\u201cIt\u2019s a feat of engineering to get the equivalent of a satellite radio into something as small as a smartwatch,\u201d he says, noting that not long ago radios of comparable power used to be massive pieces of equipment.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Apple Watch Ultra is now a much more handy off-the-grid device, particularly for hikers and extreme sport athletes \u2014 the Ultra\u2019s target demographic.\u00a0<\/p>\n
With the added satellite connectivity, Apple Watch Ultra wearers will still be able to send and receive messages from family, friends and emergency services, even during situations where they have no cellular or Wi-Fi coverage, according to Apple.<\/p>\n
Additionally, using Apple\u2019s Find My feature, they\u2019ll be able to share their location once every 15 minutes with their most important contacts.\u00a0<\/p>\n
To accomplish this feat, Apple says it redesigned both the Ultra\u2019s internal radio and antenna to communicate with satellites \u201cas far as 800 miles above the Earth\u2019s surface\u201d that are traveling
\u201cat 15,000 miles per hour.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"An](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Apple-Watch-Ultra-3-Emergency-SOS-via-satellite-2-250909-copy.jpg\")
Apple Watch Ultra users will soon be able to send emergency messages when out of range of cellular connectivity. Apple<\/p>\n
To be clear, Apple isn\u2019t the first company in the industry to accomplish this task. Its announcement comes weeks after Google added satellite connectivity to the Pixel Watch 4, and similar features have already been added to both the iPhone and Pixel phones.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
But the fact that these features are quickly becoming standard in regular everyday consumer electronics is a sign that the technology is rapidly improving, Jornet says.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It\u2019s important to remember that Apple and Google are not doing this work alone, Jornet explains,\u00a0as both partner with satellite providers for much of their infrastructure.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
Google partners with Skylo, and Apple partners with Globalstar. While Google\u2019s provider relies on geostationary satellites that are upwards of 22,000 miles above the Earth, Apple\u2019s relies on satellites that are orbiting at much lower levels but are traveling at great speeds, Jornet says.\u00a0<\/p>\n
While the satellites they use may be different, their smartwatch hardware is similar in that they only allow for the sending and receiving of information that use minimal amounts of bandwidth.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cAn emergency message, Find My Phone, which means GPS coordinates, and sending emojis, what these all have in common is that they are very few bytes, very few bytes of information,\u201d Jornet says.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This is because the watches simply do not have as much electrical power or antenna strength for more information-dense methods of communication like phone calls or video streams, he says.\u00a0<\/p>\n
When compared to satellite systems from a company like Starlink, a wireless internet service provider that relies on satellites, neither smartwatch can compare, he says.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Starlink systems are plugged into power sources and rely on large antennas to take in large amounts of data. Increasingly, researchers like Jornet are working to bring similar levels of service to satellite-connected smartphones and smartwatches.\u00a0<\/p>\n
So while you currently cannot stream video via satellite on your Apple Watch, the satellite-connected feature can be useful in emergency situations, Jornet says, provided you are outside and within line of sight of a satellite.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIs this for an everyday person in the middle of Boston? Absolutely not,\u201d he adds. \u201cThis is if you go hiking and suddenly you are disoriented and not feeling well and you are in your favorite mountain and there isn\u2019t coverage. \u2026 This is for very specific use cases.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Jornet also has all the confidence that these services will also work reliably well, given that the satellite providers both Google and Apple are working with are leaders in the space.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThese are the companies that have for decades provided satellite services,\u201d he says. \u201cThey have good mapping of the Earth, so the infrastructure they are using is really good.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\t\t\tScience & Technology<\/p>\n
\t\t\tRecent Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Apple\u2019s unveiling of the latest batch of iPhones yesterday may have grabbed much of the attention, but the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21294,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[936,203,103,61,60,2212,80],"class_list":{"0":"post-21293","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-gadgets","8":"tag-apple","9":"tag-gadgets","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-safety","14":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21293"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21293\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21294"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}