The AirPods Pro 2’s temperature and heart-rate sensors might not work.
Last year, rumors started to circulate that the impending AirPods Pro 2 will justify its protracted design gestation with some brand-new fitness monitoring functions, reflecting the popular of the little earphones among athletes and gym goers worldwide.
Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman unfortunately has some bad news to share in his most recent Power On newsletter(opens in new tab): despite Apple’s exploration of the technology, it won’t apparently be included in the company’s upcoming AirPods Pro model.
According to Gurman, “there have been speculations over the previous few months regarding this year’s model acquiring the capacity to identify a wearer’s heart rate or body temperature.” Although these improvements have been researched within the organization and may be implemented in the future, I’ve been advised that neither feature is expected to be included in the 2022 upgrade.
That’s a little disappointing, to be honest. Not only would this feature have been extremely helpful for fitness enthusiasts, but it’s not the only recently-discredited AirPods Pro 2 addition. It also doesn’t appear that the casing will move away from the Lightning port like other Apple devices have, and the rumored stemless design is also dead.
Which is not to suggest that when the new earbuds are released, they won’t be worthwhile to purchase. Given that the original AirPods have been available for almost three years, it would be incredibly unexpected if the AirPods Pro 2 didn’t enhance the sound. Even lossless audio is being discussed; this is quite obvious given that it is one of Apple Music’s primary selling points.
The most recent rumor also claims that the buds will include “self-adaptive” noise reduction, a feature that audiophiles will like. As you might anticipate, this will reportedly coexist with self-adaptive equalization, spatial audio, and audio sharing.
Last but not least, it appears that the charging case will be connected to the Find My network with a built-in speaker for tracking, making it a little bit more difficult to misplace. However, all of this will probably result in a price hike, along with three years’ worth of inflation. $299 has been mentioned, which is $50 higher than the original AirPods Pro launch price.
As Gurman himself notes, if you have a first-generation set, you might still consider an upgrade to be necessary. “Your batteries may be approaching end of life—or at least their reliability is sliding,” he said if you bought the original AirPods Pro when they were released at the end of 2019.