Apple’s upcoming AirPods Pro may check your hearing and take your temperature

Some AirPods will gain a new hearing health feature, powered by iOS 17, that can check yourself for potential hearing issues and may be able to determine your body temperature via your ear canal, according to the company. bloombergMark Gorman today employment the news. He also said that all of Apple’s new headphones will include USB-C, and that the company is planning new AirPods Pro and AirPods Max models — but he doesn’t think new devices are coming soon.

AirPods already support Sound Maps — sound profiles that tell AirPods where your hearing might be impaired so they can adjust themselves based on your hearing capabilities. For now, you can create an audiogram using the Mimi app, which Apple would be Sherlocking — Apple’s infamous trend of including third-party features and apps in its operating system — with a built-in hearing test feature.

Gurman says Apple is also exploring positioning the AirPods as hearing aids, now that the US Food and Drug Administration has approved over-the-counter sales of over-the-counter hearing aids.

Next, Gurman added that future AirPods could take your temperature through your ear canal. Rumors that Apple would do this date back to late 2021, and the Apple Watch Series 8 introduced something similar last year, albeit with a relative temperature used only for tracking your menstrual cycle.

He says expanding temperature tracking to AirPods could be more accurate, potentially allowing Apple to tell wearers more precisely if they start to get sick. Gurman didn’t say if this would be an AirPods Pro exclusive, but it seems likely.

bad news from employment The newsletter indicates that updated AirPods Pro may not be coming soon. Gurman believes that the new health features are “many months or even years away,” and that while the AirPods USB-C headphones may be coming soon, the AirPods Pro themselves are currently on a three-year update cycle. A sample size of two isn’t enough to say that’s always been the case, but the fact that second-generation AirPods Pro were only released last year doesn’t bode well for a new pair this year.

Then again, supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said in March that he expected a USB-C release of the AirPods Pro later this year, in the second or third quarter, and that it didn’t appear that Apple had plans for either the original AirPods form factor or The more bulbous AirPods 3. The new devices could be a new-only case with the updated charging port, similar to what Apple did when it introduced a standalone MagSafe case for AirPods Pro in 2021.

Kuo also predicted in January that $99 AirPods and a new set of AirPods Max would come out soon, early next year.

to update July 2nd, 2023 9:15AM ET: Added that other earphones have hearing test features, such as the Jabra Elite 75t and Nothing Ear 2.