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Anker One-Ups AirPods With Its Soundcore Liberty 4 Earbuds Featuring Heart Rate Tracking

MajorFubar said:
The question is, how good do they sound?
When I think of manufacturers of great-sounding headphones and earphones I couldn't even tell you how far down Anker would be on my list of brands to try. In fact it's so far down I didn't even know they made headphones/earphones, though they make every other accessory, so it figures.
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See the reviews. A good site I've come across is https://www.rtings.com/headphones/reviews

The AirPods 3 and Pro aren't really that much better sound-wise than some of Soundcore's offerings. I got the Soundcore Life P2 as a gift last Christmas. I was hesitant and doubtful about their quality, but I decided to give them a try and was surprised by how they sounded (thought they'd be worse). I'd say the reviews for them (Life P2) are spot on.

AirPods 3 : https://www.rtings.com/headphones/reviews/apple/airpods-3rd-generation-truly-wireless
AirPods Pro : https://www.rtings.com/headphones/reviews/apple/airpods-pro-truly-wireless

Soundcore Life P3 : https://www.rtings.com/headphones/reviews/anker/soundcore-life-p3-truly-wireless

Soundcore Liberty 3 Pro :
www.rtings.com

Anker Soundcore Liberty 3 Pro Truly Wireless Review

The Anker Soundcore Liberty 3 Pro Truly Wireless are the next generation of the Anker Soundcore Liberty 2 Pro Truly Wireless. They're more comfortable than their...
www.rtings.com www.rtings.com
www.pcmag.com

Anker Soundcore Liberty 3 Pro Review

The Anker Soundcore Liberty 3 Pro earphones deliver powerful audio and quality noise cancellation for their sub-$200 price, but the company's more affordable models might fit your needs just as well.
www.pcmag.com www.pcmag.com
www.theverge.com

Anker Soundcore Liberty 3 Pro review: feature-packed buds

LDAC and multipoint for under $170? Not bad.
www.theverge.com www.theverge.com
 
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MajorFubar said:
The question is, how good do they sound?
When I think of manufacturers of great-sounding headphones and earphones I couldn't even tell you how far down Anker would be on my list of brands to try. In fact it's so far down I didn't even know they made headphones/earphones, though they make every other accessory, so it figures.
Click to expand...
Not sure about these, but i have 3 pairs of liberty pros 2 and they sound pretty damn good for the price. (Aptx and LDAC version). RMA one and asked if I wanted to beta test a updated version and ending up with 3 of them LOL.
 
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What gives a better heart rate, ear or wrist? When I go to the doctor, they check my heart rate from the wrist, but they do it "manually". Maybe an electronic device can do it better from the ear?

Ultimately, I have my watch on most of the day and only have earbuds in at most a couple hours. I'm certainly not switching to Anker earbuds for heart rate. If Airpods got it and it was a benefit over what the watch does, that would be great.
 
b11051973 said:
What gives a better heart rate, ear or wrist? When I go to the doctor, they check my heart rate from the wrist, but they do it "manually". Maybe an electronic device can do it better from the ear?
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From the doctors perspective, I imagine they'd rather measure the heart rate using the wrist than sticking their finger into someones ear. Wet willy? Eww! 🤣
 
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Apple is decidedly a “whole hog” company. They market to and build to the person who is largely or entirely in their ecosystem.

They actively choose to NOT try to do much business outside that - I’m not saying that’s right or wrong, it’s just factual and seems to be working way better than the “kitchen sink, let’s try to please everybody” model of other players (it’s also a well understood danger for businesses not to know of follow the core value proposition).

In this way, why would Apple add a redundant sensor in AirPods that’s not as accurate, takes precious power & space that could be used for ANC or other DSP functions , and is another thing to maintain/warrant/certify on the hardware when their target market likely has or will at some point have an Apple Watch or other device feeding HR data into Health?

Anker is doing this (and good for them!) because they don’t have any credible story to getting on the wrist at scale or getting Health data (again, I’m happy Anker is doing this as Apple needs all the competition they can get).

I wouldn’t call this “one upping”, I’d call it a “well, we gotta get into the biometrics and data game and this is the best route I’m available to us”. Apple isn’t missing out or being one upped in this regard IMO. The reason we haven’t seen more sensors on AirPods is not because Apple cannot but they don’t need to.

Why drink dirty pond water when you have fresh, clean water on tap? If you’ve seen the data feeds (both in quality and quantity) of aural sensors van wrist based OHRM you know what I mean, and having both isn’t “twice as good”, it’s actually worse in many ways for consistent trend analysis because the data is not, as one may reasonably assume, interchangeable for comparisons of analytics.
 
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I have one Anker product and so far it works great. These are not for me but look good and so far happy with the company.

The HR in ear is interesting. It’s like…why? Apple had a rumor they were doing it but then didn’t and competitors did. Unless they have the software integration for the HR data it’s not that useful. Sport watches have HR and apps that turn that information useful. Even Apple only soft of does this…not great. But for the ear device to be the HR … how does it fit into my health ecosystem?
 
I suspect people who want to track health metrics will wear a watch with much more functionality than just heart rate. There's probably a market for these, but I don't think it's very large. I would rather see more audio and control function built into Airpods than adding heart rate.
 
I’m actually not too interested in a heart rate sensor in the earbuds. A temperature sensor would be better, as the ear is the best place to measure temperature. Well, the best place I’m willing to shove a wearable into, anyway.
 
90% of the people posting here defend Apple products no matter what! Air Pod Pros are great for a lot of things, but when it comes music/sound quality there are much better earbuds out there. The Anker Soundcore Liberty 3 Pros for example are great and much better sounding than the orig. AirPods Pro. Don’t dismiss Anker. I’m not even talking about the Sennheiser Momentum 3 True Wireless. The best sounding EarPod atm
 
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I find Anker a very impressive and innovative company, and one that is more entrepreneurial than most tech companies in the USA, and vastly more so than those in Europe. The speed at which they implement innovations into their products and bring them to market is truly astounding and far from the "update once per year" product cycle that's typical of Apple and the like.
 
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everlast3434 said:
I dunno why people obsess over tracking all this stuff now.
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Because Apple is pushing such tracking. When Apple speaketh, disciples heed the word. It doesn't matter if the word is right or wrong... or even good for the disciples... Apple sayeth the word... and the word is true and good. Let he who dareth challenge the word be stricken down by name calling, ranting, and sheer volume of loyal disciples defending the Apple. ;)
 
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