What the watchOS 7 leak tells us about the next Apple Watch

Key features of the next big Apple Watch update, watchOS 7, have been discovered by 9to5Mac. The website obtained leaked iOS 14 code that detailed a number of watchOS 7 changes, including new watch faces, Parental Controls and the ability to create new faces via the Photos app on your iPhone, but it’s the long-rumoured sleep tracking capability that sounds most exciting. 

According to the site, which first reported on the sleep tracking back in 2019, watchOS 7 will allow the Apple Watch to track the user’s quality of sleep using a suite of built-in sensors, and like most trackers, it’ll gently wake them up in the morning too.

But, like with most Apple products, it’s the little extras that complete the experience; the Watch will remind you to charge it before bedtime to make sure you don’t run out of battery during the night, automatically put your phone on Do Not Disturb when you fall asleep and also disable any alarm if it detects you’ve woken up early. 

It sounds like a great addition to the Apple Watch, and it could be backwards-compatible too. But it’s likely Apple will tailor the next Apple Watch to get the most out of the heavily-requested feature, so what should we expect? It’s simple; longer battery life or improved charging speeds. 

Getting reminders to charge your Watch before bedtime is handy for existing Apple Watch owners, but it’s not the perfect experience Apple strives for. For that, the Apple Watch should comfortably last over 24 hours, and while that’s not possible from any existing Apple Watch, there are key Wear OS rivals that last days – or even weeks – on a single charge.

It’s possible that Apple has been working on boosting the battery life of the Apple Watch as it has with the iPhone 11 range, and that could be a key selling point of the yet-unreleased Watch if true. The only issue is that the inclusion of a larger battery would probably mean an increase in both width and weight, and that’s not something Apple would sacrifice – not even for improved battery life. 

That’s where the improved charging speeds come into play. Chinese companies like Oppo are leading the way on wireless charging tech, offering impressive 30W wireless charging capabilities on upcoming smartphones. You probably won’t find 30W fast charging on the next Apple Watch – that’d be overkill with such a small internal battery – but offering improved charging speeds to quickly top up your Apple Watch before bedtime makes a lot of sense, and it ties nicely into the feature that’ll remind you to charge your Watch before bed. 

Whatever Apple has planned, it’s likely that we won’t see the next-gen Apple Watch until later this year – possibly in September, a month that Apple favours for Apple Watch and iPhone launches.

For more on the next-gen wearable, take a look at the latest Apple Watch Series 6 news.