Report: Apple Watch Redesign Coming Next Year With New Band System

A "major overhaul" of the Apple Watch's design is due to arrive next year with a new system for connecting bands, according to a known Weibo leaker.

In a set of recent posts, the leaker known as "Instant Digital" linked the new claim to older rumors about an "Apple Watch X" model, which was said to introduce a fresh design and break compatibility with the existing watch band system. Citing a post from August 2023, the leaker reiterated that the way the band attaches to the case would change, creating internal space for a larger battery. The leaker went on to advise that anyone planning to buy a new Apple Watch in 2027 should hold off on buying extra bands in the meantime, given that a redesigned case could leave the current attachment system behind.

The "Apple Watch X" rumor traces back to a 2023 report from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, who said Apple was planning the "biggest overhaul yet" for the Apple Watch's 10th anniversary, complete with a new magnetic band attachment system, a thinner case, and a microLED display. None of this materialized and Apple instead released the Apple Watch Series 10, keeping the existing band system intact with a design that, while tweaked somewhat, scarcely represented a major overhaul. It now looks like this redesign could simply have been delayed, rather than shelved entirely.

The timing lines up with how Apple has historically refreshed the standard Apple Watch's design. The original Apple Watch through to the Series 3 shared one design, the Series 4 through Series 6 shared another, and the Series 7 through Series 9 shared a third. The current design arrived with the Apple Watch Series 10. Following that roughly three-year pattern, a new design would be due to land with the Apple Watch Series 13 in 2027, matching the timeline Instant Digital is now describing.

The leaker previously said that the redesign would not appear until 2028, the year after the debut of the 20th anniversary iPhone. Last year, DigiTimes said that at least one future high-end Apple Watch model would get a "significant redesign ," including exterior changes such as eight sensors arranged in a ring pattern on the device's underside, tied to broader health-sensing ambitions. Earlier this month, Apple was said to be evaluating next-generation OLED backplane technology for the 2027 Apple Watch.

This year's Apple Watch Series 12 is not expected to feature a new design, continuing to use the same one introduced with the Series 10 in 2024, which introduced a thinner case, larger display, and a metal back that folds the antenna into the housing.