It’s been two years since we’ve gotten a new pair of AirPods Pro, but it feels like a lot longer. The last iteration, the AirPods Pro 2, was a refresh in 2023, but it was just a refresh. The highlights? A new H2 chip that enabled features like adaptive audio and conversation awareness, and the inclusion of a USB-C port instead of the previous Lightning port. Not exactly groundbreaking.
This year, however, things are different. At its annual iPhone event, Apple finally took the wraps off the AirPods Pro 3, its newest pair of wireless earbuds, with a few updates that could change the game. The biggest shift is the inclusion of new sensors that position Apple’s AirPods Pro as part wireless earbuds and part health wearable. With the AirPods Pro 3, you can now monitor your heart rate passively. According to Apple, its heart rate feature uses a custom photoplethysmography (PPG) sensor that uses infrared light to measure light absorption in blood flow.
That, combined with the AirPods Pro 3’s accelerometers, gyroscope, and GPS—also a new on-device AI model on iPhone—will allow users to use the feature with 50 different workout types, tracking heart rate as well as calories burned.
It’s not just health-sensing either; the AirPods Pro 3 also have a new live translation feature that borrows a little juice from Apple Intelligence. The feature provides real-time translation, allowing you to hear another language (one you don’t speak) in real time—right in your earbuds. One nice touch is that AirPods Pro 3 will actually use ANC to lower the volume of the person speaking, so you can hear the translated speech instead of a garbled mix of a person’s voice and translated audio. To translate your voice, you can use your iPhone, which doubles as a horizontal display that shows the live transcription. Apple says it works best when both parties are wearing AirPods Pro 3, though.
If that wasn’t enough to justify a new generation, Apple says that it’s also 2x the ANC as AirPods Pro 2 and “over-the-ear headphones performance.” Apple claims that the AirPods Pro have the best ANC of any in-ear wireless earbuds, but we’ll be the judge of that once we get our hands on them. Assisting in that lofty claim will be new ear tips that are stuffed with foam and should provide a better seal in your ears. Those tips will also now come in five sizes and are more water-resistant than previous versions, which makes them ideal for workouts. Oh, and battery life will get a boost, going from 6 hours with ANC on to 8 hours with ANC on outside the case. You can get 10 hours outside the case with transparency activated.
For me, the biggest upgrade to AirPods Pro 3 is the inclusion of a heart rate sensor, which paints the earbuds in a new light. Just like the Apple Watch reinvented itself with a host of health sensors, leaning into its identity as a fitness wearable, the AirPods Pro 3 could pave a new path and give Apple’s iconic earbuds an edge against competitors. That doesn’t mean that Apple can take its foot off the gas when it comes to wireless audio, but it might mean that AirPods offer a whole suite of things that other earbuds don’t.
Centering on health has worked in the past, most famously with the Apple Watch, which was arguably a device without a real identity until it became a health machine for monitoring your heart, sleep, fitness goals, and more. The AirPods already have an identity, to be clear, but with how good other earbuds have gotten, they don’t quite have the must-have appeal they once did—a slide that health sensors could help turn around. How well Apple’s new health features work remains to be seen, but I’d be shocked if this was the last we see of them. Apple’s AirPods are available for preorder now and will cost $250, the same as the AirPods Pro 2. A full release is slated for Sept. 19.
This story is developing…
Original Source: https://gizmodo.com/airpods-pro-3-blur-the-line-between-health-wearable-and-wireless-earbuds-2000655557
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