WatchOS 9

watchOS 9 is the ninth major release of watchOS for the Apple Watch series developed and distributed by Apple Inc.

Product history
watchOS 9 is derived from iOS 16; both were announced on June 6 at the 2022 Worldwide Developers Conference and were released on September 12, 2022.

New features
VP of Technology Kevin Lynch and staff introduced the following new features at WWDC 2022:
 * Metrics — updated to improve user workouts.
 * Sleep — records user sleep activity.
 * Heart — updated with the ability to record (AFib) history of users.
 * Medications — help users manage medications and supplements.

Some new accessibility features that Apple previewed as part of on May 17, 2022 include:
 * Apple Watch mirroring for users to control their watchOS device remotely from an iPhone.
 * New Quick Actions to expand AssistiveTouch gestures in watchOS.
 * Siri Pause Time to allow more time for users with speech disabilities to issue a voice command.

Features for new models announced on September 7, 2022, such as the Apple Watch Series 8 and the Apple Watch Ultra:
 * Crash Detection from new sensors (also supported by the 2nd-generation Apple Watch SE).
 * detection from improved temperature sensing.

Supported devices
watchOS 9 added support for new models, while also dropping support for the Apple Watch Series 3, limiting it to models with 64-bit processors. An iPhone 8 or later running at least iOS 16 is also required to support the following models:
 * Apple Watch Series 4
 * Apple Watch Series 5
 * Apple Watch SE (1st generation)
 * Apple Watch Series 6
 * Apple Watch Series 7
 * Apple Watch Series 8 (new model)
 * Apple Watch SE (2nd generation) (new model)
 * Apple Watch Ultra (new model)
 * Support ended for Apple Watch Series 3.