Apple Watch Series 12 and Ultra 4 will not time your handwashing. The feature is gone from both, and 9to5Mac's Zac Hall found the gap in Apple's own list of which watches support it.

Handwashing detection arrived in 2020 as part of watchOS 7, in the middle of the pandemic. The watch works out that you have started washing, runs a timer on your wrist while you do it, and files the result in Health alongside your steps and your sleep. Six years on, it's still in watchOS 27, still a category inside Apple Health, and still written up in Apple's own watchOS 27 guide. It also still runs on the Series 11 and Ultra 3, the two watches this pair replaces.

The new ones aren't on the supported hardware list.

Apple hasn't explained that, and the list doesn't say if the feature was cut on purpose. There's a decent argument that it was. If the company meant to keep handwashing running on every watch it sells, there'd be no reason to publish a hardware list in the first place. That list names the Series 11 and Ultra 3, and stops.

Series 12 and Ultra 4 also carry the first overhauled Apple Watch processor in several years, the chip behind new Audio Intelligence features like Siri Recap and Live Rewind. A feature written for 2020 silicon is exactly the sort of thing that falls off when the silicon changes. That is a theory and not a statement from Apple, and the company has offered nothing either way.

Handwashing detection is a timer, not a heart rate sensor, and nobody buys a watch for it. If you do use it, it's a small reason to hang on to a Series 11 or Ultra 3 rather than trade it in this month. Apple Health still carries the handwashing category in iOS 27.2, so nothing has been pulled out of the software side. It's the hardware list that moved.

Hypertension alerts are on hold in 33 countries, several of the headline health features are waiting on software Apple hasn't shipped, and the faster charging needs a puck you buy separately. Handwashing is the smallest item on that list by a wide margin. It's also the only one where Apple has described no way back.

Apple announced the five-second heart rate reading. It has said nothing about the timer.

Both watches are on sale now.