Apple Watch SE (2nd generation) vs Apple Watch SE 3

Apple charged $249 for both of these, three years apart. SE (2nd generation) was announced on 7 September 2022 and reached US stores on 16 September 2022; SE 3 followed on 9 September 2025 and went on sale on 19 September 2025. Lay them side by side and you’d struggle to say which is which.

What changed, and what didn’t

Spec	Apple Watch SE (2nd generation)	Apple Watch SE 3
Announced	7 September 2022	9 September 2025
Case	40mm or 44mm aluminum, 10.7mm thick	Same
Display	Retina LTPO OLED, 1,000 nits; not Always-On	Always-On Retina LTPO OLED, 1,000 nits; 2-nit minimum
Chip and storage	S8, 2-core Neural Engine, 32GB	S10, 4-core Neural Engine, 64GB
Normal use	Up to 18 hours	Up to 18 hours
Low Power Mode	Not published	Up to 32 hours
Charge to 80%	About 1.5 hours	About 45 minutes
Temperature sensing	None listed	Wrist temperature sensor
Sleep	Sleep stages	Stages, Sleep score, sleep apnea notifications
ECG and Blood Oxygen	No	No
Cellular	LTE and UMTS	5G RedCap and LTE
watchOS 27	No	Yes
US launch price	$249	$249

The gap that matters is software

SE 3 gets watchOS 27; the 2022 SE, which launched on watchOS 9, doesn’t. From here the older watch keeps the software it has while SE 3 picks up new features. Two watches that look identical are no longer the same purchase, and a cheap used SE (2nd generation) is worth less than its hardware suggests.

A screen that stays on

Drop your wrist and the 2022 SE’s display goes dark. SE 3’s stays on, dimming to as little as 2 nits, so you can read the time without lifting your arm. Otherwise the panels match: up to 1,000 nits at 326 ppi, with 324 × 394 pixels (759 square millimeters) on the 40mm and 368 × 448 (977 square millimeters) on the 44mm. Apple says SE 3’s Ion-X glass is four times more crack resistant than the 2022 model’s.

Charging: 45 minutes instead of an hour and a half

Apple rates both for up to 18 hours of normal use, and on SE 3 that test includes a 60-minute workout. Neither has a separate rating for GPS workouts. SE 3 adds a Low Power Mode rating of up to 32 hours, a figure Apple doesn’t give for the 2022 SE.

The charger is the difference you’ll notice every day. The 2022 SE ships with a Magnetic Charger to USB-C and needs about 1.5 hours to reach 80%. SE 3 comes with the Magnetic Fast Charger to USB-C and gets there in about 45 minutes. A 15-minute charge adds about 8 hours of normal use, and 8 minutes covers about 8 hours of sleep tracking, so a top-up while you get ready for bed is enough for the night.

S10, 64GB and new gestures

The 2022 SE runs on S8 with a 2-core Neural Engine and 32GB of storage. SE 3 steps up to S10, with a 4-core Neural Engine, and doubles the storage to 64GB. It adds the double tap and wrist flick gestures, and Siri runs on the watch itself. Siri AI comes to SE 3 as well. Audio Intelligence doesn’t, because it needs an S11 chip.

Health: three additions, the same gaps

SE 3 adds a wrist temperature sensor, a Sleep score and sleep apnea notifications. The notifications are for people 18 and older, and Apple presents them as a sign of possible sleep apnea, not a diagnosis. The 2022 SE tracks sleep stages and stops there.

Both use a second-generation optical heart sensor with high, low and irregular rhythm notifications; SE 3 didn’t get the third-generation sensor from Series 11. Neither has ECG or Blood Oxygen. SE 3 also goes without hypertension notifications and readiness, and the Health Sensing System on Series 12 and Ultra 4 is hardware, so no software update will bring it to an SE.

What stays the same

Both cases measure 40 × 34 × 10.7mm or 44 × 38 × 10.7mm and fit wrists from 130 to 200mm (40mm) or 140 to 245mm (44mm). A 40mm GPS SE 3 weighs 26.3 grams against 26.4 for the 2022 model. Colors narrow from midnight, starlight and silver to starlight and midnight.

Both are water resistant to 50 meters under ISO 22810, which covers swimming but not scuba or high-speed water sports, and neither carries a dust rating. SE 3 has no depth gauge for snorkeling to 6 meters and no water temperature sensor; Series 12 has both. Crash Detection, the 2022 SE’s headline feature, is on both, along with Fall Detection, Apple Pay, GymKit and Bluetooth 5.3. On runs SE 3 tracks stride length and ground contact time but not running power, and for hikes it has offline maps and U.S. topographic maps.

SE 3’s cellular models, A3326 and A3328, add 5G RedCap; the 2022 cellular models use LTE and UMTS. SE 3’s Wi-Fi 4 runs on 2.4GHz, with no 5GHz support listed. A cellular SE 3 can also be set up for a child with Apple Watch For Your Kids, managed from a parent’s iPhone, though not every feature is available that way.

Price

Each SE started at $249 in the US. Apple’s education pricing has shown SE 3 at $229, and cellular models, bands and AppleCare add to either. Because the 2022 SE won’t get watchOS 27, a used one only makes sense well below SE 3’s price, so compare the two on apple.com before you buy. If you need ECG, skip both: no SE has it.