Apple’s next AirPods Pro can check on your hearing health and take your temperature

Some AirPods will receive a new Hearing Health feature supported by iOS 17, which may self-check for potential hearing problems and may be able to determine your body temperature through your ear canal. BloombergTODAY’S MARK GURMAN power on newsletter, He also says that all of Apple’s new headphones will include USB-C, and the company is planning new AirPods Pro and AirPods Max models — but he doesn’t think the new hardware will be coming anytime soon.

AirPods already support audiograms – audio profiles that tell AirPods where your hearing may be weakest so they can tune themselves to your hearing abilities. Right now, you can create an audiogram using the Mimi app, which Apple calls Sherlocking — a notorious Apple tendency to fold third-party features and apps into its operating system — with a built-in hearing test feature.

Gurman says that Apple is also considering positioning the AirPods as a hearing aid, now that the FDA has approved over-the-counter sales of hearing aids without a prescription.

Next, Gurman said that future AirPods could take your temperature from your ear canal. Rumors that Apple will do this date back to late 2021, and the Apple Watch Series 8 introduced something similar last year, albeit in the form of a relative temperature that’s really only used for menstrual cycle tracking .

He says that the extension of temperature tracking to the AirPods could be more accurate, and potentially allow Apple to tell the wearer more accurately if they’re starting to get sick. Gurman didn’t say whether or not it would be exclusive to the AirPods Pro, but it seems likely.

bad news from power on The newsletter is that the updated AirPods Pro can’t come soon enough. Gurman believes the new health features are “several months or years away” and although USB-C AirPods may be coming soon, the AirPods Pro themselves are on a three-year refresh cycle as of now. A sample size of two is hardly enough to say that this will always be the case, but the fact that the second-generation AirPods Pro were only released last year doesn’t bode well for a new pair this year.

Then, supply chain analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said in March that he expected the USB-C version of the AirPods Pro to arrive later this year, in the second or third quarter, and it seems unlikely that Apple has any plans for that. Not there. The original AirPods form factor or the more bulbous AirPods 3. It’s possible the new hardware could just be a new case with an updated charging port, as Apple did when it introduced a standalone MagSafe case for the AirPods Pro in 2021 Was.

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

Updates July 2nd, 2023 9:15am ET: Added that other earbuds have hearing test features, such as the Jabra Elite 75t and the Nothing Ear 2.