- The AirPods Pro 3 are predicted to launch this year
- They could come with heart rate monitors
- It’s been three years since the Apple AirPods Pro 2 launched
There have been a lot of conflicting reports around whether Apple would get around to launching the AirPods Pro 3 this year, but one of the more reliable reporters on the Apple beat says the wireless earbuds are indeed coming before the end of 2025.
That reporter is Mark Gurman at Bloomberg, who says the AirPods Pro 3 will also come with a significant upgrade: built-in heart rate monitoring. The same tech has previously been integrated into the Powerbeats Pro 2 which launched in February.
With the Powerbeats Pro 2, LED optical sensors pulse at over 100 times per second, measuring heart rate via blood flow. Presumably the AirPods Pro 3 will work in a similar way, and feed the stats back to the Apple Health app.
Gurman also reiterates his previous assertion that Apple is working on a paid Health+ subscription option for users, which may include the services of an AI fitness coach. The idea is you would get personalized advice on diet, exercise, and more.
Three years later
We’ve been waiting a long time for the AirPods Pro 3 to arrive, considering the Apple AirPods Pro 2 made their debut back in September 2022. The wireless earbuds market has changed quite a bit in that time – and we’ve since had the Apple AirPods 4, of course.
Most of the leaks and rumors we’ve heard around these earbuds are concerned with when they’ll actually see the light of day. There have been hints in iOS 26 that the AirPods Pro 3 would arrive in 2025, though one reliable source has suggested a 2026 launch.
It seems clear that Apple wants health tracking to be a primary focus of the AirPods Pro 3, besides getting high-quality audio into your ears, and we may see the wireless earbuds able to track other vital statistics besides your heart rate.
The wireless earbuds are one of several devices “in the pipeline” for Apple “as early as this fall”, which is typically September, October, and November. We’re also of course expecting the iPhone 17 and the Apple Watch 11 sometime next month.
