've been using it to see how my temperature relatively changes overnight fitbit's trackers have had it including the fitbit sense watch amazon's halo fitness bands have temperature tracking and samsung's galaxy watch 5 does as well but what it does may not be exactly what you think first of all this type of technology does not do absolute temperature tracking in terms of like you know what you know are you 100 degrees or 98.6 it's a relative thing that calibrates to over time in fact this watch it takes five days for it to even show up which means that right now as i start testing i have no idea what's going to happen but it tells you each night whether the temperature is relatively going up or down now the biggest thing this factors into is for ovulation tracking for women which is not something that i'm testing but we will be looking into that the other thing that it's going to tell you is in the health app how your temperature again slightly changes but apple is not surfacing that any more than that for now so you can go into the health app and you'll be able to see a graph of that just for your own personal information other wearables like ura are using it to calculate readiness scores and give you more of a heads-up sense of whether you might be getting sick now again it's not a perfect science it's very much an estimate but i did find that some of those wearables will tell me if i'm not maybe feeling that well or does that match up or should i do something about it it begins to correlate with things possibly like your resting heart rate or your respiratory rate there are a lot of directions that apple could be pursuing with this in the future i'm sure as it measures you'll be able to combine that with things like sleep tracking or other things it only measures at night so you have to wear this overnight to get a consistent sampling that means that you have to wear your apple watch at night and are you the type of person who's going to be doing that the apple watch series 8 battery life is still estimated to be the same as before which i find is about a day and a half of regular everyday use that's not enough for sleep tracking unless you start recharging in the morning instead of at night there is an extended battery life mode with apple watches now this fall that could allow you to get up to 36 hours of battery life however it does not allow you to activate things like temperature or heart rate when you're doing that which means that you're not going to be getting those health stats that you would like for that extra long battery life it's a trade-off if you want to get something with even more battery life apple does offer that now that's called the apple watch ultra that's supposed to offer even more battery life 36 hours of normal use but that's 800 and it is a big titanium ruggedized type of watch you're going to be getting a lot of stuff in that package maybe it's not for you and that's the thing about this is that i think temperature is fascinating i think it's got a lot of potential but you do need a longer battery life to make the most of that or really change your habits and apple's not seeming to be surfacing a lot of super useful information with this yet maybe in the next year or two they could be now the other thing that's new about this watch is very under the hood it has to do with the accelerometer and the gyroscope which apple claims are a lot more sensitive and they're using it to detect car crashes which at the moment i'm not planning on doing but we'll probably have somebody look into that in the future i'm sure there are people who will be trying things like testing that with car crashes but that's a little scary potentially very useful though and the way this works is it's supposed to detect up to 256 g of impact force with the accelerometer and the gyroscope being more sensitive and being able to notify you when it senses those changes at levels that it couldn't sense before that's useful but what i found interesting is that it's supposed to be a better faster sampling rate for all of that data now i look at that and i think about motion tracking and you know my mind can't help but race to things like motion controllers and things like gestures and well ar and vr which apple's supposed to be having some sort of headset in the next year or so that's a lot of speculation but you know it could be very useful for apple to have better motion trackers in watches and other things in the future to use for those types of devices maybe that's part of where all that's going at the moment though that's not factoring in it's just a car crash detection feature on the apple watch and who knows maybe there could be more benefits to that in the future there's not much else going on with this apple watch that's new the design is the same the configurations are largely the same you're looking at a price that's starting at 400 going up to 530 if you get the cellular feature on the larger watch size and then of course you've got all the straps and extra things there's a crazy spectrum that goes on with that and if you're spending that much for a nice new apple watch maybe you want to consider showing off with something like the ultra which does have a lot of functional features things like better water resistance it's supposed to have a much brighter display be more durable it has higher quality gps so that would be my recommendation if you want to get a fancy cool watch to show off and if you want a budget watch the apple watch se has a better processor inside but keep in mind that it doesn't have an always-on display which i find useful it doesn't have temperature but it has heart rate it doesn't have ecg which is not something that everyone's going to be using but it has a lot of the basic things and if the model that is a smaller one with cellular comes to 300 that's not as much money to spend but you can see that apple is creating this big spectrum of price and unfortunately that spectrum starts at 250 for the se which is still a lot of money now speaking of money and what you want to do with these things i don't think that the 8 is a must-have upgrade right now i think that if you certainly got a watch from last year or the year before you're going to be fine maybe you want to wait and see how some of these features bake in the long run for how apple develops its longer term strategy on health i think there's a lot of possibilities for apple to finally get to where wearables like fitbit and aura and others are going to calculate things like well readiness scores or ambient senses of how you're doing throughout a day apple's kind of stayed away from that but i bet they're going to probably go in that direction at some point because all the sensor tech is already starting to get in there but you do need longer battery life or you maybe need to change the equation a bit more i think it's just starting to begin as far as how temperature is really going to feel for me in the long run i'm going to need to wear this for months to really know so right now it's still embryonic but i'm very curious to see how it evolves but right now i think it's okay to wait and maybe you want to consider what other apple watches in the spectrum you might want to consider or maybe to stick with the one you have anyway if you have other questions about the apple watch let us know in the comments below to me do these features interest you or you interested in some of the other ones and make sure to like and subscribe thanks a lot for watchingit used to be simple picking an apple watch there was one model a year not anymore the newest apple watch is here the apple watch series 8 or should i say newest apple watch is there's also the apple watch se and the apple watch ultra which do you get well let's start with the middle one the apple watch series 8 which i'm wearing on my wrist the 8 is the middle child of the lineup the sc is more affordable the ultra is the fancy new one that's also super ruggedized more expensive and may not be for your wrist the eight though doesn't have that many more features compared to the seven last year now here are the two key ones that i've been noticing one temperature apple's talking about temperature on this being a new feature that can help with ovulation tracking and maybe with some other things but it's not new to wearables in fact i've been wearing the aura ring gen 3 on my finger for the past year and i've been using it to see how my temperature relatively changes overnight fitbit's trackers have had it including the fitbit sense watch amazon's halo fitness bands have temperature tracking and samsung's galaxy watch 5 does as well but what it does may not be exactly what you think first of all this type of technology does not do absolute temperature tracking in terms of like you know what you know are you 100 degrees or 98.6 it's a relative thing that calibrates to over time in fact this watch it takes five days for it to even show up which means that right now as i start testing i have no idea what's going to happen but it tells you each night whether the temperature is relatively going up or down now the biggest thing this factors into is for ovulation tracking for women which is not something that i'm testing but we will be looking into that the other thing that it's going to tell you is in the health app how your temperature again slightly changes but apple is not surfacing that any more than that for now so you can go into the health app and you'll be able to see a graph of that just for your own personal information other wearables like ura are using it to calculate readiness scores and give you more of a heads-up sense of whether you might be getting sick now again it's not a perfect science it's very much an estimate but i did find that some of those wearables will tell me if i'm not maybe feeling that well or does that match up or should i do something about it it begins to correlate with things possibly like your resting heart rate or your respiratory rate there are a lot of directions that apple could be pursuing with this in the future i'm sure as it measures you'll be able to combine that with things like sleep tracking or other things it only measures at night so you have to wear this overnight to get a consistent sampling that means that you have to wear your apple watch at night and are you the type of person who's going to be doing that the apple watch series 8 battery life is still estimated to be the same as before which i find is about a day and a half of regular everyday use that's not enough for sleep tracking unless you start recharging in the morning instead of at night there is an extended battery life mode with apple watches now this fall that could allow you to get up to 36 hours of battery life however it does not allow you to activate things like temperature or heart rate when you're doing that which means that you're not going to be getting those health stats that you would like for that extra long battery life it's a trade-off if you want to get something with even more battery life apple does offer that now that's called the apple watch ultra that's supposed to offer even more battery life 36 hours of normal use but that's 800 and it is a big titanium ruggedized type of watch you're going to be getting a lot of stuff in that package maybe it's not for you and that's the thing about this is that i think temperature is fascinating i think it's got a lot of potential but you do need a longer battery life to make the most of that or really change your habits and apple's not seeming to be surfacing a lot of super useful information with this yet maybe in the next year or two they could be now the other thing that's new about this watch is very under the hood it has to do with the accelerometer and the gyroscope which apple claims are a lot more sensitive and they're using it to detect car crashes which at the moment i'm not planning on doing but we'll probably have somebody look into that in the future i'm sure there are people who will be trying things like testing that with car crashes but that's a little scary potentially very useful though and the way this works is it's supposed to detect up to 256 g of impact force with the accelerometer and the gyroscope being more sensitive and being able to notify you when it senses those changes at levels that it couldn't sense before that's useful but what i found interesting is that it's supposed to be a better faster sampling rate for all of that data now i look at that and i think about motion tracking and you know my mind can't help but race to things like motion controllers and things like gestures and well ar and vr which apple's supposed to be having some sort of headset in the next year or so that's a lot of speculation but you know it could be very useful for apple to have better motion trackers in watches and other things in the future to use for those types of devices maybe that's part of where all that's going at the moment though that's not factoring in it's just a car crash detection feature on the apple watch and who knows maybe there could be more benefits to that in the future there's not much else going on with this apple watch that's new the design is the same the configurations are largely the same you're looking at a price that's starting at 400 going up to 530 if you get the cellular feature on the larger watch size and then of course you've got all the straps and extra things there's a crazy spectrum that goes on with that and if you're spending that much for a nice new apple watch maybe you want to consider showing off with something like the ultra which does have a lot of functional features things like better water resistance it's supposed to have a much brighter display be more durable it has higher quality gps so that would be my recommendation if you want to get a fancy cool watch to show off and if you want a budget watch the apple watch se has a better processor inside but keep in mind that it doesn't have an always-on display which i find useful it doesn't have temperature but it has heart rate it doesn't have ecg which is not something that everyone's going to be using but it has a lot of the basic things and if the model that is a smaller one with cellular comes to 300 that's not as much money to spend but you can see that apple is creating this big spectrum of price and unfortunately that spectrum starts at 250 for the se which is still a lot of money now speaking of money and what you want to do with these things i don't think that the 8 is a must-have upgrade right now i think that if you certainly got a watch from last year or the year before you're going to be fine maybe you want to wait and see how some of these features bake in the long run for how apple develops its longer term strategy on health i think there's a lot of possibilities for apple to finally get to where wearables like fitbit and aura and others are going to calculate things like well readiness scores or ambient senses of how you're doing throughout a day apple's kind of stayed away from that but i bet they're going to probably go in that direction at some point because all the sensor tech is already starting to get in there but you do need longer battery life or you maybe need to change the equation a bit more i think it's just starting to begin as far as how temperature is really going to feel for me in the long run i'm going to need to wear this for months to really know so right now it's still embryonic but i'm very curious to see how it evolves but right now i think it's okay to wait and maybe you want to consider what other apple watches in the spectrum you might want to consider or maybe to stick with the one you have anyway if you have other questions about the apple watch let us know in the comments below to me do these features interest you or you interested in some of the other ones and make sure to like and subscribe thanks a lot for watching\n"