Of all the announcements that came out of Apple’s WWDC keynote earlier this week, the thing that I was genuinely excited about dropped in at the 1:10:25 mark. Not futuristic AR headsets or blisteringly fast pro workstations, but the news that watchOS 10 will support connecting cycling sensors to your Apple Watch and having that data processed natively in the Workout app.

Last year after the Apple Watch Ultra (and watchOS 9) was first announced I wrote that it was missing a couple of admittedly niche features that I would love to see:

  1. Transmit heart rate from your Apple Watch to third-party receivers
  2. Connect cycling sensors (speed, cadence, power etc) directly to Apple Watch

Either of these would help to reduce the amount of tech I was hauling out on rides with me.

After a spell of going minimal with a Withings ScanWatch (which I still love, and will keep using as a ‘dress’ watch) I recently picked up an Apple Watch Ultra and hooked it up to my cellular service.

Public betas of watchOS and iOS are out next month, and whilst I’m already enjoying not having to take my phone with me on rides, I am really looking forward to finally being able to ditch my cycle computer and separate heart-rate monitor without missing out on collecting valuable training data.