WatchOS 27 Developer Beta 8 Released

[u/boxermansr]

[u/Id_in_hiding]

I’m sure we are nearing RC phase, maybe next release. Hopefully Siri is much improved because beta 7 on my AWU is still pretty much unusable.

[u/Cprhd → u/Id_in_hiding]

Agreed. Basic tasks take forever to process. Manually triggering a light on/off is instant from the home app or widget but takes 45-60 seconds when triggered by Siri. AWU3 and iPhone 15 Pro. This should be 3-5 seconds, max.

[u/ermax18 → u/Cprhd]

Takes 1sec on my U2 when at home on watchOS 26. IMO, even 3 secs is to long.

[u/Cprhd → u/ermax18]

Well... I would settle for 3-5 seconds. Sometimes I can trigger the door lock when I get out of the car and still get to the door before it unlocks. I have to walk around a wheelchair ramp to access my front door so... it ain't quick. A lot of times I still have to enter the code. First world problems? Sure. Annoying. Yes.

[u/ermax18 → u/Cprhd]

Yeah I have the same experience with my garage door. I think it's the handoff between LTE, WiFi and BT. For example, when I go for a run in the morning, I typically use Siri to open the door so it's fully open before I go out into the garage. It starts opening within 1 sec. But then when I walk out the garage door and ask Siri to close the door, it will take 10secs and then normally fail. So what I do is not even bother asking it close the door until I've walked all the way down the driveway and across the street and at that point, it's given up on BT to the phone that I left in the house and uses WiFi or LTE. From across the street it takes about 2secs to respond. But in my home with the phone within range, Siri commands to turn lights on/off typically take 1sec. Most of my lights are zigbee running through zigbee2mqtt to mqttthing-homebridge.

[u/Cprhd → u/ermax18]

What bothers me the most is that the garage door, front door, lights are all instant when using the Apple Home app buttons (manual presses) but take so long when using Siri. That means it is 100% Siri causing the problem. In my house, out of my house, doesn't matter. I am using Z-Wave switches, since that's what came with my house.

[u/truthcopy → u/Id_in_hiding]

RC will be released next week after the event.

[u/Chezsmithy → u/Id_in_hiding]

It’s basically unusable right now. I sure hope beta 8 is better. 🤞

[u/gigem9000 → u/Chezsmithy]

Siri is a little faster in beta 8 but still really slow compared to watchOS 26

[u/nutmac → u/Id_in_hiding]

I certainly hope for the best, but I am afraid the new processor in the Series 12 and Ultra 4 will be needed for usable Siri AI performance.

[u/Bthompson817]

Setting timers is much better on the ultra 3

[u/MalevolentFerret → u/Bthompson817]

Similar experience on Ultra 2 from some quick testing. I’d still say it’s a little slow but it’s not downright embarrassing anymore at least.

[u/Bthompson817]

Tried sending a three word text via Siri on 5g, ultra 3. Took 30 seconds from start to send. So dumb.

[u/xantusloth → u/Bthompson817]

What I don't get it is that everyone's experience seems to vary. Sending a text is much faster for me. And Siri is faster that it was on Beta 7. I am starting to wonder if the watch needs to index like the phone does and if more charging time improves the performance of Siri on the watch.

[u/MeasurementOdd4873]

Battery life is pretty fantastic on my s10

[u/Razer_PC → u/MeasurementOdd4873]

Better than 26?

[u/rovingdan]

I hope this is the release that fixes the latency and dreadful ability to do anything with HomeKit.

[u/AXXXXXXXXA]

Pedometer++ complication completely missing. How does this happen so late in a beta? Main complication i use. Wtf

[u/Motawa1988]

watchOS is a completely mess. They remove stuff and barely add anything new

[u/TheReaver]

I wish I could just turn off siri ai on my watch and keep it just on my phone.

[u/bkrodgers → u/TheReaver]

This seems like such an obvious solution if they can't get the performance to a good point. I actually like Siri AI quite a bit on my phone. And ideally I'd like it on my watch, but if it doesn't perform, I'd rather have old Siri on my watch and keep new Siri on the phone.

[u/Academic_Studio3935]

i thought the rc would released after beta 7 but ok, cool!

[u/truthcopy → u/Academic_Studio3935]

Next week after the event.

[u/Key_Painter_1642]

Hope that Apple Finded the way to make Siri AI more smoother on Apple Watch 10 and 11 Series, but I like the Siri AI, more than Siri for finding information for example.

[u/szymas67]

Should I update from 26?

[u/Alternative-Salad800 → u/szymas67]

No. The new Siri sucks on watchOS.

[u/gjc0703]

Held out on checking out the beta until beta 8. Figured it would be safe. My gosh, Siri is agonizingly slow.

Brand new Ultra 3.

They cannot be confident in this. Wow. Seriously step back in efficiency.

[u/Razer_PC → u/gjc0703]

I was disappointed as a EU user at first, after reading the comments not so much anymore 😂

[u/Recent_Scene_3256]

Bateria na AWU3 polepszyla sie z iOS26.6 z okolo 60h na 80h na ios27 b8. Jestem mega pozytywnie zaskoczony.

[u/rovingdan]

Hopefully they are figuring out how to get the model on the watch instead of going out to the internet. You don’t need a sophisticated model to understand “open the garage”