 "Apple AirPods may soon come with health tracking, body temperature features")
New updates to Apple’s AirPods may include hearing health and body temperature monitoring capabilities, according to Mark Gurman’s newsletter published on Bloomberg. Gurman also said that the tech giant is gearing to transition to USB-C charging ports on the AirPods. Besides, he mentions cheaper models of earbuds in the works.
According to Gurman, Apple is working on a new hearing test feature for the AirPods to test how well a user can hear. The earbuds will play different tones to allow Apple to screen users for hearing issues. Apple is also exploring ways to position the AirPods as hearing aids. Apple has recently added hearing-aid-like features such as Conversation Boost and Live Listen. However, none of these features have received regulatory approval yet.
Apple has also been working on adding sensors to the AirPods so that they can more accurately measure body temperature via the wearer’s ear canal. The type of data collected using this method is considered as more accurate than wrist temperature, which is collected on the Apple Watch Series 8 and Ultra models. Apple has been rumoured to be working on this feature for a while.
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Gurman said that both the features for wireless earbuds are under development and are likely to be released several months or even years from now. However, a more immediate change that Apple is planning is to move to a USB-C port on the charging case for the AirPods Pro. Apple also plans to move to USB-C in future generations of its other audio products.
At its Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), Apple had announced a new feature called "Adaptive Audio” for the AirPods Pro 2. The feature will employ active noise cancellation (ANC) and transparency modes to automatically adjust the audio depending on the user's environment and activities.