Manual / Supported watches

Supported watches

Wrist Dope runs on Apple Watch Series 4 and later. Every one of those watches gets the same solver and the same holds. What changes from model to model is how much of the field the watch can measure for you, and how the screen behaves once the watch is on the rifle. This page says exactly which is which.

Apple Watch

watchOS 10 or later — Series 4 and later.

iPhone

iOS 18 or later, on iPhone XS or later.

Standalone

The watch app solves on its own. The iPhone is not required in the field.

The list

Which watches run it

The Wrist Dope watch app requires watchOS 10. Apple's own Apple Watch and iPhone compatibility table is what decides which hardware that covers: every Apple Watch from Series 4 onward can reach watchOS 10. Series 3 and earlier top out at watchOS 8 and cannot run it.

Series 4, Series 5, and the original SE reach watchOS 10 and stop there — 10.6.1 is the last update Apple ships them. They run Wrist Dope today. They will not get a newer watchOS.

Those are not a deployment-target guess. Wrist Dope has been run on a Series 4 and on a first-generation SE — the two oldest models the watchOS 10 floor allows — as well as on the current Ultra. The layout is checked at both ends of the lineup, so holds, wind arrows and range-card rows fit a 40 mm screen and not just a 49 mm one.

Apple Watch models that run Wrist Dope, with the sensors and display features each one has
Model	Case	Barometer	Compass	Always-on display
Series 4watchOS 10.6.1 is its last update	40 / 44 mm	Yes	No	No
Series 5watchOS 10.6.1 is its last update	40 / 44 mm	Yes	Yes	Yes
SE (1st generation)watchOS 10.6.1 is its last update	40 / 44 mm	Yes	Yes	No
Series 6	40 / 44 mm	Yes	Yes	Yes
Series 7	41 / 45 mm	Yes	Yes	Yes
Series 8	41 / 45 mm	Yes	Yes	Yes
SE (2nd generation)	40 / 44 mm	Yes	Yes	No
Ultra	49 mm	Yes	Yes	Yes
Series 9	41 / 45 mm	Yes	Yes	Yes
Ultra 2	49 mm	Yes	Yes	Yes
Series 10	42 / 46 mm	Yes	Yes	Yes
Series 11	42 / 46 mm	Yes	Yes	Yes
SE 3	40 / 44 mm	Yes	Yes	Yes
Ultra 3	49 mm	Yes	Yes	Yes

Sensor and display columns come from Apple's published tech specs for each model: Series 4, Series 5, SE (1st generation), Series 6, Series 7, Series 8, SE (2nd generation), Ultra, Series 9, Ultra 2, Series 10, Series 11, SE 3, and Ultra 3.

Wrist Dope ENVIRONMENT screen on Apple Watch showing pressure 29.92 inHg, temperature 64 degrees Fahrenheit, altitude, and humidity 72 percent, each marked AUTO

The Environment page. Altitude reads a dash until a GPS fix lands, rather than showing a number it does not have.

Barometer

Every supported watch has one

Apple has put a barometric altimeter in every Apple Watch since Series 3, so every watch that runs Wrist Dope has one. That is the sensor behind the pressure reading on the Environment page, and it is why the app can read station pressure on the spot instead of taking a sea-level number off a weather feed.

Pressure feeds density altitude, and density altitude is what moves your elevation hold when you drive from the valley up to the ridge. You can see it on Live Fire as the DA figure under the load name.

This is the one capability you do not have to shop for. If the watch runs the app, it can read the air.

Compass

Series 5 and later. Series 4 is the exception.

Apple added the compass with Series 5. Series 4 is the only watch in the table above without one, and it is the only place in Wrist Dope where a model choice takes a feature away rather than just changing how it looks.

With a compass

Point the watch downrange and tap to lock the target bearing on the Target page.
Point into the wind and tap to lock its direction, then dial speed with the Digital Crown.
Coriolis runs in full. The solver enables it only when it has both your latitude and a shooting azimuth, and the azimuth comes from the compass.

On a Series 4

Set wind direction by hand on the wind clock instead of pointing at it. Speed and the whole wind solution work exactly the same.
Elevation, wind, drop, drift, spin drift, and the full range card are unaffected.
Coriolis stays off, because nothing has given the solver an azimuth. At the ranges where Coriolis is worth arguing about, you are usually shooting off a known bearing anyway.

Heading also needs Location permission, on every model. Wrist Dope prefers true north and falls back to magnetic when true is unavailable.

Wrist Dope Live Fire screen on Apple Watch Ultra showing 450 yards, a 2.3 mil up elevation hold, a 0.1 mil left wind hold, target and wind compasses, and a 99 percent hit estimate

Live Fire on a 49 mm Ultra. This is the screen that has to survive the time between shots.

Always-on display

What you see between shots

A rifle-mounted watch does not get wrist raises. Whether your holds are still on the glass when you come off the recoil depends on the display.

With always-on — Series 5 and later, and the SE 3 — the screen dims instead of going dark, and your solution stays readable. Wrist Dope handles that dimmed state on purpose: the cant glow drops to a lower opacity and stops pulsing, so it stays glanceable without burning the panel.

Without always-on — Series 4 and the SE 1st and 2nd generation — the screen goes black when the wake timer runs out, and you tap it to bring the holds back. The watch settings tips page covers the wake-duration change that makes this a much smaller problem.

On every model, Live Fire and the Level page run an extended runtime session while the level cue is active, which keeps the cant cue and the motion feed alive through wrist-down for up to an hour. It is not a substitute for an always-on panel, but it is why the audio cue does not simply stop.

Screen size

40 mm to 49 mm, nothing dropped

Wrist Dope lays out against the actual screen rather than shipping one fixed design. On the smaller cases the type tightens and the compass dials shrink; the range, both holds, the units, the compasses, and the hit and terminal lines are all still there. Below is the same Live Fire screen, same load, same solution, on a 49 mm Ultra and a 40 mm SE.

Live Fire on a 49 mm Apple Watch Ultra, showing the full-size holds with generous spacing — Apple Watch Ultra, 49 mm

The same Live Fire screen on a 40 mm Apple Watch SE, with tighter type and smaller compass dials but every field still present — Apple Watch SE, 40 mm

Both captured at native resolution, shown at the same scale relative to each other.

The 49 mm Ultra gives you the most room, and it is the easiest to read at arm's length on a rail. It is not a different app. Wrist Dope uses no Ultra-only hardware: not the Action button, not the depth gauge, not the siren. If you own an Ultra, buy it for the battery, the brightness, and the case. Not for a feature in this app that you would be missing otherwise.

Speed

What to expect from an older chip

We do not publish per-model benchmarks, and we would rather say that plainly than invent a table. What we can tell you is where the time actually goes, because that is what decides whether a watch feels quick.

One hold is cheap. A single firing solution is a small piece of arithmetic by modern standards. Wrist Dope is built to recompute it inside one display frame, and dialing range with the Digital Crown on Live Fire should feel immediate on any supported watch.
A full range card is the heavy screen. It is not one solution, it is every row from the muzzle out to your max range. That is where an older chip shows itself, as a visible beat before the card fills in. It is also why the card regenerates only while you are looking at it, so it never steals time from your holds.
Complications do not compute. The watch-face complications read a saved snapshot rather than solving on the face, so they cost the same on every model.
Battery, not speed. On the oldest supported watches the thing you will notice first is battery, not lag. A day of live sensors on a Series 4 is a bigger ask than on a Series 10. Start charged.

If a screen feels slow on your watch, tell us which model and which screen. That is a bug report we can act on, and it beats a benchmark table we made up.

The iPhone side

iOS 18 or later

The Wrist Dope iPhone app requires iOS 18, which Apple ships to iPhone XS and later. That iPhone pairs with any watch in the table above — Apple's compatibility table has always allowed a newer iPhone with an older watch, so a Series 4 on a current iPhone is a supported pairing.

You do not need the phone at the range. The watch app carries the solver, your saved guns and loads, manual conditions, and the range card on its own. The iPhone is where scanning ammo and building profiles is faster, and the two sync when they are together.

The watch app will not install

The watch is below watchOS 10. On the watch, open Settings → General → Software Update. Series 3 and earlier cannot get to watchOS 10 at all, so no update will help there.
Install from the iPhone. The watch app ships with the iPhone app rather than being sold separately. Install Wrist Dope on the iPhone first, then open the Apple Watch app, tap My Watch, and scroll down to Available Apps.
Automatic App Install is off. In the Apple Watch app, My Watch → General → Automatic App Install decides whether watch apps follow their iPhone app across. With it off, tap Install next to Wrist Dope under Available Apps instead.

Menu paths checked against Apple's current Apple Watch User Guide for watchOS 26. Apple moves settings between releases, so if a menu is not where we said it was, tell us and we will fix the page.

Next: once the app is on the watch, the watch settings tips page covers the handful of watchOS settings that make a rifle-mounted watch behave.

Still stuck? support@wristdope.com