The new Apple Watch is display adult a latest iPhones.

Sep is typically a time for Apple fans to ooh and ahh over a latest smartphones — and a iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max are indeed worthy upgrades. But a genuine showstopper this year is a smartwatch: It’s faster, some-more organic and could literally save your life.

The Apple Watch Series 4, that hits stores on Friday, represents a watch’s initial vital redesign given a 2015 debut. Tucked into a some-more appealing pattern — including somewhat dull corners, a slimmer physique and 30% some-more shade space to daub little icons and texts — this new Apple Watch is also a health-tracking powerhouse.

The wearable comes with a handful of facilities directed during a whole new demographic: a elderly. One new tool, for example, recognizes when a user falls and automatically sends a presentation to their puncture contact. It’s also a initial wearable with a built-in ECG guard accessible over a counter. The underline has been privileged by a FDA so it can be used as a medical device. The ECG’s program will be activated in a United States after this year. Apple hasn’t pronounced either it’ll come to inclination globally.

The watch starts during $399 for a 40mm indication and $429 for a somewhat incomparable 44mm version. That starting cost bumps adult to $499 for mobile connectivity. (The Series 3 started during $329).

While a Series 4 cost tab is higher, experts contend Apple’s facilities could update sanatorium and geriatric care, and even support field-service workers in dangerous environments. The association put a smartwatch by a array of complete tests, including one designed to sight it to heed between a ethereal noise onto a bed and a tough tumble on a floor.

“By creation this underline accessible on a latest watch, Apple stands to excommunicate existent fall-detection apparatus in many verticals,” pronounced marketplace research organisation IDC’s Jitesh Ubrani, acknowledging brands like Life Alert. “I have no doubt a new Apple Watch will make studious monitoring most easier and distant some-more regular.”

That’s since people will be some-more expected to uncover off (and keep on) a cool-looking Apple Watch compared to a normal medical device.

Weston Henderek, executive of a NPD Group, says a ECG functionality could one day assistance diagnose conditions such as atrial fibrillation, an strange heartbeat. Users can emanate long-term using logs of ECGs that can be common with their doctors over time.

The new facilities are notable, though Henderek cautions a purpose of a Apple Watch as a loyal medical device is still a work in progress.

“The space will not be truly revolutionized until additional medical tracking functionality, such as blood glucose and blood vigour monitoring, are combined to inclination like a Apple Watch,” Weston said.

Meanwhile, Fitbit — Apple’s biggest wearables aspirant — is also meditative ahead. In August, Fitbit denounced a Charge 3 tracker with a Sp02 sensor, shorthand for marginal capillary oxygen saturation, that measures blood-oxygen levels. Coupled with Fitbit’s heart-rate tracker and nap monitoring, this trifecta provides a plain image of altogether health. Although a Fitbit lacks a Series 4’s tumble showing and ECG monitoring, it’s also a fragment of a cost during $149.

Apple Watch continues to loiter behind competitors in nap tracking, a underline Apple omitted. The Series 4 can’t means to trim any hours off a battery life, that is about 18 hours on a charge. Meanwhile, Fitbit’s Charge 3 lasts for days.

As wearables get smarter, companies face a vital plea to teach a open how to scrupulously use their products as medical devices.

“Consumers don’t unequivocally know a disproportion between FDA ‘approval’ and ‘clearance,'” Ubrani, a IDC analyst, forked out. Plus, “some of a facilities are designed for healthy consumers rather than those who already have medical issues. … It’s easy for consumers to conflate a issues and consider a Apple Watch will reinstate a normal doctor’s visit.”

For now, experts trust users will prioritize staying connected around notifications such as texts, alerts and emails over health tracking. After all, users can now serve Siri with usually a lift of a wrist, burst in and out of apps during faster speeds, and suffer louder and some-more immersive sound, creation it easier to take calls from a device.

The Series 4 also comes with new interactive watch faces. But a miss of downloadable tradition options is a missed event for developers, Apple and users.

Ultimately, however, Apple’s larger pull into health is a biggest expansion opportunity. It will expected interest to a new demographic, light partnerships with health and life word companies to offer a device to employees, and hurl out internationally.

IDC predicts Apple Watch sales will soar some-more than 38% year-over-year and expects that rate to continue for a subsequent 5 years, mostly since of a device’s concentration on health.

“Apple is already a No. 1 actor in a smartwatch marketplace by a large domain and has shown really clever growth,” NPD Group’s Henderek said. “But stability that movement and anticipating new ways to grow will turn even some-more challenging.”

For now, a association hopes you’ll splurge on an Apple Watch this holiday deteriorate not usually for a kids and for yourself — though for Grandma, too.

— Correction: An progressing chronicle of this story inaccurately pronounced that a ECG guard underline has been given FDA approval. It has perceived FDA clearance, a reduction severe turn of FDA evaluation.