The Apple Watch was supposed to get a small update this year. With much of Apple’s attention focused on Apple Intelligence and other iOS 18 upgrades, plus last year bringing us the big watchOS 10 update, expectations were for an underwhelming watchOS 11 release.

After a month of use, however, I’ve found that there are several watchOS 11 features that make a big difference to the Apple Watch experience—maybe even more than last year’s update did.

Here are the three key watchOS features making the biggest impact for me.

Smart Stack with Live Activities

Historically, I’ve found little usefulness from Apple’s attempts at Smart Stacks. I don’t use them on my iPhone with widgets, nor in StandBy mode. Why? Because the ‘Smart’ part has been lacking. And I would much rather have widgets that stay the same than ones that not-so-intelligently swap out at random.

So when Apple brought the Smart Stack to watchOS last year, I knew it wasn’t for me. I almost never used the feature. But watchOS 11 changes that.

In watchOS 11, Apple automatically displays the Smart Stack when it’s relevant, as a replacement for showing your watch face. For example:

• if you’re listening to music or a podcast, the Now Playing screen is now baked into the Smart Stack; instead of your watch face being replaced by the full Now Playing screen, you’ll see the Smart Stack with Now Playing at the top
• if you set a timer or stopwatch, your Watch will default to the Smart Stack rather than your watch face, with the appropriate timer or stopwatch Live Activities right at the top
• apparently the Smart Stack will also appear when a noteworthy weather event is upcoming, but I haven’t seen that behavior yet—I love the idea though
• any other Live Activities that are running—like a sports score, or your Uber status—will display on the Watch’s Smart Stack

Each of these scenarios puts the Smart Stack front and center, which naturally makes me more likely to actually engage with the other widgets offered there.

Pausing Activity rings for rest days

I’m shocked it’s taken a decade to add this feature, but watchOS 11 finally provides an option to ‘pause’ your Activity rings.

If you’re sick and need a day off from closing your rings, now you won’t have to sacrifice your existing streak. Or if you’re on vacation and need a break, that’s okay too. You can pause your rings and relax without your Apple Watch shaming you for it.

As I’ve written previously:

It’s not uncommon for someone with a streak to completely abandon their healthy habits after missing a day or two. The streak is gone, so there’s less motivation for staying diligent. But now, the Apple Watch finally allows for those situations when ‘life happens’ and you can’t close your rings on a given day.

Setting custom Activity ring goals by day of week

There’s another noteworthy change to Activity: the ability to set different ring goals for different days of the week.

This has been on my wish list for years. I usually go to the gym four days per week, and while I try to stay moderately active the rest of the week, it’s not realistic for me to hit the same goals on those non-gym days.

My solution until now has been to set my ring goals low enough that I can reasonably achieve them every day—even though on gym days I’ll far exceed them.

Now, watchOS 11 lets me set higher goals for gym days and lower goals when I’m not training.

Wrap-up

watchOS 11 offers a number of other nice features, like the Vitals and Translate apps, Training Load, and more. But the three changes I’ve outlined have made the biggest difference for me, and I expect they’ll have a positive impact on lots of users’ Apple Watch experience.

Are you running watchOS 11? What have your favorite features been? Let us know in the comments.