Nina Raemont/ZDNET\nFollow ZDNET:\nAdd us as a preferred source on Google.\n\nApple has officially confirmed that the much-anticipated AirPods Pro 3 will feature advanced in-ear heart rate monitoring, a development that represents a significant leap forward in the earbuds’ functionality. When paired with the forthcoming iOS 26 update, iPhone users will be able to launch and monitor workouts directly through the Fitness app. The earbuds will track essential health statistics such as heart rate, exercise duration, and estimated calorie expenditure. This integration allows users to achieve activity goals—like closing their Move ring—and earn Fitness milestones and rewards, all without needing to wear an Apple Watch.\n\nFor individuals who rely exclusively on the no-cost tier of Apple’s Fitness platform, this marks a transformative update. Even more so, it holds enormous appeal for people like me, who have continued wearing an Apple Watch solely because of its exercise-tracking functions. If Apple delivers on its promise and the AirPods Pro 3’s biometric features operate with accuracy and consistency, I anticipate a future where I completely replace my Apple Watch with just a pair of AirPods.\n\n### Consolidating devices into one\nOrdinarily, my trips to the gym involve carrying three essential Apple products: an iPhone 16, an Apple Watch SE 2, and a pair of AirPods Pro 2. My particular Watch model is the budget-friendly SE 2, which, while stripped of luxury extras, still provides the activity and sleep tracking capabilities I value. Simultaneously, my AirPods have always served as my gateway to music, a tool for canceling out the overwhelming background noise of a crowded gym, and a convenient hands-free companion for calls when I am walking home.\n\nThe arrival of heart rate tracking within AirPods Pro 3 means that, for the first time, the most valuable health features of my Watch and the most enjoyable aspects of my AirPods will converge into a single device. By consolidating two separate categories of functionality, Apple reduces the burden of keeping multiple accessories fully charged, physically carried, and cleaned after intensive workouts. To me, that is nothing less than revolutionary. As far as my remaining needs go, essential safety features like Crash Detection and basic sleep tracking metrics are already handled reliably by my iPhone, making the dependency on the Watch increasingly unnecessary.\n\n### Seamless compatibility with iOS\nApple has experimented with in-ear health monitoring before. The Beats-branded Powerbeats Pro 2 debuted with a form of integrated heart rate sensing, but the feature ultimately failed to gain traction. Issues with reliability, lack of polish in the software experience, and restricted access behind paid app subscriptions severely undermined its usefulness. The Powerbeats Pro 2 attempted to appeal to both iOS and Android audiences, but the result was a fragmented and underwhelming implementation.\n\nIn contrast, the AirPods Pro 3 are designed exclusively for the iOS ecosystem, and therefore benefit from deeply integrated compatibility with the native Health and Fitness applications. This ensures that core features—such as live heart rate monitoring and calorie burn tracking—are easily accessible to anyone using the free tier of Apple’s own Fitness app, rather than being obscured or buried behind third-party subscriptions. In my experience with the Powerbeats Pro 2, the most valuable insights remained inaccessible without paying for additional fitness services, rendering the feature irrelevant unless paired with an Apple Watch. The AirPods Pro 3 are poised to correct all of these pitfalls by extending the same ease of use and accessibility found in the Watch directly to AirPods owners.\n\nAccompanying the earbuds is the new Fitness app upgrade, scheduled to arrive with iOS 26. Highlighted within this release is the Workout Buddy, an AI-driven fitness assistant designed to analyze your prior activity data and offer tailored insights in real time. This evolution not only makes workouts more responsive but also saves users from needing to constantly reference a wrist-based display. Importantly, the AirPods will maintain their audio excellence, continuing to deliver music and noise-canceling performance while conducting accurate health tracking—something that earlier attempts, like the Powerbeats, struggled to accomplish since heart rate tracking disabled audio playback.\n\n### Enhanced biometric precision\nAt the core of these devices’ health-monitoring abilities lies photoplethysmography, commonly abbreviated PPG. This is the same optical-sensor technology used in fitness wearables ranging from Apple Watches to competing earbuds, relying on green-light pulses to gauge blood flow beneath the skin. While Apple Watches, particularly the higher-end models, have incorporated increasingly refined health-monitoring components, it’s notable that many of these enhanced measurements are not actually deployed during active workout sessions.\n\nWithin this context, what distinguishes the AirPods Pro 3 is sensor speed. Unlike the Powerbeats Pro 2, which checked blood flow 100 times per second, the new generation of AirPods nearly triple this precision with 256 readings per second. Theoretically, this can lead to more accurate and responsive fitness data, reducing discrepancies that athletes and health enthusiasts often notice when comparing wearable outputs. It is a detail that, while less glamorous than Active Noise Cancellation or seamless audio switching, reveals Apple’s prioritization of biometric fidelity.\n\nOf course, not every user will value identical metrics. Some individuals prioritize all-day passive health tracking, where a wrist-worn Apple Watch continues to deliver invaluable insights into sleep cycles, daily activity, and stress detection. For them, abandoning the Watch may not make sense. However, for people like me—those who find constant notifications from a wrist device intrusive, distracting, or even anxiety-inducing—the ability to move exercise tracking into AirPods represents welcome liberation. Without continual reminders of inactivity or well-meaning nudges to adjust sleep routines, workouts can feel less pressured and more intrinsically motivating.\n\n### The broader strategy\nWith this evolution, Apple appears to be nudging its AirPods line toward a new frontier that transcends traditional audio features such as codec updates or enhanced AI-driven sound optimization. Already, AirPods Pro 2 included accessibility-oriented advancements such as a hearing aid function, and the Pro 3 iteration builds directly upon that path by integrating measurable health metrics. Taken together, these advancements hint at Apple’s broader vision: transforming everyday earbuds into multi-functional health and fitness companions that no longer require users to juggle multiple disparate devices.\n\nAs someone who has worn AirPods Pro 2 since their release in 2022 and grown attached to their comfort and performance, I am particularly excited by this evolutionary step. Apple is clearly aiming to merge entertainment, convenience, and wellness into a unified product, and if early indications prove accurate, the AirPods Pro 3 could become the first earbuds to meaningfully reshape personal health tracking within the Apple ecosystem.\n\nWant to follow my work? Add ZDNET as a trusted source on Google.
Sourse: https://www.zdnet.com/article/how-the-airpods-pro-3-may-make-this-apple-user-ditch-the-watch-for-good/
