The second generation of AirPods Pro will not have a built-in heart rate sensor nor one to detect body temperature. Mark Gurman, authoritative journalist of Bloomberg which has in fact denied the rumors circulated in recent weeks and spread by 52Audio – it is usually considered a reliable source and has previously also published renders of the new high-end Apple headsets. According to Gurman, therefore, we will still have to wait:
In recent months, there have been rumors about this year’s model that (the AirPods Pro) would have the ability to determine the wearer’s heart rate or body temperature. I’ve been told that neither feature is likely to arrive in the 2022 update.
For Gurman, both the features would still be considered by Applebut they would still be in a development phase and it will take some time to see them integrated into the earphones.
In the 52Audio report there was also talk of a USB-C port instead of Lightning (change of connector already occurred on Beats earphones), an updated H1 chip and the “Find” functionality (already on the AirPods 3), which allows location in case of loss by relying on Apple’s “Where is” network. Previous rumors also spoke of the LC3 codec and Bluetooth 5.2. Gurman has not commented on these features whose presence could be significantly more realistic in addition to spatial audio with head tracking, audio sharing and self-adaptive equalization.
The current AirPods Pro, remember, launched in 2019 and have only gotten a new case with MagSafe last year since then. The new generation is still expected in autumn, probably coinciding with the launch of the new iPhone 14 and Apple Watch 8.
