Powerbeats Pro 2 Leak Hints at Useful Health Feature Coming to AirPods

[rxp]

The ear is great for body temp. Apple could eventually get a core body temp algorithm which would be useful for heat training and intensity zones

 

[boak]

I have an Apple Watch for that.

Ear-based optical heart rate monitoring is more accurate than wrist-based. The wrist is actually a relatively poor choice compared to other options.

 

[wigby]

I dont get why earphones are focused on health features, why not audio features. I want lossless support, better sound quality, no one buys headphones for health features

I wouldn't say adding a single heart rate sensor to an audio product equates to "focused on health features". Obviously, Apple cannot innovate sound quality consistently enough every release cycle to justify it so they are adding additional features. And if they don't provide new hardware release cycles often enough, customers and investors complain anyway.

Apple Watch does health monitoring too, but the buy-in for Watch is much more than any single audio product so capturing new customers from multiple SKUs is not a bad strategy so long as it doesn't raise prices too high and alienate existing customers.

 

[wigby]

Apple can’t magically give Bluetooth headphones lossless support, pretty sure it’s a limitation of Bluetooth

Most people (no one) can tell the difference between lossless and compressed using a tiny in-ear speaker. There's no "wow factor" when it simply sounds the same.

 

[wigby]

All I care about with ear buds is better sound quality when listening to music. Ticks me off I have to pay for crap that I don't want nor will ever use.

Some people said that about Spatial Audio at first but now they love the feature even though it has little to do with the quality of the audio stream itself. If you really care about audio quality more than convenience, ecosystem integration and style, I'm not sure why you would even be shopping for Apple products in the first place.

 

[ab2c4]

Some people said that about Spatial Audio at first but now they love the feature even though it has little to do with the quality of the audio stream itself. If you really care about audio quality more than convenience, ecosystem integration and style, I'm not sure why you would even be shopping for Apple products in the first place.

You make a lot of sense and have a good point, I should be looking at another company for my next ear buds.

 

[DeepIn2U]

I dont get why earphones are focused on health features, why not audio features. I want lossless support, better sound quality, no one buys headphones for health features

Well ....

First Health features are a benefit to many MORE users than Lossless Audio.

BTW Apple, Jabra Elite Sport circa 2000 says 'Hello Apple, what took you soooo long?'

But I agree ... Apple offering Hi-Fi in Apple Music yet ONLY for Wired headset's was an even WORSE move by;
a> building the Apple AirPods Max without such support or forethought!
b> making the AirPods Pro 2's again without ANY Lossless audio support!!!
c> LOL ... aaaah gawd ugly Bra case for the AirPod's Max.

You should of, like me - unless you did, should've HATED on the AirPod's Max as the ONLY thing that brought to the Max was THE PRICE!

Imagine ... a 1MB/S pure lossless audio in AirPod's design that:
Supports Dolby ATMOS,
2Mbps bandwidth over Bluetooth 5.3/5.4 using Qualcomm's AptX Lossless Codec [Higher Bandwidth than Sony's LDAC and LDHC 5 btw - the latter is Lossless as well]
is CHEAPER than the AirPods/AirPod's Pro/Pro 2's !
is NOT in-ear but exact same TWS design that the AirPod's changed the entire industry with!

48Db of Noise Cancellation - kills heavy wind-noise that affects your voice and the other party's voice during real phone calls let alone collaboration chat calls (Teams, etc)

50ms latency if not much less.

Yeah I'm with you. but Android is ahead on THIS game by miles and miles. This is where Apple's ecosystem HURTS users ... cause Apple at times moves TOO SLOW for no apparant reason at all EVEN when they finally implement something it isn't always better - just the ad is; not the 'add' itional feature/product.

We got to see some REAL fresh talent at the M4 series presentations last week under Turner so hopefully this translates to real improvements at Apple.

 

[DeepIn2U]

The ear is great for body temp. Apple could eventually get a core body temp algorithm which would be useful for heat training and intensity zones

Ear-based optical heart rate monitoring is more accurate than wrist-based. The wrist is actually a relatively poor choice compared to other options.

Exactly!

This has been known almost a DECADE ago! Common sense reminds you why your body temperature taken from within your EAR (infact or adult) is much more accurate, reliable and effective than that old-school termomitor (mercury in the glass tube in your mouth). 70's or earlier born peeps = Hollaaa.

On the real this is exactly why Jabra made the Sport Pulse Wireless that I personally owned (bought twice) before the Apple Watch Nike+_S3 debuted which I also owned. I'm not sure if some of my earliest workout posts here included data from those Jabra's but I enjoyed the punchy base and clear mids from those. Apple Health had NO issues reading my hear-rate from them either no application was required either.

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In particular a very OLD review here had some very interesting thoughts: https://the5krunner.com/2015/06/11/...rate-hr-monitor-earphones-headphones-earbuds/

HEART RATE FROM WITHIN THE EAR – WHY? That’s a good question. The PULSE WIRELESS is quite a bit more expensive than the SPORT ROX. As I see it there are the more ‘obvious’ reasons why you might want to produce HR data from an ear-based device.

• If you listen to music then you already have something in your ear. You might as well get that something to do as much as it can – in this case play music AND take your HR. It saves having another device somewhere else on your body to worry about.
• Most guys assume that chest straps are the way to go, citing new softer straps as more comfortable, etc.. However some people have large circumference chests that cannot be accommodated by a HR strap and many women find chest straps to be both uncomfortable AND unable to produce a reliable HR signal.
• Ear-based HR data is cited by JABRA as being more accurate. Apparently it is one of the most accurate places to take the measurement. One of the great things with an ear-HR is that a comparison to a chest strap is relatively straightforward for me to do accurately. I will look at that later on. My initial scepticism here is that ‘so what if it is more accurate’? How accurate exactly do you need HR readings? If that accuracy means the elimination of flat lines and peaks or troughs then I would agree that we would all want CONTINUOUSLY ACCURATE readings. But having a 99.5% accurate vs. a 99% accurate is of minimal interest to me in a sporting context.
• HRV / beat-by-beat data might be another determinant of accuracy where precision plays a more significant role. If you can get HRV accuracy from the ear then you’ve achieved something that is difficult to get from a wrist-based optical HR sensor at present. The JABRA does not yet support that.
• For all your indoor work you save having that pesky wire dangling down to your forearm
• A ‘clever’ app will be able to give you personal, in-exercise coaching. I have touched on that point in my opinion pieces about Garmin’s potential new watches – the Garmin 630 running watch and the Garmin 930XT triathlon watch. So here, potentially, we at least have the hardware that could support prebuilt coaching prompts such as ’30 seconds to go keep trying’ or more dynamic ones like ‘your effort level has dropped, speed up’ or ‘you have achieved your interval goal early, please stop’.
• Whilst you have got something stuck in your ear you might as well try to ‘sense’ other stuff while you are in there. SPO2/Blood Oxygen springs to mind. Perspiration is another thing that can be ‘sensed’ but, I suspect, not from earbuds.

BTW that clever app idea about an in-exercise coaching is exactly what Jabra did on a similar model.
Yet ... Apple Fitness+ doesn't do this directly in the headphones does it? IF so do you require the VIDEO to be playing for that to work?
Do you ONLY get that with a certain exercise in Fitness+ limited arsenal?
Why do I have to pick ANY specific exercise to simply get known AI automated and accurate modern health coaching about my heart rate of ANY exercise I'm doing based on my eating, sleeping, age and overall health data that other apps on my phones (Android OR Apple iOS) have?!

What about not just my heart RATE but how HARD IS my heart BEATING/POUNDING to GET ANY particular heart RATE!?
THAT is more CRUCIAL Data than just Heart Rate + O2 levels in my blood.

This is 2024 and working TOO hard is NOT SMART!

We're at a point where our headphones earphones are smarter than out phones, that's NOT good!

 

[svish]

Definitely expecting to see some new health feature on the next version of AirPods Pro

 

[toph101]

All I care about with ear buds is better sound quality when listening to music. Ticks me off I have to pay for crap that I don't want nor will ever use.

If 'all' you care about is sound quality, then surely would be better off buying some full size headphones or at least some better earbuds than those made by Apple? There are many HiFi earbuds available.

Having said all that, I do agree that we don't need HR monitors in earbuds. I already have a Garmin watch and a HR strap. I just want the Powerbeats Pro 2 to be released ASAP becasue I would like some with batteries that last more than 5 mins. There is no way I am buying another pair of first gen when the new ones are on the way.

 

[chelsel]

I am waiting for the Apple Tooth. An artificial tooth that will measure all your vitals and even tap into your bloodstream. This will happen one day I am 100% certain.